Guinness World Records reject submissions from Israel

In a new sign of the widening circle of international isolation facing Israel, Hebrew Channel 12 revealed that Guinness World Records has decided to stop accepting any Israeli applications and to freeze all dealings with Israel.

The channel reported that an Israeli association working in the field of organ donation had submitted an application to register a record relating to the number of kidney donors in Israel reaching 2,000 over the past few years, but the official response from the organisation was:

We are not currently processing applications for record registration from Israel.

Israel boycott escalates

This decision, which Guinness has not yet officially commented on, arguably reflects a widening wave of global boycott of Israel in the wake of the two-year war in Gaza that began on 8 October 2023, which has been internationally described as ‘genocide’ It led to the deaths of more than 70,000 Palestinians and the injury of about 171,000, most of them children and women.

The Guinness decision comes as the latest in a series of international measures against Israel, including:

• An academic boycott after dozens of universities and student unions around the world announced they were withdrawing their cooperation with Israeli institutions.
• A sports boycott, with the cancellation or suspension of Israeli participation in international events and the refusal to host Israeli teams.
• A cultural and artistic boycott, with international artists withdrawing and refusing to participate in Israeli-sponsored events.
• International legal action by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged last September, for the first time, that Israel was entering “a kind of isolation,” calling for “reliance on a more self-sufficient domestic economy,” in a rare admission of the extent of the decline in its international image.

Political and economic repercussions

Given they haven’t officially commented yet, it’s uncertain whether Guinness’ decision is a political one. However, clearly, Israel’s isolation on every level, social, cultural, academic, economic is amassing more supporters. If only politicians could wake up and see what the rest of the world can see.

Featured image via the Canary