Daniel Ahlgren (CC BY 3.0)
On November 14, 2024, the Japanese tire manufacturer Yokohama Rubber Company issued a press release announcing the closure of its factory in Hadera, Israel, by the year’s end. Yokohama had entered the Israeli market with its acquisition of the Alliance Tire Company in 2016, per the latter’s website, but was now shuttering the factory—which employed nearly 500 workers and was in operation for more than seventy years—due to “conversion costs in Israel [becoming] uncompetitive” and “severely increasing the relative production costs affecting [its] exports.”
While Yokohama framed the closure of the Hadera factory in apolitical terms, activists like those with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which advocates economic opposition to the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupation of Palestine more broadly, describe the company’s departure from Israel as a victory for the Palestinian liberation movement. They may have legitimate cause to claim this victory: Throughout the history of international boycott movements, such as that against apartheid in South Africa from the 1940s to 1990s, companies have bowed to activist pressure while obscuring their rationale for doing so.
“The departure of companies like Yokohama points to underlying vulnerabilities in Israel’s economic environment, exacerbated by political instability and international criticism of its treatment of Palestinians,” Omar Barghouti, cofounder of BDS, tells The Progressive. “These conditions make Israel a much less attractive place for investment and business.”
Yokohama bills itself the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural tires, and prior to the closure of its sole Israeli factory in Hadera, the company was the leading exporter of goods from Israel to the United States by number of shipments, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), which aggregates data to offer insight into international trade. Shipping data compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and provided by OEC to The Progressive details Yokohama’s exports from Israel to the United States. In 2023—the last full year for which data is available—Yokohama was responsible for more than 400 shipments of tires and related equipment from Israel to the United States, accounting for more than 1 percent of all shipments.
Yokohama failed to respond to multiple requests for comment from The Progressive.
Although Yokohama’s press release makes no mention of it, the closure of the Hadera factory coincides with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, including 17,000 children, according to the Palestinan Ministry of Health as cited by Al Jazeera. These figures may represent a significant undercount as bodies continue to be unearthed in the rubble of demolished buildings, according to a recent study published by The Lancet.
In response to the genocide in Gaza, militants from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have attacked Israel and its trading partners, disrupting domestic production and international trade. In addition to these security concerns, there are critical legal considerations, as corporate watchdogs like the Dutch nongovernmental organization SOMO warn that companies doing business in Israel may be liable for gross human rights abuses following the International Court of Justice’s finding that Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. A criminal complaint filed by SOMO against Booking.com for marketing illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory in the West Bank is currently making its way through the courts in the Netherlands.
Opponents of the Israeli genocide and occupation, such as BDS, describe economic opposition as an effective means of challenging both—regardless of whether or not companies like Yokohama admit to their influence. The company was not singled out as a boycott target by BDS, but nevertheless succumbed to generalized opposition to the genocide and occupation, according to Barghouti.
“While the BDS movement or global boycotts were not explicitly cited by Yokohama, its departure from Israel aligns with the broader impact of sustained and increasing global solidarity with the 2.3 million Palestinians facing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the 3.3 million Palestinians facing Israel’s massacres and gradual ethnic cleansing in the West Bank,” he says. “Each corporate withdrawal underscores the economic and reputational risks, as well as criminal liability, of operating in Israel amid its ongoing crimes against Palestinians, including illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide.”
BDS is explicitly inspired by the earlier boycott movement against apartheid in South Africa, which activists describe as comparable to the conditions Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem have faced since Israel’s occupation of those three Palestinian territories began in 1967. According to Peter Cole, a professor of history at Western Illinois University who has written about the anti-apartheid movement, that movement’s history also suggests that success should be measured by what companies do, rather than how they explain their actions.
“I suspect that no corporations withdrew from South Africa due to ‘general economic conditions,’ ” Cole tells The Progressive. “Rather, every non-South African corporation that withdrew from South Africa or changed its practices there was due to pressure from unions, student groups, churches, and others, both internally and externally.”
“Of course, executives of companies and their boards of directors hate to admit they might be capitulating to external pressure,” he adds.
Yokohama is not alone in reconsidering the sustainability of Israel’s economy, as Barghouti points out. In May of 2024, more than 100 Israeli economists published an open letter warning of the country’s “national collapse” due to unsustainable economic and military policies. In their latest assessments, credit rating agencies Moody’s and S&P Global also reiterated their negative outlook on the Israeli economy, anticipating government debt rising to 70 percent of gross domestic product with near zero real GDP growth in 2024.
“Companies are clearly weighing their priorities and finding that association with Israel’s actions carries significant reputational, legal and operational risks,” says Barghouti. “Investing in Israel is not only morally wrong and legally risky, it is now also financially reckless.”