Israel's International Isolation Is Painful. But It Is Also Necessary - Opinion - Haaretz.com
For Israelis, international delegitimization is also personal. Tel Aviv-based artist and anti-war activist Addam Yekutieli wrote about silent or blatant boycotts of Israelis across all fields: "From just being a pariah state, we ourselves, as individuals, are pariahs." The response I got most often was "oh," followed by awkward silence, when I mentioned I was from Israel while traveling in Europe.
Feeling deeply ashamed of your home is a rare experience. While the feeling of isolation is something most Israelis have related to since October 7, few it seems feel sufficiently guilty for bearing the burden of what has amounted to a genocide against Palestinians in response to the Hamas massacre.
But the Israeli government must be stopped and pressure has become necessary. It must be forced to accept a post-war reality in which Palestinians are sovereign. It must reckon with the very existence of Palestinians, which it has tried to undermine subtly during quieter times, and openly and brutally during wartime. But most of all, Israel must reach the post-war stage as soon as possible, stop the daily killing of dozens of Palestinians and bring home the hostages still held in Gaza who are lingering toward death.
In the interim, alongside pledging to recognize a Palestinian state, Western countries should also impose an arms embargo on the Israeli government while it vows to continue to commit war crimes.
That is the first and primary reason for sanctions on Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition has no plan to end the war, nor is it hiding its intentionswhen it comes to Gaza. Demands within the government for the Israeli army to approve a plan for the conquest of the Gaza Strip, along with repeated calls for what amounts to ethnic cleansing show that the pressure is not being sufficiently felt in Jerusalem. And so, a diplomatic "tsunami" targeting Israel must begin.
A second reason to pressure Israel is its delusional response to the recognition of a Palestinian state. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, in a racist rant last week said that recognizing a Palestinian state will lead to the murder of Israelis and Jews, and, "if you wish [for] what you call a Palestinian state, put it up in London, or Paris, in your countries, which become more and more similar to the Middle East." Echoing the far-right narrative in Europe, Ohana uses Muslim immigration to cast European opposition to the Gaza war as "imported" Muslim antisemitism.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said that Germany's laconic call for a two-state solution and recognition of Palestine means that it "has resumed supporting the Nazis" 80 years after the Holocaust.
And then there's the third, anecdotal reason for needing international pressure on Israel. In 2009, as Israel was fighting Hamas in Operation Cast Lead, the prime ministers of the U.K., Spain and Italy, the president of the EU Council, along with the chancellor of Germany and the French president, came together in Jerusalem to offer support to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government.
Today, having six of Europe's most important leaders in Jerusalem is totally unthinkable, with Netanyahu not allowed to even set foot in their capitals due to his arrest warrant for war crimes against Palestinians at the International Criminal Court (although German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would find a way around it).
Then-Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu looks on as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks while hosting six European leaders in Jerusalem: British PM Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, Czech PM Mirek Topolánek, and Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in January 2009.Credit: Amos Ben Gershom / GPO
Olmert was no left-winger and also spent more than three decades in the Likud Party. Israel was flawed then too, with accusations of possible war crimes and use of disproportionate force in the army's operation in Gaza. But then, Olmert was pursuing a practical solution to Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and was actively engaging with them: "My government placed the matter of negotiations with the Palestinians at the top of our agenda alongside our concern for the security of Israel." He also noted that "our intention is not to conquer or control Gaza."
That moment then – and the one we are in now – show that Israel's standing in the world has always depended on how it treats the Palestinians under its control.
Israel must now be a pariah state.
Unless it reckons with Palestinian existence, the time has come for the world to condition its relationship with Israel. Israel's willingness to work toward a political solution must be prioritized instead of intensifying a sixty-year occupation that has poisoned society, deepened the hatred between the peoples of this land and brought unbelievable levels of pain.
While Israel's isolation in the world is personal for many of us, it is necessary. The only foreseeable future I can imagine in Israel is one in which Palestinian self-determination exists, and Palestinians can democratically live as neighbors and among Israelis.
While calling for urgent sanctions on your own country is extraordinary, it must become a key part of Israeli resistance from within against the racist, anti-democratic government. Not because we have nothing left to lose – but because we still have everything to lose.
David Issacharoff is an editor and writer at Haaretz English edition. He studied political science and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2024, he is a visiting fellow at Der Spiegel through the International Journalists' Program (IJP).