Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The increasingly frequent Israeli attacks on Palestinian land have made the boycott movement against products from and supporting Israel increasingly echoed by the world community.
A number of companies that were targeted by the boycott began to worry. They provided clarification because the boycott movement had reportedly had an impact on reducing the number of customers.
Although there has been no report on the value of the latest losses suffered by Israel, reports Al Jazeera in 2018 revealed that the boycott movement has the potential to cause losses of up to US$11.5 billion or around Rp. 180.48 trillion (assuming an exchange rate of Rp. 15,694/US$) per year for Israel.
Israel is clearly concerned about the impact of these losses. In recent times, Israel’s diplomatic priority mission has been overcoming the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In fact, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has acted to ban groups that support the boycott movement. Because, thousands of people in Israel are said to have the potential to lose their jobs if their country is completely boycotted by the international community.
The impact of the boycott on the Israeli economy
Launching from The Jerusalem Post, Israel denied that the boycott movement could harm them. Instead, they said that this would only “increase the suffering of the Palestinian people, not reduce it.”
A non-profit organization based in Washington, United States (US), the Brookings Institution, stated that the BDS movement would not drastically affect Israel’s economy. This is because around 40 percent of Israel’s exports are “intermediate” goods or hidden products used in the production process of goods elsewhere, such as semiconductors.
Additionally, about 50 percent of Israel’s exports are “differentiation” or non-substitutable goods, such as specialized computer chips.
However, data from the World Bank shows that exports of “intermediate” goods experienced a sharp decline from 2014 to 2016, resulting in losses of around US$6 billion or around IDR 94.16 trillion.
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