Tech CEO says foreign investment in Israeli companies threatened by government’s legal plans

High-tech CEO and protest leader Eynat Guez says that foreign investment into Israeli companies, a key ingredient to Israel’s high-tech sector’s success, will be threatened if Israel’s democracy crumbles.

Citing $54 billion as the amount of foreign money invested in Israel in the last 3 years, Guez says that the government’s quest to quash court independence and power may threaten continued interest from investors.

“Without democracy, that $54 billion won’t be here and the tens of thousands of workers who joined high tech won’t be here,” Guez tells protesters on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street.

“These workers aren’t only the State of Tel Aviv,” but rather women, minorities, and people who live in Israel’s peripheral communities, she adds.

Guez, who leads Papaya and is a key leader of the growing high-tech protest movement, says that investors ask, “What’s going on here, is Israeli democracy really in danger? This is a real alarm.”

“No wealth holder will put money in a state where democracy is crumbling,” she adds. “The start-up nation without democracy can’t exist.”