In 2004, as director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I went on a consultation tour in the Middle East. I was supposed to fly from Syria to Israel, where I would join Adam D. Rotfeld, who, as State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was to hold talks there. After the meetings in Damascus, I went to the airport under the care of our embassy staff. There, at the registration desk for a flight with Cypriot airlines to Larnaca (in Cyprus), I showed my ticket (then, air tickets were printed like booklets). But the lady at the check-in reacted with deadly seriousness after a while: “You will not fly to Larnaca on this ticket.” “But why, madam?” “Because the ticket contains on the same page where is your destination, i.e. Larnaca, also the name of a place that does not exist. As a result, the entire ticket is no longer valid”. “But why? Why?” – I continued to inquire tirelessly. With no result.
It turned out that the “non-existent” place on my ticket was Tel Aviv, where I was supposed to fly to from Larnaca. We had to buy a new ticket on the Damascus-Larnaca route and I went on a further journey on the same flight. This is how I found out for myself that a political boycott can extend to the point of negating physical places on the world map.
I got to Tel Aviv safely. Kismet (or may be rather masir) wanted so, despite the discomfort and extra costs experienced on leaving Damascus.
The Arab boycott of Israel actually began before the proclamation of the State of Israel. Arab Palestinian organizations called for the economic sabotage of Jewish entrepreneurs in the mandate territory, wishing not only to stop the influx of Jewish settlers, but to force Jewish emigration, without much success, however. In December 1945, the newly established Arab League decreed a collective economic boycott. With the proclamation of Israel’s independence, this boycott took on a systemic character. It included the non-recognition of the State of Israel, the prohibition of air connections, the ban on flights of Israeli airlines over the territory of Arab states, the prohibition of third-country flights to and from Israel, and the interruption of land connections. A three-tier system of trade and economic boycott was introduced. There was a total ban on importing Israeli goods to Arab states. All third-country companies doing business in Israel were boycotted. And at the highest level, companies trading with companies engaged in business in Israel were blacklisted.
The Arab economic boycott crumbled over time, and since the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979, it proceeded to disintegrate step by step. After the 1994 treaty with Jordan, the boycott lost its systemic character. At that time, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf announced the end of the so-called secondary boycott. Abandoning boycott has become part of the normalization process in Israel’s bilateral relations. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia have either formally abolished it or declared its non-application. It was never used by Mauritania (although it boycotted Israel politically). However, the Arab League Boycott Office is still operational, and a dozen or so Arab states participate in regular coordination meetings. Syria remains the most intransigent boycott supporter.
However, the diplomatic boycott persists. Almost thirty UN member states still do not recognize Israel. This group includes not only Arab states, but also ten members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (including Iran, of course, but also Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia), not to mention Cuba, DPRK and Venezuela. For nearly forty years, Israel, due to the Islamic boycott, did not join any of the regional groups in the UN system (geographically its place would be the Asia-Pacific group). It was only at the beginning of this millennium that Israel was co-opted into the WEOG group (Western and European countries).
More than a dozen countries do not recognize Israeli passports, do not allow their citizens to travel to Israel, and do not even accept passports from third countries that have an Israeli entry stamp or an Israeli visa. Some do not allow Israeli athletes to participate in events on their territory, and if they do, they prohibit the display of the Israeli flag and the playing of its national anthem. Some even ban competing with Israeli athletes. There exists still a cultural and scientific boycott.
Nota bene, even in Egypt, where the Israeli embassy has operated for years, the Israeli flag could not always fly freely. I found out about this in 1995 when, as Head of Department at the OSCE Secretariat, I was organizing a Mediterranean Partnership seminar in Cairo. In the evening preceding the start of the conference, we inspected the meeting room (in a sealed-off part of a well-known western hotel chain). Everything was ok. We locked the room. The next morning a serious problem arose. The flag of Israel disappeared from the large display of state flags at the conference presidium (more than fifty flags of the OSCE countries plus six flags of the Mediterranean partners separately in alphabetical order). Without it, the Israeli delegation had the right not to want to start the event. After a long examination, we found however the flag somewhere. One of the insiders explained: “Let it hang, but not next to the flag of Egypt.” Not the flag itself was disturbing, but its presence next to the Arab flags.
Israel dealt effectively with the boycott. The economic dimension of the boycott did not do much damage, judging by the dynamics of development growth. The United States has consistently fought indirect boycotts of US companies doing business with Israel. Arab and Islamic states had to take this into account. By lifting Israel’s economic boycott in practice, they only benefited from it.
Not recognizing the existence of the State of Israel, created after all by the decision of the United Nations and being a member of the organization, is an extreme manifestation of political aversion, constipation and stubbornness. Its influence on Israeli policy was limited. It only justified the use of highly existential arguments in Israel’s policies. And the American political umbrella gave a sense of at least diplomatic security to Israel. Sooner or later, even the most hardened establishments in Arab and Islamic states must acknowledge the existence of Israel. No matter how durable the anti-Israel engram in the political and social identity of the Arabs turned out to be. In the symbolic sphere, a total boycott is an anachronism. Regardless of the political rationale, the severity of the dispute with Israel and the scale of disagreement with its current policy.
Turkey has never recognized the partitions of Poland, but this did not prevent it from maintaining relations or even making friends with Poland’s oppressors. The United States never recognized the incorporation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the USSR, but it did not forbid its citizens from traveling there.
A symptom of political schizophrenia is the vote by states that do not recognize the existence of Israel in favor of the resolutions (and even joining them on the basis of co-sponsorship), which condemn Israel at the UN forum. Because how logically is it possible to criticize something (someone) that does not exist?
