Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund divests from Israeli energy company

Move comes days after country’s biggest union group voted overwhelmingly for complete boycott

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has announced its divestment from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy because they Israeli firm supplies fuel to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.⁠ This is the fund’s second such divestment – after its ethics body’s decision to sell all the fund’s shares in Israel’s largest telecoms group Bezeq and take a tougher stance on investments that aid Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. The decision comes just days after LO, Norway’s trade union congress – whose membership represents about a fifth of Norway’s population and which wields considerable political influence – voted overwhelmingly for a complete boycott of Israel.

Norway’s fund, worth US$1.8 trillion, is the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world. In a statement on its decision, the fund’s Council on Ethics said:

By operating infrastructure for the supply of fuel to the Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Paz is contributing to their perpetuation,” the Council on Ethics said in its recommendation to divest.⁠

The settlements have been established in violation of international law, and their perpetuation constitutes an ongoing violation thereof.

It comes after a similar decision was made in December to sell all shares in Israel’s largest telecoms group, Bezeq, over its involvement in the occupied territories.⁠

Norway, which like most of the world’s nations has recognised Palestinian statehood, has condemned Israel’s ongoing slaughter of more than 200,000 mostly women and children in Gaza and its starvation blockade of around two million survivors, which has pushed at least 300,000 children to the brink of death, as “unconscionable and deeply illegal”.⁠

The Israel lobby in Norway and internationally has been surprisingly quiet about the fund’s decision and has not issued its usual denunciations, presumably not wishing to draw attention to the move.

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