Could Israel Become the New South Africa?

The last several decades, Israel has been really good at living with international condemnation. Realistically, this was nothing new to the country. Given the multiple wars they fought with numerous neighbors after declaring independence, it was a cakewalk in comparison to deal with a few mean resolutions from the UN General Assembly.

For most of that time, ignoring that condemnation largely worked. Sure, there were complaints, but most of them didn't go much beyond the halls of the UN, and they never escalated into the kind of broader international isolation that a country like, say, South Africa faced at the height of its apartheid era. Now, though, the situation's completely different.

Israel has been shedding international support for years now, but we're actually starting to see other countries implement measures with some teeth to them. This week, 12 countries announced a coordinated push towards trade restrictions aimed at Israel's settlements in the West Bank in response to the rise of settler terrorism against Palestinians there.

That's certainly a far cry from South Africa's status, but Praetoria's exile from the rest of the world didn't happen overnight.

The question of whether Israel is now on the same path used to be a question reserved for some of the most staunch Israel critics out there, but that prospect is now openly being discussed in Israeli security circles, with many thinking that this is no longer a problem that Israel can afford to ignore.

Drawing the Line Twelve nations made the decision this week to institute sanctions against Israeli West Bank settlements, and the group included some real heavy hitters. Among their numbers were Britain and France, along with Canada, Spain, Poland, Norway, Sweden, and several others.

What finally pushed these nations into action, at least according to a joint statement released earlier this week, came down to the situation unfolding in the West Bank. We have ourselves covered the crisis extensively, both here on Home Front and on our sister channel, War Front.

But long story short, there's been a steady escalation of terror attacks by Israeli settlers targeting Palestinians.

Even with the most charitable read of situation, those attacks went broadly unanswered by the Israeli government, and at worst, one could argue that they had the backing of various Israeli government ministers.

Ultimately, the tipping point seems to have come down to the E1 settlement project, a long-planned settlement east of Jerusalem that would effectively cut the West Bank in two.

E1 was approved on paper in summer of 2025, but it remained a relative hypothetical until last month, when Israel moved the project much closer to reality by opening it up for construction bids.

The concern there was that dividing the West in two would kill off the chance of an independent Palestinian state.

That's a perk of the project, shall we say, that the hardline Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has openly bragged about, saying that the construction will "bury the idea of a Palestinian state." Now, this has long been the kind of rhetoric that European states would condemn, but in past years, we only really saw any action in response to that

Rhetoric from a select few.

But this week, the sizable group that we mentioned a moment ago actually started to put some muscle behind it all.

Britain, France, and Canada all committed to national bans on goods coming out of settlements, while the other signatories backed future moves to implement the same. bans, either through measures of their own or through action at the EU level. the UK, though, that's gone further than the rest here.

Rather than simply banning products made in the settlements, London has expanded its focus to attempt to quarantine the system that supports the settlement's construction and day-to-day business. new measures will impact both companies and individuals, focusing on those who are involved in financing new construction, providing infrastructure, handling real

Estate, or even advertising settlement properties inside the UK.

And while the UK is not the first to punch here, it was certainly the country that's made the biggest shift in the last week.

While Britain has long considered the settlements themselves illegal, it has previously stopped short of taking a position on the legality of the occupation as a whole. That's no longer the case. London's official position is now that the occupation itself is unlawful across the board.

Now, when it comes to countries with less than stellar relations with Israel, it's not uncommon to hear those countries face accusations of anti-Semitism. Especially in recent years, when we've seen criticism of Israel make a dramatic return on the left and right alike. And yeah, anti-Semitism is something to be on the lookout for.

There are absolutely anti-Semitic trends that run through parts of the anti-Israel movement, which we've covered many times here. But that, of course, leaves open the question of just how far one can legitimately go in criticizing Israel, a question that British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband did not shy away from answering this week.

Describing himself as a proud British Jew, he opened his address speaking about his grandmother, who moved to Israel after much of her family was murdered in the Holocaust. spoke passionately about the positive role that Israel has played, but recognized that the situation on the ground is simply untenable. his own words, am proud of my Jewishness and

Unwavering in my support for the state of Israel.

And there is absolutely no contradiction between this and my support for the state of Palestine.

Indeed, quite the opposite. quote. just the Foreign Secretary, that same approach is showing up across much of the British government and the governments of these other participating countries, committing resolutely to not tolerate anti-Semitism, but also condemning with equal force the actions of the Israeli settlers and even the Israeli government more

Broadly.

And that's where the South Africa comparison starts to become more of an open question. be clear, we're talking about peak apartheid South Africa here.

And while there's a separate conversation to be had about whether Israel's conduct is or isn't the conduct of an apartheid state, we're going to focus today on the world's reaction. apartheid South Africa's case, the nation's leaders didn't just wake up one morning to discover that the entire world had suddenly cut off relations.

Instead, their isolation grew over time as governments across the world, along with companies, universities, consumers, and others, gradually decided that doing business as usual just was not worth the price of association. And let's be clear, Israel is nowhere near apartheid praetoria's level of isolation or exclusion, at least not today.

But there is an important change taking place, where Jerusalem is losing support internationally at a dramatic pace, as an ever-growing number of countries decide that its conduct has reached a point where Israel is safe. they have to go beyond mere condemnations.

Instead, they have to prove that they don't endorse Israel's actions by backing up those condemnations with a bit of muscle. Again, the conduct that these countries are objecting to is currently the conduct of Israel's settlers and the nature of the West Bank occupation, rather than the idea or the nature of the Israeli state itself.

That said, once these countries set down the path of a full, shameless, enforced condemnation, difficult to get that momentum to just stop.

Once you cross over to a geopolitical realm, where sanctions and boycotts become government policy, it's easy to take those punitive measures. you look at the approach that European governments have taken on Israel across recent years, the scale of this week's shift really starts to become clear.

The Old Rules When it comes to sanctioning misbehaving countries, there's little genuinely new ground being covered in Europe's approach to Israel.

If anything, when it comes to international sanctions regimes, these measures are some of the most tame that you can imagine. And yet, despite that fact, these moves have been immensely more controversial than some of the more extensive sanctions levied against other nations, and the controversy only ramps up when we go stateside.

To understand why that is, really have to look at the way that Israel's Western counterparts have approached the question of peace with the Palestinians.

Back when the Oslo peace process was still alive in the 90s, the approach generally came down to the idea that Israel was never going to surrender territory and agree to a Palestinian state on its doorstep unless it genuinely felt that doing so wouldn't create a security nightmare. And honestly, at the time, that logic made sense.

The Second Intifada and Hamas' takeover of Gaza after the unilateral but haphazard Israeli withdrawal were all seen as reasons that Jerusalem would rightly be wary of any big changes in the West Bank.

And the fact that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was the one to ultimately walk away from the peace process led many in Western governments, especially Washington, to view the Palestinians as the party acting as the roadblock. President Bill Clinton's description of the situation is a useful insight into thinking at the time.

According to Clinton, Arafat, quote, "...walked away from a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, 96% of the West Bank, 4% of Israel." Now, of course, there were nuances there as to why Arafat chose to walk away, but the point still stands.

Broadly speaking, Israel was seen as being more than willing to negotiate. regardless of what you think of that worldview, it was never meant to become a permanent policy, much less one that led to evermore Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where the lawlessness of Israeli settlers led to terrorizing Palestinian civilians.

The problem is, of course, that the world sleepwalked its way into exactly that policy. Western politicians would occasionally respond to a particularly bold Israeli action or a further expansion of settlements by putting out a statement of condemnation or supporting another resolution, calling for a two-state solution.

But although Israel certainly didn't like being condemned, it really has to be said that there weren't any consequences to just ignoring those condemnations when they arrived. As a result, Jerusalem found itself increasingly free to pursue whatever policy, it chose on the matter.

In recent years, especially as the war in Gaza dragged on, and it was clear that the West Bank was spiraling out of control, the status quo conclusively broke down.

By the end of 2024, for example, UN monitors had documented some 1,420 settler attacks that caused either Palestinian casualties or property damage, the highest annual total they had recorded since they started tracking the issue back in 2006. We saw the international reactions to the violence really starting to ramp up last year.

That was when numerous countries, including the UK, Canada, and Portugal, decided to recognize the state of Palestine outright.

Those declarations of recognition were monumentally frustrating to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly slammed the moves as rewarding Hamas for terrorism. But fundamentally, the renegotiations had no more teeth to them than the previous rounds of condemnations.

If anything, it actually emboldened the hardliners in Israel because, if the international community was going to move towards the Palestinians, in their view, then there was all the more reason to rush to ensure that no such state could ever get off the ground.

Some, including Finance Minister Smotrich, formally advocated for annexing 82% of the West Bank later that year. And all of that gets us to today, where many of the same governments that decided last year to recognize a Palestinian state have now concluded that recognition didn't actually change anything on the ground.

The 12-country statement this week still talks about preserving the two-state solution, but instead of simply reiterating well-worn condemnations of Israeli settlements, it commits various governments to national mandatory restrictions that deliver real economic repercussions to the settler community.

That's not going to change the reality on the ground overnight, and we don't think any of the advocates for this policy would be bold enough to suggest otherwise. But the bigger danger for Israel is what happens if this becomes the beginning of a pattern rather than a one-off. And from where we're sitting, all the signs seem to be pointing in that direction.

One of the more interesting components of today's title question, whether Israel is at the risk of becoming the new South Africa, is that this is actually something that Israelis have been grappling with themselves.

This is especially the case inside of its political and national security establishment, where some have been openly warning specifically of the South Africa analogy.

Penina Shavit Baruch, a former senior IDF international law official working for Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, warned back in 2024 that the country was, quote, rapidly becoming a pariah state, specifically invoking the way apartheid-era South Africa gradually became something governments and institutions didn't want to associate with.

Yaya Golan, a former deputy chief of the IDF and the current leader of Israel's Democrats Party, went further last year, outright arguing that the country was, quote, on the way to becoming a pariah state like South Africa was, end quote.

Now, these are people obviously deeply critical of Netanyahu, and neither of them should be treated as oracles of the future in their own Right. But they're not alone in recognizing how much Israel's isolation has grown over the last few years.

Yair Lapid, the current leader of the Israeli opposition, has warned that, quote, if we don't quickly replace this government, Israel's foreign relations will be wiped out, quote. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett truly didn't hold back in an interview last month while discussing how his country's image had deteriorated with Americans.

In that interview, Bennett argued that if you say Italy to someone, pasta is likely the first thing to come to mind.

For Israel, on the other hand, it's, quoting, baby killers. He certainly wasn't saying that's a fair analogy or trying to give the impression that he agreed with it. Instead, argument is that it's a tragedy that his country's reputation has sunk so low.

But it is a hell of an analogy nonetheless, and it shows that the Israeli opposition understands just how much views toward their country have shifted in the last few years. Moreover, they understand that new leadership will be needed to fix it.

The problem with counting on new leadership, however, is that once you move past Netanyahu himself, Israeli politics becomes a lot messier.

Bennett himself spent years in the Jewish Home Party, which made settlement expansion one of its key issues. While he's been sharply critical of the settler violence that we've seen lately, he has nevertheless, just last month, backed the construction of the E1 settlement.

And while there are some opposition politicians who are genuinely more moderate on settlements, they ultimately are still accountable to their own respective electorates, many of which are pushing in a more hardline, no-compromised direction.

Gardi Eisenkot, a current favorite to be the next Israeli PM after the next month's elections, is opposed to the E1 program, largely because he sees how damaging it is to his country's image abroad. But given the sheer number of parties active in Israel's political system, he is all but certain to need the support of politicians who support the government.

Regardless of what the next Israeli government looks like, though, and even if it includes genuine concessions that can cool down the settlement expansion issue, Israel might have already missed the boat.

The position of the UK government is no longer confined to merely opposing specific settlements like E1. London now views the entire occupation as unlawful. Critically, that includes East Jerusalem.

Officially, the city is divided under international law along the 1949 armistice lines, where Israel controlled West Jerusalem while Jordan controlled the East, until Israel captured it in 1967.

The city's legal status has never been settled, but the prospect of any Israeli politician agreeing to a withdrawal from East Jerusalem as likely as politicians in the Falklands agreeing to hand over their islands to the Argentines. For all this, Israel is not completely abandoned.

One particular bright spot for Jerusalem has been Greece, which has been moving in the opposite direction relative to the rest of Europe. In fact, Greece just signed a €3.4 billion deal last month for Israeli air defense systems.

The two countries are working on an integrated air defense project called Achilles Shield, largely out of mutual security concerns that center on their shared neighbor, Turkey.

Elsewhere, Jerusalem has also been able to deepen its relationship with the UAE. than any of those relationships, though, is the one with the country that Israel has relied on for decades to shield it from the worst of the international backlash, the United States of America.

Washington currently remains quite pro-Israel, even despite occasional clashes between their respective leaders.

But the broader issue is that American public opinion has been moving along with the rest of the world in ways that genuinely worry Jerusalem. 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up from 42% just four years ago, and those approvals have sunk much further with younger Americans on a bipartisan basis. those under 30, only 18% have a favorable view of

The Israeli government. genuinely dangerous territory for Jerusalem.

Israel has made strides in recent years to reduce its dependence on US foreign assistance, it simply has no alternative to Washington shielding it at the UN Security Council. What's more is that we're already starting to see this shift show up stateside in the political sphere.

Back in July, 103 House Democrats, nearly half the party's caucus, voted in favor of an amendment that would have cut the entire annual US military aid package to Israel, worth some US$3.3 billion.

Canada, meanwhile, has stopped approving new arms export permits for weapons that could be used Gaza.

Overall, though, when it comes to the question of whether Israel is next to South Africa, the answer today is a resolute no. Praetoria, at the peak of its isolation, was staring down broad financial isolation, companies pulling out of the country en masse and near universal arms restrictions. Israel faces none of these problems, at least not yet.

But that also doesn't mean that Israel has to get anywhere near that point before the damage becomes very serious. The next steps down the path that the European community has been following, steps that we're ready seeing significant pushes for do not require Europe to suddenly boycott or outright sanction Israel in whole.

Even partial erosion of trade access, military relationships, arms exports, and access to institutions like universities would be a major problem in their own right.

Crucially, those next steps would make the next set of measures beyond those, measures that once seemed unthinkable, start to feel increasingly normal. And governments need not be the sole institutions driving global action. They weren't with South Africa, and they already aren't with Israel.

At least 48 universities across Europe have begun cutting ties with their Israeli counterparts. That's still a minority position, but it's happening, and the trend seems to be picking up pace.

The danger here for Israel is that once governments, universities, and other institutions begin all moving in the same direction at the same time, isolation can begin to seriously compound.