Israel continues to increase trade with Arab and Muslim world

Despite calls by Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and others for the European Union to reconsider its trade relations with Israel due to its continued offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli foreign trade data during the first nine months of this year indicates a growth in the occupation state’s trade with Arab countries and 14 other member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). This contradicts popular calls to boycott the products of countries that support Israel. It is arguably more important to boycott Israeli products, as the imports of the 19 countries mentioned in the Israeli data was valued at $2.3 billion.

Major parties in Ireland have called for a ban on imports of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land. Ireland is one of Israel’s main trading partners, ranking 8th in the list.

We have not heard any similar calls from parties in Egypt regarding the expansion of Egyptian trade with Israel during the war in Gaza and supplying it with vegetables and fruits to compensate for the impact on Israeli agriculture due to the shortage of workers. Egypt also supplies Israel with cement to compensate for the shortage of Turkish cement.

Turkiye is almost the only Islamic country that has announced a ban on exports to Israel.

In April, it listed 54 items, including aviation fuel, iron, flat steel, marble and ceramics, despite the trade surplus it has achieved with Israel for years and despite suffering from a chronic trade deficit. The government in Ankara followed this by halting exports and imports of goods with Israel in May, after the results of the municipal elections in which the ruling party’s share of the vote fell. This meant that Turkish foreign trade data for the first nine months of this year lacked any exports or imports to or from Israel between June and September, meaning that the value of Turkish exports to Israel during that period decreased by 65 per cent, and imports decreased by 55 per cent.

READ: Turkiye declares its customs system closed to trade with Israel

This was confirmed by Israeli data during the same nine months, indicating a decline in the value of Israeli exports to Turkiye by 32 per cent, and a decline in imports from Turkiye by 15 per cent. Turkiye’s ranking among Israeli export customers dropped from 10th place last year to 17th in the past nine months, while its position in Israeli import sources fell from 5th place last year to 13th. Its position in the overall list of Israeli trade fell from 5th place last year to 15th place this year, while Turkiye achieved a trade surplus in the data produced by both parties.

The Israeli trade data included five Arab countries: the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain, and it indicated that the value of Israeli trade with Bahrain increased tenfold, Morocco by 53 per cent, Egypt by 52 per cent and the UAE by 4 per cent. It fell slightly with Jordan by one per cent due to a decrease in Jordanian imports from Israel, despite an increase in Israeli exports by 45 per cent. The value of total Israeli trade with the five countries rose to $3.4bn, a growth of 12 per cent.

The Israeli data also included its trade activity with 14 other member states of the OIC, which showed the value of trade with those countries, except Turkiye, increasing by 11 per cent. Trade with Albania increased fivefold, Uzbekistan by 65 per cent, Nigeria by 45 per cent, Azerbaijan by 34 per cent and Indonesia by 25 per cent, while the value of trade with Malaysia, Cameroon, Senegal, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda fell.

Hence, business between the 19 most prominent Arab and Islamic countries and Israel increased.

This helped to alleviate the crisis of Israeli foreign trade figures. Israel’s exports decreased by six per cent during the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period last year, and the value of its imports decreased by five per cent.

While the value of Israeli trade during the nine months with the 19 Arab and Islamic countries amounted to about $7bn, making up 10 per cent of total Israeli trade with the world during those months, the Arab and Islamic share is actually greater than that, as the announced data did not include the value of trade exchange with the rest of the 57 OIC countries. In addition, there are big differences between the trade figures according to the Israeli data, which is less, and that of the Arab countries, which is more, as the value of trade announced by the Egyptian side was much higher than what the Israeli data announced for trade between the two sides.

While Egyptian data issued for its foreign trade covered up to July, trade with Israel during the first seven months of the current calendar year amounted to $1.883bn, distributed between Egyptian exports worth $155m and imports worth $1.728bn. This enabled Israel to rank 9th on the list of countries from which Egypt imports goods, while the total trade between the two countries, according to Israeli data for the same seven months, was only $431m, divided between Israeli exports to Egypt worth $242m, and imports from Egypt worth $189m.

Data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) in Cairo showed details of goods traded between the two countries during those seven months. Egypt exported to Israel TV screens worth $30m; cement worth $29m; fertilisers worth $16.5m; fruit and vegetables worth $12m; polyethylene powders worth $6m; orange juice worth $4m; clothing worth $3m; and aluminium alloy bars worth $2m, as well as paper packaging, pants, glass panels, floor coverings, aromatic plants and hookah tobacco.

Egyptian imports from Israel during those nine months amounted to $1.728bn, of which natural gas accounted for 96 per cent, with a value of $1.664bn. The rest included $31m for diesel fuel and $19m for fabrics and padding imported by Egyptian ready-made garment producers to use in their products exported to the US. The Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) Protocol requires Egyptian exports to include 10.5 per cent Israeli components in order to obtain customs exemption upon entering the US. Hence, threads, dyes, plastics and paper boxes used in the ready-made garment industry are imported from Israel.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Arabi21 on 3 November 2024

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