Norwegian Sanctimony

Norwegian Sanctimony

A Norwegian investment fund has divested from Elbit, a large Israeli hi-tech company, for its participation in the security barrier. That's the barrier that has demonstrably saved thousands of lives since its construction began in 2002.

So what's the story?

Apparently the Norwegians sold shares, which means someone else bought them, and none of the reports mention the price falling steeply, so Elbit is probably unaffected.

Is it antisemitism? Probably not, given that the same Norwegian fund is still invested in some 40 other Israeli firms.

So what is it? According to this report (sorry: Hebrew only), the fund has a Board of bleeding hearts, whose task is to finger all sorts of evil companies the fund should never invest in, or must divest from if already invested. The list includes BAE, Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop, EADS (that's the parent company of Airbus), Lockheed-Martin, Rio-Tinto, and even... Wallmart. And alls sorts of others, too.

Besides the honorable company Elbit now finds itself in, it appears the Norwegians don't much like airplanes, miners and supermarkets. It also seems that in this case we really aren't dealing with antisemitism. Merely sanctimony.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations