Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, announced it has sold all of its shares in an Israeli telecommunications company as it provides telecoms services to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In its recommendation, released late on Tuesday, the fund’s watchdog said it was divesting from Bezeq, the Zionist entity’s largest telecoms group.
“The company, through its physical presence and provision of telecom services to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, is helping to facilitate the maintenance and expansion of these settlements, which are illegal under international law,” the recommendation read.
“By doing so the company is itself contributing to the violation of international law,” it added, according to Reuters news agency.
The $1.8 trillion fund has been an international leader in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment field. It owns 1.5% of the world’s listed shares across 8,700 companies, and its size carries influence.
The watchdog said it noted that the company had said it was also providing telecoms services to Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank, but that did not outweigh the fact that it was also providing services to Israeli settlements.
The watchdog makes recommendations to the board of the Norwegian Central Bank, which has the final say on divestments.
The fund has now sold all its stock in the company.
Before that, it had cut its stake during the first half of 2024, owning 0.76% of the company’s shares valued at $23.7 million at the end of June, down from a holding of 2.2% at the start of the year, fund data showed.
The watchdog’s new definition of ethical breaches was partly based on the International Court of Justice finding in July that “the occupation itself, Israel’s settlement policy and the way Israel uses the natural resources in the areas are in conflict with international law”, according to an August 30 letter it addressed to the finance ministry.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the council had been investigating whether more companies fall outside its permitted investment guidelines.
Before the announcement to divest, the fund had divested from nine companies operating in the occupied West Bank.
Their operations include building roads and homes in Israeli settlements in East Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the West Bank and providing surveillance systems for an Israeli wall around the occupied West Bank.
Source: Reuters news agency (edited by Al-Manar English Website)
