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2 Israeli tech firms to pull funds out of the country, citing risk posed by Netanyahu government
(JTA) — The Israeli founder of an international payroll company that provides services to Toyota and Microsoft has announced that she will move her company’s money out of Israel over concerns about its new right-wing government.
Eynat Guez, a co-founder and CEO of Papaya Global, which was valued at $3.7 billion in 2021, made the announcement Thursday on Twitter. Her announcement came the morning after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his government’s proposed judiciary reforms and after weeks of mounting warnings, from within Israel and abroad, that the reforms could harm Israel’s credit rating. Netanyahu dismissed those warnings on Wednesday as overblown.
“Following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements that he is determined to pass reforms that will harm democracy and the economy, we made a business decision at Papaya Global to withdraw all of the company’s funds from Israel,” Guez tweeted on Thursday morning. “In the emerging reform, there is no certainty that we can conduct international economic activity from Israel. This is a painful but necessary business step.”
Guez has emerged as a leader within Israel’s vaunted tech sector in protests against the new government, speaking at a rally of tech workers in Tel Aviv that took place last weekend amid protests around the country. The rallies are largely focused on the governing coalition’s judiciary proposals, including legislation that would allow the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to overrule Supreme Court decisions.
In her speech, Guez said she had been encouraged to raise money for Papaya Global from the United States, a common step for Israeli firms, but had resisted because she wanted to live in Israel and raise her children there, the way her parents had after immigrating from their birthplaces in Morocco and Tunisia.
She also noted that $54 billion in capital from abroad had been invested in Israeli companies in the past three years. “Without a democracy, we’d never have these $54 billion,” she said. “And not the tens of thousands of employees who joined the high-tech sector in recent years.”
Guez said foreign investors had been calling with concern about whether Israel’s democracy was crumbling. “Just like in Brazil, Venezuela and Hungary, no leading investor or financial institute will let his billions stay in a country with a crumbling democracy,” she said. She added, “Let’s say this loud and clear: Startup Nation without a democracy cannot stand.”
A second, smaller Israeli tech company is also moving its bank accounts out of Israel, according to the Israeli tech publication Calcalist. The firm, Disruptive AI, raises money for artificial intelligence startups and manages $250 million in funds.
Guez did not further explain Papaya’s business decision on Thursday and how it would affect the company or its employees. The company, which says it manages more than $3 billion in payroll for companies in 160 countries, entered the ranks of Israel’s “unicorn” tech firms in early 2021, meaning that it was valued at over $1 billion. It raised $250 million against a valuation of $3.7 billion later that year.
Israel’s tech sector has been experiencing the same downturn as the global tech sector, in which sweeping layoffs have been taking place in recent weeks. Last year was the worst since 2014 for the number of Israeli companies being acquired or going public.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.