"Listen, Bibi," MK Benjamin [Fuad] Ben-Eliezer (Labor ) growled, "I congratulate you on your hug from Congress, but it will not take us off the path to confrontation. Our situation in Europe is very bad. President Obama said everything we wanted him to say. Now you have to announce that Israel will vote for a Palestinian state in the UN this September ... As a former industry and trade minister, I tell you: The markets are closing. We will suffer a devastating economic blow."
& from May 15, from the Israeli tech business publication Calcalist, as translated by the Alternative Information Center:
“We are quickly turning into South Africa” noted Idan Ofer to the Israeli paper Calcalist, a prominent Israeli player in international ventures and future technologies. “The economic damage in the wake of boycott and sanctions will be felt by every family in Israel. The top percentiles, members of the middle class and first and foremost the distressed classes,” he added.
Together with Yaakov Peri, the former head of Israel’s General Security Services (GSS) and Dani Gilerman, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Ofer initiated the meeting of some 80 of Israel’s most prominent businessmen.
“Global business provide us with heightened senses and in recent months we are experiencing signs of substantial erosion in the legitimacy of the state of Israel, stated Ofer. “If in the past the community of business people tended to desist from taking a position in relation to the political process, today’s situation obligates us to act in defence of the Israeli economy. In an age in which exports represent almost 50% of the gross domestic product, damage to Israel’s international position will immediately endanger jobs and households in Israel.” Therefore, said Ofer, “we must act with all the means at our disposal to call on the government of Israel to initiate a political initiative that will prevent any possibility of the imposition of a boycott on Israel.”
Dani Gillerman, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said “the morning after the expected recognition of a Palestinian state, a dramatic and painful process of South Africanisation of the state of Israel will commence. The economic quiet existing today in Israel is illusionary, and is very likely to explode immediately following the declaration. I continue even today to receive messages from senior Palestinian officials that the Palestinian side prefers a peace agreement over a unilateral move. Therefore, the (Israeli) prime minister must initiate a real political process which will allow this, and prevent a catastrophe from an Israeli perspective.”
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