The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund has been busy divesting from Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East – but it has no problem plowing cash into some of the world’s worst dictatorships, On The Money has learned.
Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the vast assets of oil-rich Norway, has around $2 trillion in assets, making it a market powerhouse.
In recent weeks, Norges has chosen to unwind investments in 11 Israeli companies and canceled follow-through plans to invest in five more. It even divested from the US company Caterpillar because Israel uses its bulldozers to clean up the rubble from the war in Gaza.
Yet, these niggling Norwegian virtue signalers have no problem propping up businesses in despotic regimes that include China, Qatar and Turkey.
According to its latest annual report, Norges has made significant investments in the place that’s imprisoning the Uyghur minority and runs the world’s largest surveillance state, China.
It also has holdings in Russian companies. A country, last time I checked, continues to bomb civilian targets in its war of aggression against Ukraine.
A fund spokeswoman says those investments have been frozen since 2022 when the conflict began and are now being divested. Still, Qatar is also on its investment list despite harboring Hamas’ political arm.
Turkey, meanwhile, has a history of human rights abuses going back to the Armenian genocide and continuing today with oppression of its Kurdish minority. Nonetheless, the fund listed nearly six dozen investments in the country.
The Norwegians can do what they want with their money, but the hypocrisy is mind-boggling. Consider: The fund’s outside advisors, its so-called Independent Council on Ethics that makes ethical investment recommendations, has opened investigations into more Israeli companies for alleged abuse of its warped standards than any other country in the world except the United States.
I asked a spokeswoman for the Norwegian fund about these disconnects – doing all this business with Turkey and China, while holding Israel and the US to the highest of standards — and here’s what she had to say: “We are a financial investor with one target: To create the highest possible return. The fund is strictly non‑political, with all companies — regardless of country — assessed according to the same ethical criteria by an independent Council on Ethics. Decisions are made impartially based on those recommendations.”
Despite being a major energy producer, Norway through its fund is known for its woke investment strategies, a fealty to the largely discredited Environmental Social Governance money management theory that directs money to businesses that adopt progressive political positions such as ineffective green energy boondoggles, and Diversity Equity and Inclusion hiring practices critics say are a form of discrimination.
Now that the progressive movement has adopted being anti-Israel as a key plank, the fund is framing its divestment from Israeli companies as necessary because of the continued loss of civilian life from the Gaza conflict.
In making its decision to divest last week, Norges said it believes Israel’s conduct following the massacre of more than 1,200 by Hamas terrorists represents an “unacceptable risk that the companies contribute to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict.”
However, there is also a political element at work. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store is now the head of the minority Labour Party government. On Monday, parliamentary elections begin that will determine his party’s fate. Divesting from Israel is seen as a way to shore-up Store’s fragile hold on power because beating up on Israel and its biggest supporter, the US, has been a favorite pastime of the global elite for years. Just doing some research on the activities of the UN, its anti-American and anti-Israel denouncements have been front and center of its agenda for decades.
That has become even more evident now as Israel looks to right the wrong of Oct. 7, free the remaining hostages and eliminate what’s left of Hamas.
I never knew Norway harbored such sentiments, but I do now, as it has joined the divestment movement that will certainly earn it plaudits at the UN or among the Israel haters on our college campuses.
Yes, you can have real problems with the ongoing conflict in Gaza and children losing their lives, but also recognize it’s a complex situation made even more dire by the stranglehold terrorist lunatics like Hamas have over the Palestinian people.
I guess it’s ethical in Norway to do business with China with its long record of human rights abuses, but unethical to do business with Israel, which has been responding to the largest mass slaughter of Jewish civilians since the holocaust.
