A Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) protest against Israel in Melbourne, Australia, on June 5, 2010. Credit: Mohamed Ouda via Wikimedia Commons.

Senior Israeli government officials recently asserted that despite calls for the boycotting of Israel in Europe and the United States, investment rates, exports and the Jewish state’s hi-tech industry have been unaffected, Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported on Thursday.

Furthermore, the international anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement has suffered a number of setbacks over the last few weeks, Ma’ariv said.

Europe’s largest student organization announced this week that it opposes the boycotting of any Israeli products, including those produced in disputed territories situated over the Green Line.

Other blows to the global effort to delegitimize Israel include the England’s Supreme Court ruling a few weeks ago that the economic activity of businesses located over the Green Line does not violate international law. A court in France issued a similar ruling and at the same time, two European Union leaders – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Parliament President Martin Schulz – announced their opposition to the boycott of Israel.

Israeli political insiders also note that even the normally hostile Norwegian government had a change of heart following the recent election of a more pro-Israel administration that is not fixated on the so-called “Palestinian issue,” Ma’ariv said.

As a result of these developments, senior Israeli officials reject the gloom-and-doom predictions that Israel is on its way to becoming a global pariah, like South Africa in the 1980s.

The government sources told Ma’ariv that in the case of Apartheid South Africa, as well as Iran more recently, the United Nations Security Council played a pivotal role in isolating these countries. However, in the case of Israel, “The U.S. will never allow it to be boycotted by the U.N. Security Council.”

Some analysts have predicted that if the talks currently taking place between Israel and the Palestinian Authority fail to deliver peace, calls to punish Israel economically and diplomatically may intensify.

Still, Israeli government officials appear to be unconcerned by such worst-case scenarios, Ma’ariv reported.

“We have been dealing with this phenomenon for over a decade,” said one source. “There are many activities that we conduct all over the world that the general public does not know about. Israeli embassies track the activities of these [BDS] organizations. We frequently frustrate their planned provocations through our contacts across various university campuses [and] local Jewish communities… This is all part of our long-term strategic plan of action.”