I’ve read some frankly sickening schadenfreude in the Israeli press at Cape Towns water issues. There’s a twisted delight that SA are suffering after their embargo on some trade with Israel, in objection to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Whilst I like Lauder’s (apparent) stance on water being a conduit to peace - some other people seem more keen to link Israeli water-tech to Israeli nationalism. I’m all for water building bridges but if it’s to airbrush Israel’s frankly disgusting treatment of Palestinians then i’m not so happy.
It might not be great for my wallet in this instance, but i’m all for South Africa or any country objecting to this kind of behaviour by another and using their trade might, such as it is, to pressure for political change. They know an apartheid when they see one, and i’m fine with countries showing support for Palestinians in this way. It’s not racial, it’s totally political. Israel of course has a right to exist and defend itself, but in many peoples eyes it has gone beyond that. As investors in an Israeli company (to an extent) we must accept some risks like this.
People boycotted (rightly, in my opinion) SA produce through their apartheid, and the same is true of Israel today. I’m not keen on taking this thread off on a political tangent but I wanted to at least push back a bit on some of the one-sided media articles already linked to on this thread.
I have my political biases and so will others. Trying to look at this situation from a purely neutral FLC-investor perspective however, I think we might need to factor in some risks like this. In trying to sell to governments or government entities across the globe, we might come into contact with geopolitical objections whether we are regarded as an Israeli company, a US company, an Australian company, or even a Chinese company. We will also gain advantages for the same reasons (i.e. China’s evident preference for Israeli tech).
In SA, I would add that the use of Niroboxes (Nirosoft being an Israeli entity, and the boxes being produced there) at Richards Bay would seem to rebder a lot of this moot. Just people with political agendas using the Cape Town crisis to point-score which is neither helpful or edifying.
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