NZ Super Fund Disinvestment In Israel Banks Lesson For New Zealand Government

The ethical decision by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to disinvest in Israeli banks should be followed by our government according to local Palestinian supporters.

The NZ Super Fund has announced that it has dumped its investments in five Israeli banks because the Israeli banks were funding the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

A NZ Super Fund analysis “concluded the Banks are materially contributing (and are highly likely to continue to contribute) to the construction of settlements in the OPT”.

Palestinian supporters here have frequently complained about these banks to the NZ Super Fund, especially following a 2018 report by Human Rights Watch which identified these banks’ active participation in settlement building in breach of international law.

In 2012, the NZ Super Fund ended its investment with three Israeli companies on ethical grounds. These were companies which were directly building illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

The NZ Super Fund has given a number of reasons for its divestment in the Israeli banks, including New Zealand’s co-sponsorship of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in 2016 condemning Israeli settlements, NGO and UN reports, New Zealand obligations under the Geneva Convention, Israeli threats to annex large parts of the Occupied West Bank and large increases in settlement construction in 2020.

PSNA spokesperson Janfrie Wakim says the NZ Super Fund has at last conducted a thorough investigation and reached a firm conclusion that it would be unethical to continue to invest in these banks.

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“There is a wealth of reliable information and law that makes any continuing NZ Super Fund investment with these banks untenable. No New Zealand institution should provide any support to the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people in their homeland and the brutal Israeli occupation.”

“The Fund still has investments in other Israeli companies, and the Fund says it will be paying close attention to any future reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights about the culpability of other Israeli companies in illegal settlement construction,”

Janfrie Wakim says the NZ Super Fund divestment decision and the evidence it has used, has shown up, what she calls a dreadful lagging behind by the New Zealand government.

“The NZ Super Fund divested in weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems in its first round of Israeli disinvestment in 2012.”

“Yet, the New Zealand government has admitted to buying military equipment, ground tested on Palestinians, from Elbit Systems, which is the very same company which the NZ Super Fund dropped from its portfolio in 2012.”

The NZ Super Fund document on the Israeli banks can be found here.

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