Across Europe, a quiet yet potent form of protest is taking root at concert venues, restaurants, supermarkets, holiday resorts, lecture halls, and even amusement parks: the deliberate shunning of Israelis and those seen as defending Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Unlike mass marches or economic boycotts, this phenomenon, known simply as “shunning,” does not usually manifest itself in loud confrontations or organised campaigns. Instead, it unfolds through subtle refusals: invitations withheld, doors closed, handshakes declined, collaborations quietly abandoned. It is an act of negation, but one heavy with meaning.
What makes it striking is that this practice has not been directed by governments or political parties. It has emerged spontaneously, a moral reflex among citizens who feel powerless to stop what human rights organisations have increasingly described as a genocidal war against the Palestinians.
At its core, shunning embodies a stark proposition: complicity in carrying out atrocities forfeits the claim to social acceptance. Tolerance is not the tolerance of the intolerable but the collective defence of shared moral boundaries.
This is why the practice resonates so deeply, since it bypasses abstract policy debates and operates in the intimate spaces of daily life where inclusion and exclusion carry profound weight.
Historically, shunning has deep roots. In antiquity, ostracism was a tool used to protect the moral fabric of the community. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that those who transgress fundamental norms could justifiably be excluded from the community, not as punishment, but as a defence of collective virtue.
The act was symbolic as much as practical and a reminder that the community’s survival depended on a shared code of conduct. Today’s European shunning of Israelis is not irrational hostility but a modern echo of an ancient principle – that there are boundaries beyond which social coexistence collapses.
The practice has taken hold largely because European governments have failed to act. Across Europe, leaders have refused to impose sanctions, suspend trade, or meaningfully pressure Israel despite unprecedented civilian casualties in Gaza.
In this vacuum of political will, citizens have turned to the only tools left to them: social and cultural ostracism. Shunning becomes, in their eyes, an act of conscience and a way to assert that those defending or enabling Israel’s campaigns cannot expect to be welcomed as ordinary participants in public life.
Last week in France, the director of the Tirofol Amusement Park refused entry to a group of 150 Israeli children booked for a zip-lining session. Initially citing personal convictions, he later claimed weather conditions as justification. He was arrested for discrimination, and the case has sparked intense debate over where conscience ends and unlawful exclusion begins.
In Dublin, an Israeli man dining at a Hardee’s restaurant was confronted with chants of “Zionists are not welcome in Ireland,” drawing condemnation from some political leaders who called it anti-Semitic.
In Spain, Israeli tourists in Vigo were expelled from a restaurant after accusations of complicity in killings, while others near Barcelona were jeered by bystanders. In Greece, activists have staged protests at tourist sites, with some cafés even displaying signs stating that “Israelis are not welcome.”
These are not isolated outbursts but are part of a wider cultural shift. In supermarkets across Europe, many shoppers scrutinise labels to avoid Israeli produce, and retailers, sensing the consumer mood, have quietly reduced imports.
Social media amplifies these gestures, with calls to avoid Israeli products or to boycott airlines servicing Tel Aviv circulating widely.
Universities, historically crucibles of political change, have become central to this development. Across the Netherlands, institutions including the Universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Tilburg, Eindhoven, and Nijmegen have suspended partnerships with Israeli universities, citing their links to Israeli military and occupation policies.
Similar moves have taken place in Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and Norway. Trinity College Dublin, the Universities of Geneva, Ghent, and KU Leuven, and the University of Barcelona have all scaled back academic collaborations.
Israeli scholars outside Israel also report a growing trend of being “cold shouldered,” as conference invitations are downgraded and collaborations quietly abandoned, which many attribute to the influence of campus protests.
The phenomenon is not confined to Europe. In the US, Harvard University recently published a report noting that Jewish and Israeli students often conceal their identities for fear of shunning.
Administrators described this exclusion as a form of anti-Semitism, while pro-Palestinian students countered that their actions were not about prejudice but principle: they refused to treat as “ordinary students” those who had served in an army accused of committing genocide.
On the cultural front, Israeli and Israel-sympathetic artists have also faced cancellations. In the UK, concerts by Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa, an Israeli singer and songwriter, were cancelled at venues like Bristol Beacon and Hackney Church following pressure campaigns by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement (BDS), with the artists denouncing the cancellations as “silencing.”
The Royal Opera cancelled its production of Puccini’s opera Tosca in Tel Aviv, citing safety concerns amid staff protests over collaboration with the Israelis.
Financial institutions are echoing this logic. On Sunday, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world with assets exceeding $2 trillion, divested from Caterpillar and five major Israeli banks, citing their involvement in human rights violations.
The fund noted that Caterpillar equipment had been used in the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza and the West Bank, while the banks had provided financial services that enabled settlement construction in the Occupied Territories.
The decision followed the fund’s earlier move to sell stakes in 11 Israeli companies and underscores its increasing reliance on ethical guidelines to avoid financial entanglements in activities it deems to be systematic violations of international law, particularly in relation to the escalating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
The philosophical questions regarding shunning were also brought to life recently in a public debate between two prominent American intellectuals, Norman Finkelstein, a political scientist known for his sharp critiques of Israeli policy, and Cornel West, a philosopher and activist.
Finkelstein argued forcefully that offering platforms to the perpetrators of, or apologists for, genocide risks normalising atrocities. For him, there must be moral red lines that society refuses to cross. Shunning is not about censorship but about moral integrity, he said, and a refusal to betray the victims by legitimising their oppressors.
West, while sharing the outrage at the Israeli crimes, insisted that dialogue, even with those complicit in atrocities, can be a tool for transformation. He warned that shunning risks entrenching people in ideological “echo chambers,” preventing the possibility of moral change.
The audience at the debate overwhelmingly favoured Finkelstein’s moral clarity: genocide, as the ultimate crime, cannot be relativised by dialogue. West’s position, though upright in its democratic faith, struck many as politically pragmatic but morally compromised.
The shunning phenomenon suggests that many Europeans increasingly view the refusal to engage in everyday activities with those accused of being complicit in genocide to be a moral responsibility and not a violation of democratic norms.
The parallels with Apartheid South Africa are striking, since in 1970s and 1980s cultural, academic, and consumer shunning helped to isolate the regime internationally. While Western governments often hesitated, citizens and grassroots movements led the moral charge, refusing to normalise relationships with a state built on systemic violence and contributing to Apartheid’s eventual collapse in the early 1990s.
Today, the shunning of Israel is taking shape as a comparable moral practice. From everyday choices in shops to the refusal to welcome Israelis in restaurants, cafés, parks, or at cultural events, these gestures collectively convey a clear message: one cannot participate in, or remain silent about, genocide and still expect ordinary treatment in Europe.
What Israel confronts is not merely political criticism but a profound moral reckoning. While European governments may offer diplomatic protection, ordinary citizens increasingly perceive the country’s actions as a betrayal of fundamental human values.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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