Major European pension funds and sovereign wealth funds continue to divest from Israeli investments
Danish and Norwegian pension and sovereign wealth funds continue to pull out many millions of euros of investments in Israeli banks and bank bonds due to increased concern about Israel’s human rights violations.
Pension Denmark, one of the biggest pension funds in Denmark (with 800,000 members), has now withdrawn all its investments from Israeli banks. According to The New Arab of 26th Feb 2024, ‘the fund confirmed that “a long time before the outbreak of the war on Gaza, we were focusing on the issue of suspicions that Israeli banks were giving loans to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank,” according to one of the fund directors’ statements on local TV.
In fact, the pension fund began selling its stocks and shares which had been invested in Israeli banks at the start of the year. These amounted to 75 million Krone in value (nearly ten million euros).
Read more here about more Danish funds divestments from Israeli investments.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which is the world’s largest such fund, completely divested from Israel Bonds in November based on the war against Gaza and its ethical investment guidelines. This divestment is worth nearly half a billion US dollars and another important impact of the BDS global movement.
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Australia’s largest superannuation funds all have investments in Israeli companies and other international companies that have been listed by the UN Human Rights Council as being complicit by trading in Israel’s illegal settlements.
We are calling on all members of superannuation funds in Australia to send a message to their superfunds and take action to pressure them to divest from all companies which are supporting Israel’s apartheid, human rights abuses and breaches of international law.