Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Israel’s Finance Minister Worries About Boycotts

As the Scarlett Johansson-stoked controversy rages over SodaStream’s West Bank operation, Israel’s centrist Minister of Finance has been considering what effect international opposition to settlement production will have if peace talks fail. And his verdict is pessimistic.

In a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies, Minister Yair Lapid said that if Israeli or Palestinian negotiations break down or hit an impasse, resulting economic actions by Europe could have a major impact on Israel.

“Every resident of Israel will get hit straight in the pocket,” he said. “The cost of living will rise, the education, health, welfare and defense budgets will be cut, and many international markets will be closed to us.” He stressed that the European market, the main focus of his concern, is Israel’s primary trade market.

Lapid is concerned about a creeping boycott movement that catches the Israeli economy unaware, and pointed out that the apartheid regime in South Africa was caught off guard by the growth of the boycott movement against it. The situation, he said, is serious, and threats of boycott from Europe could have a short-term cost of almost 10,000 jobs.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is launching a new ministerial forum on the threat of the boycott movement. Lapid’s unexpectedly forthright comments, which appear to present a peace deal as the only way to protect Israel economically, suggest that there will be fireworks in this forum between Lapid and ministers to his right, who have a very different perspective.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.