(JTA) — DETROIT – On paper, they were all competitors: Dozens of regional groups, many funded by their respective local governments, each one hoping to recruit Israeli businesses to grow their own economies.
But this week in Michigan, at the first-ever U.S.-Israel Innovation Exchange Summit, they all united with the common goal of promoting broader American business ties with Israel, in a political climate in which scaling back support for Israel is moving into the mainstream.
By conference’s end, the attendees had signed a memorandum of understanding pledging “to establish a framework for cooperation, information sharing, relationship development, and coordinated activities designed to strengthen economic, innovation, investment, and commercial relationships between the United States and Israel.”
The collaboration made sense to the Israeli officials on hand.
“So many states want Israeli businesses to come to their territory, because they understand that will lead economic growth in their state,” Elad Strohmayer, consul general of Israel to the Midwest, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the summit on Wednesday. “That’s the win-win that we’re trying to promote.”
The U.S. is also a dream destination for many Israeli businesses, he said. “If you’re an Israeli entrepreneur and you want to expand, the market in Israel is limited. Where do you want to expand? Of course, it’s the United States.”
After decades of largely unfettered growth in the U.S.-Israel business relationship, cracks are forming in several places. As the Michigan conference was unfolding, New York City’s Jewish and pro-Israel comptroller, Mark Levine, announced he would stop buying Israel bonds, citing the country’s declining credit ratings following the war in Gaza. Anti-Zionist groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, trumpeted the move as a victory for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, though Levine has denied that politics played a role.
Around 50 people had gathered from across the country and Israel for the summit, which organizers hope to become an annual event. In so doing, they seek to turn the tide on a trend that concerns many in the pro-Israel community: increased scrutiny, and protest, of American business ties to the country.
“This is, I think, a long time in coming,” Mark Davidoff, CEO of the Michigan Israel Business Accelerator, told JTA at the summit.
Overlooking sweeping views of the city’s skyline, presenter Zineb Riboua, a research fellow with the conservative Hudson Institute think tank, boasted that “Israeli companies sustain tens of thousands of jobs on U.S. soil.” Other speakers were particularly bullish on Israeli involvement in data centers, which have attracted immense controversy in the United States over environmental concerns as well as a brewing backlash to the technology companies they sustain. Many in the room, though, saw data center investments as a prime business opportunity.
Davidoff said that the Paul E. Singer Foundation, run by the pro-Israel hedge fund manager, approached MIBA to spearhead a collaborative effort “to share best practices” on attracting Israeli business.
The summit also has the backing of prominent Jewish and business leaders in Michigan and beyond. Gary Torgow, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, welcomed attendees to the conference held at the downtown Detroit headquarters of Huntington Bank, which he also chairs.
Detroit’s federation was another sponsor, along with several local economic development groups, Israeli universities and Israel’s Midwest consulate general. Chaim Martin, Israel’s economic attaché to the U.S. and an appointee of far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, was also in attendance.
Mounting a stand for pro-Israel business interests took on an especially defiant character in Michigan. Here, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other figures have activated a sizeable pro-Palestinian movement on multiple fronts — including the state’s economic interests. In the weeks leading up to the summit, MIBA itself had been the target of local protests.
A campaign called “MI Money Out Of MIBA,” whose member organizations include the Detroit chapter of JVP, has objected to the more than $5 million in public funds the group has received since 2018 to help bring business to the state. The protesters have particularly objected to MIBA’s connections to the defense industry.
“Our state should not be using any public funds to subsidize business with a country carrying out a genocide, apartheid, and occupation,” a petition backed by the anti-MIBA campaign and signed by more than 2,400 people to date reads. The effort was amplified by Palestinian-American U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, a strident Israel critic, who posted to social media earlier this month that the group “should not be receiving a dime of public funds.”
“When small businesses, many of them Black- and women-owned, are struggling in our state, there never seems to be money for them, but Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer has funding for bombs that kill children,” Tlaib wrote. “These weapons have been used to commit genocide and murder the family members and loved ones of so many of our neighbors.”
Davidoff fought back against Tlaib’s accusation. He told the Detroit News this week that the accelerator-connected Israeli company in question doesn’t deal in weaponry. Instead, he said, the business works in “counter-drone technology designed to protect critical infrastructure, first responders, and U.S. service members against hostile drone threats.”
That strategy, to directly respond to critics and misinformation, proved controversial among the rest of the pro-Israel business crowd at the summit. During one session, panelists sang the virtues of flying “under the radar.” Asked by a moderator how many members of the summit publicize the location of their events ahead of time, only two hands in the room went up.
In contrast, Davidoff hopes that, by being clearer about their investments and aims, pro-Israel business accelerators can set the record straight. MIBA does not invest directly in the Israeli government, he said, adding that it was important that others understand that.
“I think at some point, you don’t have a choice but to move a chess piece,” he told JTA. “Being silent too long is misinterpreted.” He declined to comment on the prospects for Michigan’s pro-Israel business community should El-Sayed win his Senate race.
Strohmayer, for his part, claimed during his session that “Israel is much stronger economically than it was before the war.” Partnerships with American interests are more about “fostering the relationship” than boosting Israel’s economy, he told the room — though his pitch wasn’t without a different kind of existential urgency.
“We need, with the rise of antisemitism, to remind people that Israel is a valuable partner to the United States,” he said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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