It’s hard for me to write this, not only because it’s illegal to call for a boycott under Israeli law, but also because the ones who will suffer from this boycott will be also my family and I. But unfortunately, there is no other choice.

More than a year has passed, a year where the roar of jet engines from fighter planes replaced the chirping of birds. A year in which the State of Israel, the place where I was born, the place where I raised my children in, took far too many steps towards the abyss from which there is no return.

For Israelis, this year boils down to one day. October 7, 2023. The TV channels have not stopped, even for a single day, telling the story of that day, talking about its victims and stories of heroism, while almost completely ignoring the horrors of the war in Gaza, that began then but continues to this day.

That day, has apparently become the point of no return for the loss of “Israeliness” as I thought existed.

In the past year, the State of Israel has lost its remaining sense of direction. Even before, we were an occupying country, sometimes abusive, a country that abandoned democratic practices in the West Bank and quickly moved towards abandoning them in its own sovereign territories, but today the situation is more dire than ever.

From a country that aspired for peace (at least part of it), a country that valued life, we have turned into a country that is an agent of death. Where its media outlets ignore images of suffering and dying children in Gaza, but proudly displays the mutilated body of Yahya Sinwar without blurring it. A country whose citizens celebrate the death of an enemy while 101 hostages remain captive.

And the one who successfully rides this wave of hate is prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who believes that his personal benefit is the benefit of the state, a criminal defendant who is willing to sacrifice every value and every person to cling to power. This is why, even after the elimination of Sinwar and the defeat of Hamas, he has no intention of advancing a deal that would bring about the release of the hostages alongside an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. His religious coalition partners and many of his own party members, want to rebuild the settlements in Gaza that were evacuated in 2005; they want to conquer, not to release the hostages. Some of them have already started talking about establishing settlements in southern Lebanon – that’s their goal: eternal war, more and more conquests.

That is the goal of the war now – to conquer and settle, not to defend, and certainly not to bring about the release of the hostages.

The Israeli public is too frustrated, too pained, too hateful to stop this. Even the opposition is weak, fearful, and ineffective. The only way to create significant pressure that will force the Israeli government to change its policy must come from the outside. First and foremost, a broad arms embargo as wide as possible. Israel should be entitled to defensive weapons to help protect its citizens from ballistic missiles and drones fired at us from Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, but in the current situation, it deserves to have as few offensive missiles and shells as possible, which too often hit civilians, not enemies.

But that’s not enough. The pressure must also be on the civil society – on us! It’s hard for me to write this, not only because it’s illegal to call for a boycott under Israeli law, but also because the ones who will suffer from this boycott will be also my family and I. But unfortunately, there is no other choice. In order to save Israel, participation of Israeli sports clubs and national teams in European and international sports events and leagues, must be suspended – no more Euroleague no more Eurovision, no more Horizon 2020, no more academic collaborations – boycott!

Yes, it will be a harsh blow to my beloved basketball team, to my daughter who loves the Eurovision, and to many left-wing people who are part of the academia and the Israeli business community, but with no ability to influence from within, we must support every bit of pressure that can be applied from the outside.

Leaders of the European Union, European countries, leaders of international sports and cultural organisations, it depends on you. Israel is not Russia; it’s a small country where sports, cultural, economic, and academic isolation will be far more difficult, too difficult to bear. Sadly, this difficulty is the only way right now to forcibly steer Israel back to the path of sanity and preserve the hope for a better future – for the Israelis, for the Palestinians, and for the entire region.

This article was written by an Israeli citizen who preferred that his real name was not revealed due to security reasons

Do you want to be informed of DiEM25's actions? Sign up here