NZ SuperFund deepens investment in Israeli banks

The Palestine Solidarity Network says the New Zealand Superannuation Fund must exclude Israeli banks from its investment portfolio, instead of increasing the Fund’s links with them. The PSN has referred to the Fund a Human Rights Watch Report into the role of Israeli companies in the occupation of Palestinian territories.

‘Attention at the moment is justifiably on Kiwisaver companies which invest in anti-personnel weapons in other parts of the world. But we would like to remind the Superannuation Fund that it has unfinished work in cleaning up its Israeli investment portfolio,’ says Janfrie Wakim spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network.

‘In 2012 the Fund pulled its investments in companies which were building illegal settlement colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. At the time we pointed to three Israeli banks which were blatantly funding settlement construction. The Fund however claims that funding the construction of illegal settlement colonies is somehow different to actually building them. We can’t understand this. Neither can Human Rights Watch, which condemns the role of Israeli institutional and often subsidized investment in exploiting Palestinians and depriving them of their rights and land in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Wakim says the Super Fund has increased its holdings in the three banks since 2012 (see attached graph).

‘This is completely the wrong signal. We were shocked to discover recently that despite a clear message the Fund was giving itself in 2012, that the occupation activities of the Israeli government in the OPT were illegal, and condemned by the United Nations and New Zealand government alike, that the Fund has bought up even more shares in these banks.’

‘The Human Rights Watch Report makes is clear that the confiscation of Palestinian land by settlers and the exploitation of the Palestinian population is inextricably tied to both to the Jewish-only settler policies of the Israeli government and the ongoing role of Israeli business enterprises in the OPT making it all happen.’

‘ Occupation, Inc. How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights’,Human Rights Watch, 19 January 2016, available here;