The UK recently escalated sanctions on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Within hours, 11 other countries, including Canada, France, Spain, and Ireland, moved in the same direction with their own measures.
Israel answered on the diplomatic track, recalling ambassadors, closing a consulate, and expelling British personnel from the multinational force headquartered in Kiryat Gat.
On the latest episode of The Deep Dive, host Jacob Laznik and The Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein assess whether the coordinated push marks the opening of a broader international campaign against Israel's economy, or, as Laznik argues, a largely symbolic "nothing burger" driven more by domestic politics in London and Paris than by any real intent to inflict economic harm.
The two don't land in the same place, and that tension drives the conversation. Laznik contends the targeted market is small, the messaging outweighs the substance, and the overlooked headline is the UK's explicit condemnation of the BDS movement even as it acts. Klein pushes back, warning of a slippery slope: BDS, he notes, once framed itself as targeting only the West Bank, and points to the earlier SodaStream boycott, which ended up costing Palestinian workers their jobs.
His sharper argument cuts at Israel itself: the country doesn't see itself as strong as the world sees it, Klein says, and keeps responding to diplomatic pressure as though it were a military threat. The episode's centerpiece is a live role-play in which each presses the other on what an Israeli prime minister should actually do in response, neither letting the other off easily.
The timing is what raises the stakes. With one of Israel's most closely watched elections weeks away, both men weigh whether the 12 countries are attempting to weaken Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and whether the move could backfire by handing him exactly the external threat he needs to consolidate the right.
They disagree on the answer, and both concede the picture could shift within days depending on how far the sanctions are enforced.