Calmer heads in Israel agree. They warn that EU countries more critical of Israel, especially Sweden, Ireland and Slovenia, will soon have a greater weight in discussions about whether and how to sanction Israel.
But Brexit should be a wake-up call to Israel for another reason. It is the latest symptom of a backlash among western voters against political elites seen as distant and unaccountable.
The anger has been directed not only at supranational bodies such as the EU but at domestic politics too. It is reflected in polarized debates about issues that were once embraced by a safe consensus, as well as the rise of radical challengers, of the right and left, to the old order.
In Britain, the established left and right are beset by insurrections: Jeremy Corbyn has fought to make the Labour Party more accountable to its base, while the right has been destabilized by the rapid rise of the anti-immigrant party, UKIP.
Parallel developments are obvious in other European states -- and in the United States. Donald Trump successfully smashed the rule of the Republican establishment, and Bernie Sanders came within a hair's breadth of doing the same to the Democrats.
This has revived an interest in politics among those who long felt disempowered. In the long run, that can only be harmful to Israel.
Surveys have repeatedly shown that western voters deeply distrust Israel, with only North Korea and Iran more disliked. The conflict with the Palestinians is seen as a sore fueling an Islamic extremism that poses an ever greater threat.
The grass roots boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has bypassed local politicians. It is slowly turning the Palestinians into a cause for international solidarity equivalent to the popular campaign against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.
Brexit is a warning sign that western leaders will pay a price if they continue overlooking popular concerns. Israel would be foolish to assume that it can remain immune indefinitely from the upheavals consuming Europe and the US.
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