From Shalom.Kiwi…

In the name of “responsible investing”, the NZ Super Fund has decided to blacklist Israeli banks.

You would be forgiven for missing this development, as the decision was made with no public announcement or engagement. It would have stayed quiet had the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa not shared the news triumphantly.

The Fund’s operators simply added five Israeli banks to their exclusion list. The reasons for the decision are detailed here.

The decision is flawed for many reasons and should alarm all the NZ Super Fund’s Kiwi stakeholders.

Firstly, there is a glaring inconsistency between the treatment of Israel and that of much, much worse actors.  Take China for example, a country currently engaging in genocide, and imprisoning members of its Uyghur minority in concentration camps, not to mention crushing democracy in Hong Kong.  As at 30 June 2020, the Fund had invested over $630 million in Chinese companies, $441 million of which was in Chinese banks.

Or look at Turkey – a country that has illegally occupied Northern Cyprus since 1974, has carried out widespread human rights violations and mass-expulsion of Greek Cypriots.

As at 30 June 2020, the NZ Super Fund had nearly $7 million worth of investments in Turkish companies, of which over $2 million were with Turkish banks.

Or, there is that well-known bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia. As at 31 December 2020 the NZ Super Fund had $34 million invested in Saudi companies, including ten banks.

If ethical investment was a driving motivator, it would make sense that the countries engaging in state-sponsored genocide, ethnic cleansing, systematic repression of women, killing of homosexuals, and murder or imprisonment of dissenters would be targeted.

Instead the NZ Super Fund has focused its attention on the only Jewish state, casting judgment on a complex long-running dispute, in which both sides have persuasive claims.

In doing so, the Guardians of the NZ Super Fund are holding Israel to a higher standard than that applied to any other state.  It is not unusual to see such discrimination targeted against the Jewish state, but it is disturbing to see it so blatantly from a New Zealand public body.

Read the full article here on Shalom Kiwi.