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→ 23 April 2021
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New Zealand’s Sovereign Wealth Fund damages its reputation by divesting from Israeli banks| FDD

David May, Research Analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

New Zealand’s $36 billion sovereign wealth fund divested $4 million from five Israeli banks last month because of their West Bank operations. This could cause reputational and financial problems for New Zealand and for companies managing its sovereign wealth fund.

Flawed information and analysis spurred the fund’s decision. In a letter explaining the move, the Guardians – the government entity that runs New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund – cites concern about Israel’s plans to annex portions of the West Bank. However, Israel agreed to suspend its annexation plans in September 2020 as part of its peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Subsequently, UAE-based Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank signed a memorandum of understanding with Bank Leumi, one of the Israeli banks subject to divestment.

The letter erroneously describes United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared that Israeli settlement activity “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” as “binding.” However, the council passed that resolution under the non-binding Chapter VI.

The Guardians’ letter also relies on reports by the UN Human Rights Council, a body composed of numerous autocracies that has passed nearly as many resolutions criticizing Israel as the rest of the world combined. This reality undermines the credibility of the council’s reports.

Thanks to the Guardians’ decision, Israeli companies now comprise 11 of the fund’s 53 divestments not related to tobacco or cannabis. Two of these are Israeli construction companies from which New Zealand divested in 2012 for building West Bank settlements. The Guardians excluded the others for manufacturing certain weapons or for alleged labor or unethical-conduct issues.

Yet even as they condemn Israel, the Guardians invest in one of the world’s leading human rights abusers. The fund holds nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of investments in 625 Chinese companies, including two companies blacklisted by the United States for violating the rights of ethnic minorities. China has detained up to 1 million Uighurs from Xinjiang province, suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and continues to occupy Tibet.

Likewise, while the fund divested from Israeli banks, it invests in companies extracting natural resources from another disputed territory. On March 15, New Zealand’s High Court upheld the sovereign wealth fund’s right to invest in companies operating in Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory occupied by Morocco.

Two New Zealand companies included in the fund import around $30 million worth of phosphate from the disputed territory annually. Morocco’s alleged facilitation of the extraction of natural resources from an occupied territory appears to contravene Article 55 of the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention.

Israeli banks have faced divestment in the past. In January 2014, Dutch pension firm PGGM announced it was divesting from the same Israeli banks that New Zealand’s fund excluded. The Financial Times reported that several senior PGGM executives later regretted the decision because it inadvertently thrust the company into the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the same month, Denmark’s Danske Bank terminated operations with Israel’s Bank Hapoalim, prompting Illinois’ Investment Policy Board to bar investment in Danske.

Accordingly, U.S. states such as Illinois that impose restrictions on the investment of public funds in companies boycotting Israel should prohibit investment in financial management firms implementing the Guardians’ anti-Israel divestment policy.

On their website, the Guardians state that avoiding reputational damage is one of their guiding principles. The fund’s exclusion of Israeli companies while continuing to invest in problematic businesses elsewhere could damage the fund’s reputation if members of Congress voiced their displeasure. This would carry significant weight, since the United States is New Zealand’s third-largest trading partner.

David May is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from David and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on Twitter @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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→ 19 April 2021
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Mills-Mojab spread’s Iran’s disinformation about Israel | Stuff

Centrifuges used for enriching uranium at the Iran Natanz facility

Stuff ran an opinion piece written by Donna Mills-Mojab today. It is an example of Iranian propaganda. It weaves a narrative that makes Iran seem like it is doing no wrong. Her article makes no mention of:

  • Iran’s sponsorship of terrorist organisations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP.
  • Iran’s terrorist activities in Albania, Bahrain, India, Israel, Iraq, Kenya, Argentina, Thailand, France and Denmark.
  • Iran’s military units operating in Syria and Iraq
  • Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty way back in 1970. Under the treaty, Iran agreed to not develop nuclear weapons, disclose all nuclear technology activities, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency full access to check and monitor Iran’s compliance. Iran’s non-compliance and intentional deceit under the treaty have been well-documented.

Instead, it lays down a smokescreen of false information which should be corrected here:

  • There is no evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons. No independent observer has ever sighted an Israeli nuclear weapon, nor is there any evidence of any Israeli nuclear weapons tests. Unlike North Korea, India, and Pakistan. Nuclear weapons tests can’t be seismologically hidden. The vibrations literally reverberate around the world.
  • Any relaxation of economic sanctions against Iran has only accelerated efforts to arm Israel’s enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah.
  • That Israel’s existence is a form of colonialism when it is clearly an UN-mandated humanitarian initiative to restore Israel as a Jewish homeland, borne out of the Holocaust, which demonstrated that Jews must have a safe haven from endemic anti-Semitism.
  • Mills-Mojab claims Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands is illegal. Actually, Israel’s presence there is the result of an unsuccessful Arab invasion of these territories and their illegal attempt to extinguish a fledgling member of the UN. Now, these lands are disputed and claimed by people who have created a state where no state existed before, to give their claim a false veil of legitimacy.

Iran has demonstrated that it does not act in good faith. Which leaves Israel deeply skeptical of a successful diplomatic outcome. What good is a treaty when it’s highly likely that Iran does not intend to comply with it?

Uranium 235 enrichment to less than 20% is suitable for commercial power generation. Anything beyond that sends a clear signal of Iran’s intentions.

Read Mills-Mojab’s article.

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→ 8 April 2021
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The Holocaust Is My Heritage: Bearing the Scars and Stories of Survivor Grandparents | Haaretz

My last photo with my Zayde

NZFOI: Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah

My Zayde told us about his childhood in Kazimierz, and about burying half-alive bodies in Buchenwald. What it means to be the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, and to lose them.

He and his father were imprisoned in Plaszow concentration camp, where he said every day brought a new tragedy. He would tell us, in unadorned language, that he saw young boys being hanged for stealing bread, and that’s when he learned you say the Shema prayer before you die. He piled earth over bodies, after they were shot dead, and was haunted by watching the soil shiver – the victims were still alive, and slowly suffocating.

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→ 2 April 2021
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New Zealand Fund Decision to Divest from Israeli Banks Breaches Legal Requirements | UKLFI

Catherine Savage, Chair of the Guardians of New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund

The Guardians of New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund have recently decided to divest from Israeli banks in apparent breach of legal requirements.
The Superannuation Fund, known as the Super Fund, was set up in 2001 to secure funding for universal pensions for New Zealand’s aging population with a fair sharing of the cost between present and future taxpayers.

The Guardians’ statutory mandate is to invest the Fund on a prudent, commercial basis and manage it in a manner consistent with:

  • best-practice portfolio management;
  • maximising return without undue risk to the Fund as a whole; and
  • avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community.

International financial markets lawyer, Dan Harris, has pointed out:

  1. The published reasons for the decision to divest from Israeli banks show a failure to properly consider material information and give too much weight to questionable sources. This appears to be inconsistent with “best-practice portfolio management”. For example, the reasons placed considerable weight on the UN Human Rights Council’s report dated 12 February 2020. However, breaches of human rights are a matter of law, and yet the UNHRC report clearly states that it offers no legal conclusions. Moreover, the methodology used for that report was demonstrably flawed and based on biased sources.
  2. The decision appears to have been taken with a dominant improper purpose to be a political player, rather than applying a responsible investment policy; and on the basis of opposition to an Israeli proposal to extend Israeli law to part of the West Bank, even though at the time of the decision that proposal was no longer being pursued.
  3. There was a fundamental error of law in treating the Israeli Banks as responsible for acts of the State of Israel. Lawful acts of private companies cannot automatically be equated with those of a government.
  4. The divestment may damage New Zealand. US politicians on both sides may react in a negative manner. The Guardians are required to avoid prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation, not attract it

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI commented: “As well as being an improper purpose, the Guardians’ political aims discriminate against Israel. At the same time as divesting from Israeli banks, they are investing in companies operating in Western Sahara and probably in other disputed territories”.

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→ 25 March 2021
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Coalition conundrum: What could Israel’s next government look like? JPost

Benjamin Netanyahu

Here are several possible options.

Ahead of Tuesday’s election, all the party leaders, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down, spoke to reporters and analysts constantly, in order to try to get out the vote.

But once the polls closed Tuesday night, most of the politicians suddenly became completely silent. The quiet was not because they were tired.The only party leaders who sought the press on Wednesday were obvious winners like Ra’am (United Arab List) head Mansour Abbas and Labor leader Merav Michaeli.The others made a strategic decision to wait to talk again – at least until the results of the election were complete. 

With 97% of the normal ballots counted, Netanyahu’s Likud won 30 seats, Yesh Atid 17, Shas 9, Blue and White 8, United Torah Judaism, Yamina, Yisrael Beytenu and Labor 7, New Hope, the Joint List and the Religious Zionist Party 6 and Meretz and Ra’am 5.

There still remain some 430,000 double envelopes, which are ballots from hospitals, nursing homes, emissaries, soldiers, prisoners and special polling stations for returnees at Ben-Gurion International Airport and for the sick and quarantined from COVID-19.

The double ballots are worth some 11 seats – enough to change the outcome of the election significantly in a race so close.

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→ 3 March 2021
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Joe Biden is already carving out a different Middle East policy from Trump — and even Obama | Stuff

US President, Joe Biden

The Biden administration hasn’t wasted time in making a significant shift in US policy toward the Middle East.

Over the past week, the US has launched reprisal strikes against Iranian targets in Syria and released damning intelligence overtly linking the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden’s decision to launch strikes against Iran-backed militias in Syria showcases what has been described by the US political scientist Joseph Nye as “smart power”. This is when hard power is employed alongside soft power in a carefully calculated way to affect a diplomatic outcome.

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→ 2 March 2021
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A Promised Land: Obama’s Memoirs Malign Israel | CAMERA

“Facts,” the English philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley once observed, “don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.” Yet, in his recently released memoir, A Promised Land, Barack Obama both ignores and omits key facts about the Middle East. In particular, the former president gets relevant Israeli history wrong.

Perhaps most disturbing, however, is Obama’s tendency to minimize Palestinian terrorism. For example, he refers to Hamas as merely a “Palestinian resistance group.” Yet, Obama doesn’t tell readers what exactly Hamas is “resisting.”

Obama’s inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to see Hamas for who they are is part and parcel of a broader trend evidenced in his memoirs. The United States’s 44th president repeatedly strikes a false equivalency between Israel and the terrorists who seek the Jewish state’s destruction.

Obama’s tendency towards striking false equivalency between Israeli security measures and Palestinian terrorist efforts is buttressed by an understanding of relevant history that is rooted in inaccuracies and false assumptions.

And contrary to what the 44th president implies, Jews didn’t take the land. Rather, most of the “settlements” were purchased—and often from the Arabs themselves. As the historian Benny Morris noted in his 2008 book 1948: “A giant question mark hangs over the ethos of the Palestinian Arab elite: Husseinis, as well as Nashashibis, Khalidis, Dajanis, and Tamimis … sold land to the Zionist institutions and/or served as Zionist agents or spies.” These families, many of whom would lead opposition to the existence of Israel and the right of Jewish self-determination, secretly sold land to the very movement that they denounced.

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→ 24 February 2021
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The Businesses of Mahmoud Abbas and His Sons | JCPA

Mahmoud Abbas

[NZFOI: For background reading and future reference; and relevant to be aware of to contextualise the upcoming general elections]

Abu Abbas is not prepared to countenance Muhammad Dahlan as his successor.

The PA chairman’s two sons, Tareq and Yasser, own an economic empire in the territories worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they rely on their connection with their father.

Mahmoud Abbas’ main endeavor is to find a fitting successor who will ensure both the continued existence of his sons’ businesses and their wellbeing.

The succession battle in the Palestinian Authority has become very elemental since Mahmoud Abbas rejected the request of four Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – to mend fences with his bitter rival Muhammad Dahlan. Some of those states want to see Dahlan as the next PA chairman.

Although some in Fatah view Abbas’ rejection of the Arab request as an act of “political suicide,” Abbas does not show signs of stress. At the urging of Egypt and Jordan, which fear Hamas, he called off the elections in the territories and consented to a return to Fatah by some of Dahlan’s people. As far as Abbas is concerned, he has complied with most of Egypt and Jordan’s requests. Yet, still, he is not prepared to countenance Muhammad Dahlan.

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→ 19 February 2021
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Understanding B’Tselem’s “Apartheid” Libel | CAMERA

Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director B’Tselem

If you’re looking for examples of spin in B’tselem’s latest anti-Israel document, in which the organization slings around the inflammatory terms “apartheid” and “Jewish supremacy,” there are plenty.  

Consider, as one small example, the report’s charge that Israel has built “hundreds of communities for Jewish citizens – yet not a single one for Palestinian citizens.” The sentence was written to sound as damning as possible, which increases its shock value, but also left the authors in the uncomfortable position of having to immediately rebut their own falsehood. “The exception,” B’tselem admits in the very next sentence, “is a handful of towns and villages built to concentrate the Bedouin population.”

The town of Ararat an-Naqab, which Israel built for the Bedouin community.

Which is to say, Israel built “not a single” community for Palestinians, except for all the ones it did build: Rahat, Kuseife, Shaqib al-Salam, Ar’arat an-Naqab, Lakiya, Tel as-Sabi, Hura, Tirabin al-Sana, Mulada, Abu Krinat, Bir Hadaj, Qasr al-Sir, Makhul, Umm Batin. It’s Orwellian newspeak: None, but many. A lie, but with the truth appended as a throwaway-line.

This is far from the worst distortion in the document. 

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→ 12 February 2021
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Minto claims NZ Jewish Council is deeply racist | The Daily Blog

John Minto

[NZFOI: Really?!]

Suggesting Palestinians use their children as human shields and that Arabs hate Jews more than they love their own children is appalling and deplorable racism. Dr Cumin’s remarks are a particularly vile statement of anti-Palestinian racism and a repugnant slur on all Arabs.

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