Boycott of Israel by the Arab League

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The boycott of Israel by the Arab League was a measure that the Arab League and its member states pursued in order to strategically, economically and militarily weaken the State of Israel and thus ultimately destroy it.

The boycott was agreed upon in 1945 when the Arab League was founded, initially against the Yishuv , the Jewish population in Palestine before the state of Israel was founded, and was transferred to the newly founded state in 1948. The boycott escalated to the Suez crisis in 1956 and reached its climax with the oil price crisis from 1971. The boycott organized by the Arab League lasted until the 1990s and was thus the world's longest and most institutionalized boycott against a state. Ultimately, the Arab League failed to decisively weaken the Israeli economy. Only a few states are actively maintaining the boycott today, as the Arab League has been seeking comprehensive peace negotiations with Israel since 2002.

prehistory

From 1890 the Arab inhabitants of Palestine worried about the Jewish immigration that began around 1880 , and the first calls for boycotts were loud. Among other things, Arabs urged the Ottoman Empire to ban Jews from buying land, and there were calls in newspapers not to do business with Jews. These declarations attracted attention, but had little economic impact.

After the end of Ottoman rule over Palestine, the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement agreed on economic cooperation between Jewish and Arab residents of the Mandate Palestine . However, further developments in the country prevented the agreement from entering into force. From 1920, Christian and Muslim associations in various cities decided on new boycotts, embargoes and other measures against Jews, even city-wide residential and entry bans in Jaffa , Jerusalem and Nablus . After the riots in Jaffa (1921) and the massacres in Hebron and Palestine (1929), the implementation of the boycotts, regularly renewed and specified by Arab associations, was more closely monitored: in 1929 Hebrew signs were removed from Arab shops. In 1931 the World Islamic Congress appealed to all Muslim states to avoid trade relations with Jews in Palestine. A youth organization founded in 1932 was supposed to oversee the boycott.

In order to justify the Arab boycotts, reference was made as early as the 1900s to a Jewish boycott of Arab traders and products, to which one had to react again. According to other sources, this boycott of Arab goods by Jews should not have existed until the 1920s. In fact, especially from the beginning of the 1930s, a counter-boycott was called in Jewish circles: Jews should only buy from Jews, but conversely also sell to Arabs. Furthermore, only Jewish workers should be hired for good wages. The result was a bilateral, but not institutionalized boycott. The boycott calls of the 1930s had an effect: In July 1937, the British Palestine Royal Commission found that Arabs barely or not at all made purchases in Jewish shops.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , appointed in 1921 and striving for a “Jew-free” Palestine as part of Greater Arabia, was in his leadership position a driving force behind the Arab boycotts, which he himself called for. He founded an Arab High Committee in 1936 , called for a boycott of the Levant Mass in 1937 and spearheaded the Arab uprising , which was suppressed by the British mandate. Al-Husseini then fled the country and stayed in the German Reich from 1941 , from where he returned to Egypt in 1945 and spread National Socialist propaganda in the Arab region.

In September 1937, the Pan-Arab Congress in Bludan (Syria) called for the 1917 Balfour Declaration to be revoked, the British mandate to be abolished and an economic boycott against the Jews to be enforced as a patriotic duty. The threat of a boycott of British goods was also raised in order to sanction British tolerance of Judaism in Palestine. This forced the yishuv to develop its own economic models beyond trade in the region.

However, during the ensuing World War II , the boycott was no longer followed, although new calls were still made in October 1939. Arab neighboring states obtained large quantities of goods from Jewish production and the economic power of the Yishuv developed by leaps and bounds until the founding of Israel in 1948. The economic strength of the Jewish competitors also caused renewed unrest on the Arab side.

The boycott of the yishuv begins

In the year it was founded in 1945, the Arab League decided to boycott “Jewish” or “Zionist products” with effect from January 1, 1946; From then on, these products were "undesirable in Arab states".

Measures of the boycott by the Arab League included:

  • Prohibition of the use of Jewish services (especially financial and medical services)
  • Import bans and confiscation of Jewish goods (of which customs officials received 50% as wages)
  • Certification requirements for non-Jewish Palestinian goods
  • keeping black lists, for example, of people, companies and cargo ships that violated the boycott
  • the prohibition to transport Jewish goods through national territory or territorial waters (i.e. in particular not through the Suez Canal - offending ships were confiscated by an Egyptian prize court )

These measures were supported by Egypt , Bahrain , Iraq , Kuwait , Lebanon , Palestine itself, Saudi Arabia , Syria and Transjordan .

As an internal investigation carried out in October 1947 revealed, the implementation of the resolutions was still ineffective: no monitoring bodies had been set up, Jewish goods reached the Arab world via third countries and financial services were handled through intermediaries. Lebanon, Syria and Transjordan in particular continued to be large buyers of Palestinian products, including those from the yishuv. Since the founding of a Jewish state became apparent from the end of November with the outbreak of the civil war , the league now intensified its efforts, but without being able to prevent the establishment of Israel in May 1948. All previous measures were transferred to the new state of Israel.

Boycott against Israel

In 1948 all previous trade bans were immediately transferred to the newly founded Israel. These measures were considered the primary boycott from 1950 , while the newly introduced secondary boycott included all of Israel's trading partners, including those on the blacklist. The boycott was finally extended to their trading partners (tertiary boycott) . The secondary and tertiary boycotts mostly affected companies with contacts or branches in Israel, not third countries. Companies from non-Arab countries were boycotted from 1954/55. The new measures introduced up until the 1970s included:

  • International conferences and fairs attended by delegations from Israel should not be attended by Arab delegations
  • Israel-friendly Western artists, actors and their works were also blacklisted (so-called culture boycott)
  • Negative certificates of origin identified products that fully adhered to the boycott guidelines and no part of which came from Israel
  • Ships calling at Israeli and Arab ports one after the other were confiscated
  • Israeli planes (and some blacklisted companies) have been denied passage over Arab territories
  • Companies had to provide information about their business partners and their employees in extensive compliance forms
  • Communication by radio, telephone or post was prohibited (so-called information boycott)
  • Israeli passports were not recognized etc. (so-called diplomatic boycott)

The implementation of the boycott and embargo regulations that had been decided on was handled more strictly from 1948 and gradually incorporated into national boycott laws. In 1951, a "Central Boycott Office" was ( Central Boycott Office , CBO), headquartered in Damascus , founded the monitored as a controlling all Member States on the implementation of the boycott, in each country maintained a branch and was attached to the Economic Council of the Arab League. The further organization of the CBO, which also expanded its activities to third countries (it had offices in Bonn, London, New York, Paris, Rome, Washington and Vienna, among others), only emerged over time: it advertised as a lobby organization in Parliaments, served as an information office for companies and citizens and it collected data on companies that supported or opposed the boycott. In Germany, the activity was also supported by Ghorfa , which was allowed to issue negative certificates of origin .

When it came to exerting political influence, there was also the threat of breaking off all trade relations with the Arab League or individual countries. This was mostly prevented through diplomatic channels. Egypt, representing the Arab League, for example, threatened West Germany in 1952/53 with the same scope of sanctions as Israel due to the Luxembourg Agreement , which was ultimately averted with reference to the economic ties. The director of the CBO had already intervened beforehand. Also in 1953 the already decided boycott of Cyprus was not carried out due to international criticism.

Rationale and goals of the boycott

Arab unity was initially based largely on an anti-Semitic ideology, partly adopted from National Socialism: the newly established Arab High Committee in Egypt was interspersed with Nazi collaborators such as al-Husseini. By only adopting the appropriate components of the Nazi ideology and adapting them to the situation in the Middle East, the enemy image of Israel became the unifying moment of the otherwise inhomogeneous Arab League: A British memorandum in the Foreign Ministry in 1953 stated that the boycott for the Arab League was " convenient and indisputable outlet for their energies ”, especially since it is popular with the population.

Officially, especially at the international level, the Arab League gave the following justification for the boycott: It should sanction violations of international law by Israel, including: expulsion and expropriation of Arab Palestinians; a war of extermination against the Palestinian people and the occupation of Arab lands.

When justifying the boycott, Arab officials always pointed out that the boycott had to be maintained until the "foreign body" Israel was removed from the Arab world. The boycott was seen as one of the means to weaken the enemy Israel economically, industrially and militarily. Jewish immigration to Israel should also be reduced in this way.

With the boycott of individual companies, the Arab League made hardly any distinction between Israelis and Jews until the 1970s - from the Arab perspective, a Jewish creed was identical to a commitment to Zionism . Thus, Jews as company owners or directors were legitimate targets of the Israel boycott from an Arab perspective. In the 1970s there were official boycott pronouncements that companies owned by Jews in the Arab world were allowed to operate freely if they did not cooperate with Israel, while those owned by Christian or Muslim owners would be boycotted once they were trading with Israel. The boycott measures from 1945 to 1975 gave the opposite picture; For example, in the compliance questionnaires, which European companies in particular had to fill out for Arab partners, asked about Jews in the company or Jewish business partners. This did not change significantly after 1975.

Strategies by lawmakers from third countries (including the USA in several attempts in 1965, Great Britain in 1978, the Netherlands in 1981) or by individual companies to take action against the boycott in their own interest were understood as Zionist-controlled attacks on the Arab world. The corresponding anti-discrimination laws are "open support for Zionist aggression".

  • Israel.
    • States participating in its boycott between 1979 and 1987:
  • Arab League, complete boycott since 1948 (Egypt only until 1979)
  • Arab League, later entry / start of complete boycott
  • Arab League, only primary boycott, not secondary / tertiary
  • Non-members of the Arab League - mostly only primary boycott

    • Participating States

    The implementation of all boycott measures was the responsibility of the individual states, so that the boycott was structured differently in different countries of the Arab League. At least officially, Iraq, Jordan , Qatar , Kuwait , Libya, North Yemen , Oman , Saudi Arabia, South Yemen , Syria and the United Arab Emirates fully participated in the boycott of all of Israel's trading partners. Algeria , Mauritania , Morocco , Somalia and Tunisia, however, were only involved in primary boycotts and de facto ignored the more extensive secondary and tertiary boycotts.

    Role of non-arab states

    The role of the Soviet Union - always against the backdrop of the Cold War - was initially hostile to the boycott because there the Arab states were perceived as being under British-American hegemony. From around the mid-1950s, due to rapprochement through Arab socialism and the good American-Israeli relations, the Soviet Union then appeared as a diplomatic supporter of the Arab boycott, for example before the UN. This gave the moral and political legitimacy of the Arab cause international weight, even without the Soviet Union having directly participated in the boycott.

    The boycott of Israel by non-members of the Arab League was carried out in 1979 by Bangladesh , India , Malaysia , Mali , Pakistan and Uganda .

    After the Lebanon War in 1982 , the number of boycott supporters increased by numerous other states that condemned the policies of the "aggressor" Israel, especially those from the Eastern Bloc: By 1987 the number of boycott states increased to include Afghanistan , Albania , Brazil and Bulgaria , Burundi , China , the GDR , Guinea , Indonesia , Yugoslavia , Cambodia , Congo , Cuba , North Korea , Poland , the Soviet Union, Sri Lanka , Taiwan , Chad , Czechoslovakia , Vietnam and Hungary .

    Effects in Africa

    The Arab League also built diplomatic pressure in Africa not to recognize Israel. In 1983 Israel had never had any (official diplomatic) contact with the following sub-Saharan countries : Angola , Benin , Congo, Madagascar , Mali, Mozambique , Tanzania and Uganda. A drastic diplomatic defeat for Israel in Africa was 1973 (the year of the Yom Kippur War ), in which numerous states of the African Union broke off diplomatic contact with Israel. While there were 32 Israeli embassies in Africa in 1972, only four countries south of the Sahara had diplomatic contact in 1981. Mobutu Sese Seko , dictator of Zaire , insisted on African solidarity with the African partner country Egypt, which received a lot of attention. When he resumed contacts with Israel after the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, the Arab states broke off diplomatic contacts with Zaire and discontinued state aid programs. Israeli military aid to Mobutu said it made up for this loss.

    Effectiveness of the boycott

    The effectiveness of a boycott is always difficult to determine, since no trade can hardly be measured. Nevertheless, research on the topic was carried out by both the Arab and Israeli sides. The boycott posed a permanent, if non-existential, threat to the Israeli economy. Israel was much more competitive than the neighboring regimes, whose economies suffered and suffered from dictatorship and corruption, and did two-thirds of its trade with western industrialized nations. The total losses incurred due to the boycott in 1992 were put at a total of up to 49 billion dollars. Clearly negative effects were seen on Israel's oil-poor immediate neighbors. In 1967, Lebanese parliamentarians saw their country's interests more threatened than Israeli ones by the boycott; while there would be no gain for Lebanon from the boycott. These boycott effects are even more pronounced for the Palestinian territories. After the oil crisis, there were also increasing demands to continue the boycott with new and more efficient institutions that could base this work on research, information and propaganda.

    Both from the point of view of the boycotters and from the point of view of disabled companies, a major problem in carrying out the boycott was the lack of coordination between the actors and the lack of transparency in all decision-making processes. Individual states did not even implement the boycott of blacklisted companies if there were conflicting interests of an economic nature or, in the case of arms contracts, of a military nature. Arab companies and states in need of trade defied regulations; while foreign entrants were tamed through checks and forms. Internal power struggles over responsibilities in the CBO or the national agencies were added; the Egyptian national boycott office was subordinate to the Defense Ministry, the Iraqi to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The CBO revised the blacklist of boycotted companies twice a year: In the 1950s, only a few hundred companies were on the blacklist; on a list that was updated in 1971 there were 8,700 companies from 64 countries that fell under the secondary boycott. For 1969 around 300 German companies and 800 ships from German shipowners were on the black lists.

    Numerous US companies invested in Israel despite the boycott policy, even if this could mean the loss of Arab customers. Almost all Japanese, a large network of Canadian, and also a large part of European companies chose the opposite way: The sales market in the Arab world was many times larger than the small and regulated market in Israel. Of the 500 world leaders in the 1980s, fewer than 10 were located in Israel. Entering the Arab market meant (in theory) conversely that a company was not even allowed to cooperate with indexed companies in its own country. Coca-Cola , which was sold in Israel from the 1960s and boycotted in the League, can serve as an example of market division. The competitor product Pepsi had been available in Arab countries since 1965, but not in Israel. The largest car manufacturers in Japan also followed the boycott out of economic interest in the Arab League - however, the market niche in Israel allowed the small Japanese manufacturer Subaru to choose Israel as its first export country in 1969, where it was the only Japanese car manufacturer until 1983.

    The most prominent case of the CBO exerting influence on companies down to employee level in order to comply with the secondary and tertiary boycott was the British Lord Mancroft, who was forced to resign as CEO of the British insurance company Norwich Union (now Aviva ) in 1963 due to Arab pressure . This was viewed as a scandal in the UK.

    Anti-boycott measures

    Israeli stakeholders challenged the boycott at various international institutions. The changing legal decisions had no effect on the practice of the boycott.

    Numerous Jewish and Israeli companies circumvented the regulations of the boycott by using Greece , Turkey and, above all, Cyprus as transhipment points for their goods and then using front companies to supply the Arab boycotters from there. Cypriot banking secrecy also played an important role in clandestine transactions between Israelis and Arabs; various practices (smuggling, false papers, mailbox companies) were varied over the entire duration of the boycott. Despite the far-reaching restrictions on paper, the boycott was not entirely effective; trade relations with the USA and Europe were anyway more important for Israel than with the Arab League.

    Both Arab and Israeli businesspeople exploited numerous loopholes in key business areas such as finance, hotels, aviation and oil. There were also opportunities for large firms falling under the secondary or tertiary boycott to be blacklisted through relationships and lobbying. It is known, for example, of Hilton and American Express that they operated in Israel as in the Arab world. Other prominent companies that avoided the boycott were Sheraton , Leyland , IBM , Xerox , Chase Manhattan , 20th Century Fox , General Tire and others. a. After warranty information and a few one thousand US dollars were baksheesh for the right contacts at the national level promising. Western companies also often only operated clandestinely in Israel, which angered Israeli business partners but was inevitably accepted.

    Israel also blacklisted and circulated companies that followed the boycott. This should be an incentive for Israel supporters to boycott these companies. Israel denied state sanctioning of the companies listed in this way, but acted to educate and warn companies that joined the boycott. Such lists had more than symbolic effect in the USA, where lawyers used these lists to enforce anti-boycott laws. Such laws have existed in more and more states, including Germany, since the 1980s, but were not applied consistently. Until the 1980s, the German government did not have an official position on the boycott, which was intended to enable companies to choose their business partners themselves.

    In 1967, after the Six Day War, the Israel-controlled border between the West Bank and Jordan was opened to Palestinians. In fact, this also meant that Israeli products, especially agricultural products, disguised as Palestinian goods, could be sold to Jordan. As early as 1968, Lebanese vegetable farmers noticed greater competitive pressure due to the "open bridges" to Jordan. From 1975/76 onwards, Israel also exported to Lebanon and Syria in this way, after opening checkpoints on the Lebanese border as a “good border”. In 1979 the peace agreement with Egypt took place, which led to the direct exclusion of Egypt from the Arab League. At Israel's request, the official Egyptian legislation was changed in 1980, so that the boycott, which had been prescribed by law since 1955, had been suspended by the state. Despite the lifting of the ban, there was little willingness among the population and numerous companies in Egypt to trade with Israel now. One estimate is that Israel was able to sell around 10% of its exports to the Arab region in the late 1980s due to its counter-strategies to the boycott.

    End and aftermath of the boycott

    At the end of the 1980s, ideological and economic weaknesses emerged in the boycott, especially in the area of ​​practical implementation. Since 1989, against the boycott , Coca-Cola has been distributed in Arab League countries, and some companies have been removed from the blacklists without giving up their branches in Israel. Other companies were re-indexed, such as Robert Maxwell's corporate empire . At the beginning of the 1990s, the boycott of the Arab League fell further into crisis with the loss of the Soviet Union as diplomatic backing and trading partner. Under economic and diplomatic pressure from the USA, which had decided the Second Gulf War in Kuwait’s favor, the trade regulations on secondary and tertiary boycotts were relaxed in boycott strongholds such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from 1991 onwards. Other countries made peace with Israel, such as the Palestinian Authority (1993) and Jordan in 1994.

    The lifting of the sanctions against Israel also came under the demand for political concessions from Israel to the Palestinians. For example, in 1991, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Oman made (on a European proposal) the condition for lifting the boycott that settlement construction in the occupied territories be stopped. This was rejected on principle by both Israel and the Arab League, but Saudi Arabia ended further sanctions. In 1994 the Gulf Cooperation Council agreed to lift the internationally particularly controversial secondary and tertiary boycotts while maintaining the primary boycott. The dissolution of the state boycott is ongoing, with new commitments to boycott being made regularly and relaxed measures tightened again. For example, representatives from 15 Arab states met in the CBO in Damascus in 2002 to discuss the remobilization of the boycott. In 2005 and 2006, however, Oman and Bahrain also lifted the direct boycott of Israel.

    The political and economic Arab-Israeli cooperation of the 1990s, however, continued to be perceived as a risk by certain circles in Israel and the Arab world: Israeli companies fear that they will give up a competitive advantage through joint ventures ; while Arab circles are critical of Israel's economic dominance. Against the background of the Second Intifada , September 11, 2001, and an economic recession, economic cooperation was suspended, frozen and terminated. Israel now has good economic relations with Jordan, Egypt and Morocco (joint ventures, gas imports) and with Turkey.

    Countries that do not recognize Israeli passports (2015)

    After-effects of the state boycott policy still exist today: Iran, Lebanon and Syria continued the primary boycott unilaterally; in the case of Syria also the more extensive boycotts. Numerous other former boycott states still do not recognize Israeli passports and only apply the boycott laws, some of which still exist, in opportune cases. The direct economic relations between the Gulf States and Israel have only normalized to a small extent: due to the earlier trade restrictions and without new incentives, there is little desire in the Arab population to buy Israeli products now. Rather, with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, a global campaign was formed that aims to continue the boycott, but has a fundamentally different organizational structure. Much of Arab civil society continues to obey calls for boycotts by high-ranking Islamic clergy.

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ a b c d e Feiler, pp. 21–24
    2. ^ RT Naylor: Economic Warfare: Sanctions, Embargo Busting, and Their Human Cost . Boston 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-499-8 . P. 94 digitized
    3. ↑ Niklas Günther, Sönke Zankel: Abrahams Enkel. Jews, Christians, Muslims and the Shoah. Franz Steiner, 2006, ISBN 3-515-08979-9 , pp. 41-47
    4. ↑ a b c d Feiler, pp. 24–37
    5. ↑ a b c Der Spiegel , April 5, 1971: Middle East / Israel Boycott: Completely superfluous
    6. ↑ a b c d e Feiler, pp. 91–99
    7. ^ Yeshayahu Jelinek: Germany and Israel 1945–1965: A neurotic relationship . Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004. ISBN 978-3-486-59458-4 . S. 235 ff. Digitalisat
    8. ↑ Kenneth L. Marcus: The Definition of Anti-Semitism. Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 0-19-937564-X , p. 205
    9. ↑ a b Feiler, p. 32
    10. ↑ a b Feiler, pp. 64–89
    11. ↑ Law No. 21 ( Uniform Law on the Boycott of Israel ) from 1964 forbids Kuwaiti companies to conclude contracts with Israeli citizens and severely punishes violations, cf. LG Frankfurt from 16.11.2017 - 2-24 O 37/17 para. 22nd
    12. ^ A b c d e R. T. Naylor: Economic Warfare: Sanctions, Embargo Busting, and Their Human Cost . Boston 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-499-8 . Pp. 107-109 digitized version
    13. ↑ a b c Feiler, pp. 37–63
    14. ^ Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi: The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms and why , IB Tauris, 1987, ISBN 978-1-85043-069-8 .
    15. ↑ J. Coleman Kitchen, CSIS : Africa Notes: Zaire and Israel , March 21, 1983
    16. ↑ a b Mona Sarkis in: Telepolis , February 13, 2006: Many ships will come
    17. ↑ a b bpb , May 2, 2007: Foreign trade cooperation in the Middle East
    18. ↑ a b Feiler, pp. 105-109, 119-121
    19. ↑ a b c Die Zeit , January 10, 1969: The blunt saber of Muhammad
    20. ↑ a b Chaim Fershtman, Neil Gandal: The effect of the Arab boycott on Israel: the automobile market , Tel Aviv 1998. Digitized
    21. ^ Johan David Van der Vyver (Ed.): Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives Den Haag 1996. ISBN 9789041101761 . Pp. 267-268 digitized version
    22. ^ A b Suzanne Morrison: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement: Activism Across Borders for Palestinian Justice . London 2015.

    literature

    • Dan S. Chill: The Arab boycott of Israel: economic aggression and world reaction . Praeger, 1976. ISBN 978-0-275-56810-8 .
    • Gil Feiler: From boycott to economic cooperation: the political economy of the Arab boycott of Israel. Frank Cass, London / Portland 1998, ISBN 978-0-7146-4866-8 , digitized
    • AJ Sarna: Boycott and Blacklist: A History of Arab Economic Warfare Against Israel . Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated, 1986. ISBN 978-0-8476-7489-3 .