How Israel Is Navigating International Boycotts After Gaza

With Israeli elections looming later this year, it is fair to assume that even the great political survivor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is closer to the end than the beginning of his career. One politician often seen as a potential successor from within the Likud party is Nir Barkat, the tech millionaire who served as mayor of Jerusalem for a decade. Barakat, who currently holds the position of the country’s Minister of Economy and Industry, had previously announced his intention to compete for the leadership of his party.

I sat down with Barakat for a conversation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What follows here is a slightly modified and condensed version.

Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with Gaza. Since the ceasefire agreement in October, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. Do you know why?

Nir Barakat: I don’t know what information you are getting, but the Israeli security forces are securing Israel. If anyone tried to challenge them, they would risk their lives. There were a number of frictions, especially between terrorists who tried to attack Israelis. A number of Israelis were also injured and killed.

RA: The number I heard mentioned is more than 450 people, and UNICEF says more than 100 of them are children.

Note: The moment Gaza’s leadership decides to put down its weapons, disarm, de-radicalize, and pursue peace with Israel, it will find a good partner.

RA: Are you saying that the ceasefire was not enough?

Note: I don’t know where you are getting your information. This is not the information that I know, but the bottom line is that it depends on the local leadership in Gaza. The moment there are people looking for peace, we will make peace with them. As long as they threaten Israel, we will know how to defend ourselves.

RA: Look, I think what Hamas did on October 7 was terrible and evil, and should be condemned. but New York Times Israel has reportedly destroyed more than 2,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire, and even some Israelis say this is the “absolute destruction” of entire neighborhoods. Why was this necessary?

Note: We left Gaza more than 15 years ago. Everyone wanted to see Gaza become the Singapore of the Middle East. All the energy that Hamas had to create infrastructure – they integrated the terrorist infrastructure as part of the civilian infrastructure. You see all the tunnels connected underground, all preparing to attack Israel and launch missiles. The only way to remove all that infrastructure is to remove it. The people of Gaza must decide. If they allow terrorists to build terrorist infrastructure under their homes, we will dismantle that.

No one in the world has faced such a terrorist regime. They don’t care about their own lives, they don’t care if people die, they hide behind civilians, which poses a very big challenge for Israel.

RA: But the question always comes back to this: What is the cost of restoring security? Because we are now at a stage where many countries in the world are now describing this as genocide.

Note: This is nonsense. We completely disagree. The facts are wrong. We are fully committed to securing our people. We are fully committed to dismantling – by the way, more than 50, 60, 80 countries have signed an initiative by US president Donald Trump.

RA: I was going to ask you about that. What do you think of his council for peace?

Note: I am happy and I want to thank President Trump for this initiative. In many ways, they represent a balance or alternative to the United Nations, which has been completely dysfunctional over the past decades. We hope that this will help us provide the necessary umbrella to bring peace to the region. I wanted to stress again that it depends on the people of Gaza. If they continue to seek another October 7, which Hamas unfortunately is doing, we will make sure they are disarmed and their leadership replaced. We will never again allow a jihadist leadership like Hamas to threaten Israel. We will eliminate this threat.

RA: How do you feel about inviting someone like Russian President Vladimir Putin to join Trump’s peace council?

Note: Welcome to everyone who wants to join the initiative. We have some reservations about some countries as we will never allow them to have a foothold in Gaza, as some of them are enemies of Israel in many ways. But to have an alternative group of countries, an alternative to the United Nations, led by President Trump? I think he’s doing a good job, and we support him.

RA: When Trump announced the start of Phase Two, there were reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office opposed some of these plans, but they now appear to have materialized. Can you tell us what happened there?

Note: Well, we basically want our hero, Ran Jefeli, to return to his homeland. It is still under siege by Hamas. We want [his remains] behind. This is part of the first phase of the agreement.

The second thing is that we want to see a plan to dismantle Hamas’ weapons. We want to make sure that Hamas and others like it will not continue to lead Gaza, because we know their intentions and we will never allow them to rearm, regroup or re-prepare for another October 7th.

RA: President Trump has urged your president, President [Isaac] Herzog, pardoning Prime Minister Netanyahu. Do you have an opinion on whether that should happen?

Note: certainly. I have expressed publicly many times before that it is extremely embarrassing that in times of war — Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing a wonderful job leading Israel — you have to relieve him of his court duties, postpone everything, or even cancel it. This is my point of view and has not changed.

RA: I want to talk about US-Israeli relations. The American people have changed their view of Israel. Polls show that support for Israel has declined, especially among young people and Democrats as well. How worried are you about that?

Note: We view the United States as a better partner for Israel, because of values, because of our relationship, and for many historical reasons. We must make a great effort to be partisan in the United States. We have a lot in common, and that is the goal we should focus on.

RA: Negotiations are underway on the next batch of US military aid to Israel for a period of ten years. Are you confident that the Trump administration will renew the aid package?

Note: Prime Minister Netanyahu said he was willing, in the next decade, to reduce aid to Israel in a 10-year process to zero. I support that. I think this is the right move. Making Israel think more independently is the right thing for us. Ultimately, after the process is over, we want to look into the eyes of the Americans and say: “Thank you for the huge support you have given us over the years, and we are now independent.” It’s good for both sides.

RA: Does this have anything to do with US tariffs?

Note: no.

RA: Because I know their support for Israel is 15% right now. Many countries are making their own deals: the European Union with Mercosur and with India, for example. Are you looking to do something like this too?

Note: It has nothing to do with it. Of course, we prefer no tariffs. But once the United States decides to impose tariffs, we want to reach the best possible deal with them. We cooperate with the Americans. We will have a minimum based on the tariffs decided by President Trump. It does not include services, and most of what we export are services. However, we are now looking to expand our focus to include India and other countries in Asia. And then maybe the next thing is to look at Africa.

RA: In pure economic terms, this makes a lot of sense, but as I said before, there is all this increasing boycott of Israeli academic institutions. There are proposals from the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and other countries to ban imports from settlements. In terms of soft power, Israel is going through a difficult moment. As I mentioned earlier, many countries believe that Israel committed genocide. You are the Minister of Economy and Industry. Isn’t all this hindering work now?

Note: Israel has not committed any genocide. This is nonsense. People must understand that democracies must defend themselves. Very few people in the world have been challenged by such a jihadist group. And I’m telling you, under the radar, all countries, the majority of countries, are seeking to learn from our experience, both in terms of defensive and offensive tools and values. We were caught with our pants down on October 7, which was a huge blow. We recovered very quickly. If you look at the axis of evil, starting with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other places, certainly the world looks at this in an amazing way and seeks to learn from our experience.

RA: But my point is that there are enough countries that are very concerned about what Israel did. I understand you don’t want to call it genocide…

Note: It is not genocide.

RA: But countries that believe that, and that face a lot of public pressure to cut ties with Israel, wouldn’t that hurt the economy?

Note: Well, I think that would hurt them. And what I’ve learned throughout my career is that if a certain country in Europe stutters with Israel, that’s okay. We know where we are needed, and we will do better in places that want us. We know how to overcome any obstacle. Look at Türkiye as an example. In the middle of the war, about two years ago, they decided to stop trade with Israel. Guess what happened? We found alternative ways and the country that suffered the most was Türkiye itself because Israeli businessmen were very flexible in their thinking. You know, like water, we know how to overcome all obstacles. Ultimately, we are very proud of what we do. We are proud of the quality of products we can produce, and anyone who challenges us, we will eventually know how to overcome the situation or reach the same situation through other means.