Europe, Israel, and the Quiet Verdict of CES 2026
Standfirst
In moments of global uncertainty, markets have a way of revealing truths that politics obscures. The reception of Israeli innovation at CES 2026 was not loud or polemical; it was organic, crowded, curious, and decisive. It offered a calm but unmistakable verdict on Europe’s recent flirtation with boycotts—and on where resilience, renewal, and technological seriousness truly reside.
My expectations of CES 2026 are scale, spectacle, and the familiar hum of global tech optimism. After all, this year’s show was always destined to be a milestone – a dress rehearsal, perhaps, for the grand 60th anniversary in 2027. What I did not expect was how instructive the Israeli pavilion would become, not merely as a showcase of innovation, but as a quiet referendum on the moral and strategic confusion now gripping parts of Europe.
From the first morning in Las Vegas, it was impossible to miss. Crowds flowed – then stalled – around the Israeli stands. Investors leaned in. Engineers lingered. Executives returned for second conversations. It was not performative solidarity, nor ideological tourism. It was demand. Plain, unsentimental demand for solutions that work.
And that, I think, is where the story begins.
CES is not a protest rally. It is not a diplomatic salon. It is a proving ground – run by engineers, capital allocators, and operators who are paid to distinguish substance from symbolism. When Israel Export Institute reported thousands of visitors and hundreds of business meetings at the national pavilion, it was not a public-relations flourish. It was a data point.
Israeli companies arrived with market-ready technologies: ultra-low-power edge AI chips, non-invasive diagnostics, advanced sensors, AR platforms, manufacturing intelligence, and safety systems designed for the real world. These were not speculative demos. They were deployable answers to problems that governments, hospitals, cities, and industries actually face.
What struck me most was the mood. There was no defiance in the air, no sense of grievance. Instead, there was calm confidence – born, perhaps, of a nation that has long understood that innovation is not a branding exercise but a survival skill.
In that sense, CES 2026 became an inadvertent counter-conference to Europe’s recent boycott theater.
It is hard not to contrast Las Vegas with Paris, Rotterdam, or Dublin.
France’s decision to obscure Israeli defense exhibitors behind a literal black curtain at the Paris Air Show; the Netherlands’ exclusion of Israeli firms from its flagship defense exhibition; Ireland’s unprecedented legislative boycott of Israeli goods – these moves were framed as moral statements. Yet at CES, their hollowness was exposed without a single speech.
Markets have little patience for selective outrage. They do not reward virtue signaling. They reward capability.
While European governments debated who should be excluded, American, Asian, and Middle Eastern executives were asking Israeli founders a far simpler question: Can this help us solve a problem – now? The answer, repeatedly, was yes.
This is not to say Europe does not still work with Israel. Quietly, it does – often through back channels, third-party contracts, and regulatory exceptions. But that is precisely the point. Europe’s boycotts are performative at the surface and pragmatic underneath. CES merely stripped away the performance.
One of the more telling examples on display was Israeli safety technology designed to prevent tragedies at mass events – systems that function when cellular networks fail, when panic disrupts protocols, when seconds matter. These are not “political” products. They are civic infrastructure.
The same is true across sectors. Israeli digital health tools are not about nationalism; they are about early detection and access. Semiconductor innovations are not ideological statements; they are the backbone of AI sovereignty. Cybersecurity platforms protect European automakers even as European ministries posture against Israel.
This is the paradox Europe has yet to resolve: it wants the benefits of Israeli innovation without the discomfort of acknowledging the source.
At CES, that contradiction simply dissolved. The show floor does not care where your passport is from. It cares whether your product works.
It may seem odd to mention aerial defense in the same breath as consumer technology, but in Israel, the continuum is natural. The same ecosystem that produced the Iron Beam laser defense system – now formally operational – also produces edge AI chips and safety wearables.
This is not coincidence. It is systems thinking born of constraint.
Israel’s defense innovations are often misunderstood as expressions of militarism. In reality, they are expressions of restraint. A laser interceptor that costs pennies per shot exists so that escalation does not. A safety platform that restores visibility exists so that chaos does not. The logic is consistent across domains.
What CES revealed is that global markets intuitively grasp this logic, even when political elites pretend not to.
There is something deeply unglamorous about resilience. It is not announced; it is practiced. It shows up year after year, product after product, even when conditions are hostile.
Many of the Israeli entrepreneurs in Las Vegas had spent months in reserve duty since October 7. Fundraising rounds were paused. Roadmaps were rewritten. And yet, there they were – pitching, refining, collaborating. Not as heroes, but as professionals.
That, to me, is the real story. Resilience is not a slogan. It is the discipline of continuing to build when applause is uncertain.
Europe’s boycotts misunderstand this entirely. They assume that exclusion weakens. In Israel’s case, it clarifies. It sharpens focus. It accelerates diversification toward partners who value outcomes over optics.
CES 2026 welcomed 148,000 attendees, thousands of senior executives, and more than 4,100 exhibitors. In that vast ecosystem, no one was obligated to stop at the Israeli pavilion. They did so voluntarily – repeatedly.
That is the verdict that matters.
Not because it humiliates Europe, but because it exposes a choice. Europe can continue to indulge in symbolic exclusions that satisfy domestic audiences while eroding strategic relevance. Or it can re-engage seriously with a country whose innovations it already relies on, whether it admits it or not.
Innovation ecosystems are not moral courts. They are evolutionary systems. They select for adaptability, depth, and delivery. By that measure, Israel is not merely surviving boycotts; it is outgrowing them.
As 2026 CES winds up, I kept thinking about how renewal actually happens. It is not triggered by declarations. It emerges when systems align – talent, capital, urgency, and purpose.
Israel’s reception in Las Vegas was not about sympathy. It was about alignment. Global challenges – AI governance, health access, infrastructure safety, energy resilience – require precisely the kind of integrative thinking Israel has been forced to cultivate.
Europe’s current posture risks sidelining itself from that conversation. Not because Israel needs Europe less, but because Europe needs renewal more.
In the end, CES 2026 did not shout. It did something more consequential: it paid attention.
While some European capitals continue to argue about who should be excluded from exhibitions, the global innovation community is already moving on – toward solutions, partnerships, and builders who refuse to be frozen in yesterday’s arguments.
Israel stood in Las Vegas not as a petitioner, but as a contributor. Calm. Focused. Undeniable.
That is resilience and renewal in their most practical form. And that is what it really means to be innovating the future of Israel – quietly, persistently, and in full view of a world that, whatever its politics, still knows value when it sees it.
- James Ogunleye, PhD, is the founder and editor of RenewingIsrael.org.
- A similar version of this essay appears in Resilience & Renewal: The Future of Israel, available on Amazon.