Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Essays on politics, culture and ideas about Israeli-Arab peace and world music

Israeli Entrepreneurs, Fearing BDS and UN Recognition of Palestine, Announce New Peace Initiative

Caption: 'Bibi Take the initiative, stop being dragged, start leading'
In a sign of the rising specter of BDS and its potential impact on Israel’s export driven economy (50% of its value is in exports), a group of 80 of the nation’s most important business leaders, met in closed session (Hebrew) sponsored by a peace group called Israel Initiates (website), to address their fears.  The outline of the initiative roughly follows that of the 2002 Saudi peace plan.  They agreed that if no political initiative was taken by Israel, the country’s financial stability was in grave danger.  Though it wasn’t clear what specific political plan they were advancing, their call was clearly a criticism of the quiescence of the Netanyahu government:

We’re fast becoming like South Africa.  The economic damage that will result from the boycott and sanctions will be felt by every Israeli family from the wealthy classes to the middle class and most harshly on the underclass.

These words were spoken by Eyal Ofer, son of the recently deceased Israeli billionaire Sami Ofer.  The Ofer conglomerate is one of Israel’s largest and most profitable with strong alleged ties to Israel’s defense and intelligence apparatus.  So a peace initiative originating from the Ofers must truly indicate a split of some sort among the Israeli far right political and military echelons and the more pragmatic elements.  The passage above and what follows is a summary of an article in Calcalist, Israel’s leading business journal, on the meeting.