Divestment

Police in Australia broke up a protest against Israeli companies taking part in a defence show in Sydney. At least one pro-Palestinian protester was seen dragged along the ground by officers.

Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS says it would not take part in next year’s competition given the ‘severe human suffering in Gaza’.

The Netherlands has announced it will boycott the 2026 Eurovision in Vienna if Israel participates, joining other European countries that have threatened to withdraw from the song contest over Israel’s war on Gaza.

Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, one of dozens of public broadcasters that collectively fund and broadcast the contest, on Friday said it would not take part in next year’s competition in Vienna if Israel participates, “given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza”.

“The broadcaster also expresses deep concern about the serious erosion of press freedom: the deliberate exclusion of independent international reporting and the many casualties among journalists,” it said in a statement.

Irish broadcaster RTE released a similar statement on Thursday, saying participating would be “unconscionable” as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza. Iceland said it may withdraw from the contest, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for Israel to be booted from the competition.

AVROTROS said it had also taken into account the high number of journalists who have died in Gaza.

The European Broadcasting Union, which runs the contest, said it was consulting its members on how to “manage participation and geopolitical tensions” around the contest and would give them until mid-December to decide if they want to participate.

“We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” said Martin Green, director of Eurovision. “It is up to each member to decide if they want to take part in the contest, and we would respect any decision broadcasters make.”

The organisation said in July it was launching a consultation with all members of the EEBU, which organises the song contest over the issue.

The Dutch broadcaster said it will continue preparing for the contest — which was watched by 166 million people on television this year — until it receives a decision from organisers about whether it will include Israel.

Calls to boycott Israel grow

The boycott threat is part of a campaign by arts organisations and figures to pressure Israel to end its war on Gaza.

Earlier this week, Hollywood stars including Emma Stone, Ayo Edebiri, Ava DuVernay and Olivia Colman joined 3,000 other industry figures in signing a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people,” according to the group Film Workers for Palestine.

Russia has been banned from Eurovision since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but Israel has continued to compete in the past two years despite disputes over its participation.

Dozens of former participants, including 2024 winner Nemo of Switzerland, have called for Israel to be excluded over its conduct in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests took place around this year’s contest in Basel, Switzerland, though on a much smaller scale than the 2024 event in Sweden.

Eurovision’s finale is scheduled for May 16 after semifinals on May 12 and 14, 2026.

Fund said decision against Caterpillar and five Israeli banks due to their contribution ‘to serious violations of rights in situations of war and conflict’.

Norway’s $2-trillion wealth fund, the largest in the world, has divested from US construction equipment giant Caterpillar over the firm’s purported involvement in rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli military in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Norwegian central bank said on Monday that it had decided to exclude Caterpillar from the fund, which it manages, “due to an unacceptable risk that the companies contribute to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict”.

The fund also announced that it had divested from five Israeli banks, based on the recommendation of its council on ethics.

In a statement, the ethics council said that “bulldozers manufactured by Caterpillar are being used by Israeli authorities in the widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property”.

“There is no doubt that Caterpillar’s products are being used to commit extensive and systematic violations of international humanitarian law,” the council said.

It added that Caterpillar had “not implemented any measures to prevent such use” by Israeli authorities.

Prior to its divestment, the fund held a 1.17 percent stake in Caterpillar valued at $2.1bn as of June 30, according to fund data.

The five banks named in the fund’s statement were Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, First International Bank of Israel and FIBI Holdings.

The ethics council said the banks excluded had, “by providing financial services that are a necessary prerequisite for construction activity in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem … contributed to the maintenance of Israeli settlements”.

“The settlements have been established in violation of international law, and their continued existence constitutes an ongoing breach of international law,” the council said.

Just last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israeli settlements built on Palestinian territory seized in 1967 should end “as rapidly as possible”, as they “have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.

Last week, 21 countries signed a joint statement condemning Israel’s plans to build an illegal settlement on a 12 sq km (4.6 sq-mile) tract of land east of Jerusalem known as “East 1” or “E1”.

The massive construction, which envisions 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, cuts off most of the occupied West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem.

Hailing the plan, Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the extent of the settlement and its cutting into Palestinian territory would bury the possibility of a future Palestinian state “because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise”.

The Norwegian fund’s stakes in the five Israeli banks were valued at a combined $661m, according to fund data.

Caterpillar, Hapoalim, First International Bank of Israel and Bank Leumi did not immediately reply to emailed requests for comment by the Reuters news agency.

The fund had announced on August 18 that it would divest from six companies as part of an ongoing ethics review over the war in Gaza and the situation in the occupied West Bank, but declined at the time to name any groups until its stakes in the entities were sold.

The fund is invested in some 8,400 companies worldwide.

Norway’s largest pension fund, KLP, has said that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell equipment to the Israeli military because the equipment is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.

The two companies are the Oshkosh Corporation, a United States company mostly focused on trucks and military vehicles, and ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial firm that makes a broad selection of products, ranging from elevators and industrial machinery to warships.

“In June 2024, KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the [Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,” Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“Our conclusion is that the companies Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are contravening our responsible investment guidelines,” the statement said.

“We have therefore decided to exclude them from our investment universe.”

According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.

KLP, founded in 1949 and the country’s largest pension fund, oversees a fund worth about $114bn. It is a public pension fund owned by municipalities and businesses in the public sector, and has a pension scheme that covers about 900,000 people, mostly municipal workers, according to its website.

Vehicles and warships

KLP said that it had been in touch with both companies before it made its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment that is used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza”, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.

ThyssenKrupp told KLP that “it has a long-term relationship with [the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four warships of the type Sa’ar 6 to the Israeli Navy in the period November 2020 to May 2021.

The German company also said it had plans to deliver a submarine to the Israeli Navy later this year.

When asked by KLP what checks and balances were made when it came to the use of the equipment the companies delivered, KLP said both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to document the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in violations of humanitarian law”.

“Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law,” said Aziz.

Previous divestments

This is not the first time that the pension fund has divested from companies linked to possible human rights abuses.

In 2021, KLP divested from 16 companies, including telecom giant Motorola, that it concluded were linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The pension fund said there was an “unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”.

That same year, KLP also said it was divesting from the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military government.

Last summer, KLP also divested from US firm Caterpillar. In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, the KLP’s Aziz wrote that Caterpillar’s bulldozers undergo adjustments in Israel by the military and local companies, and are subsequently used in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“The constant use of these weaponised bulldozers in the occupied Palestinian territory has led to a series of human rights warnings from United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organisations over the last two decades about the company’s involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure,” she wrote.

“It is therefore impossible to assert that the company has implemented adequate measures to avoid becoming involved in future norm violations.”

The latest move builds on a series of similar decisions among several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli companies for their involvement in either the war in Gaza or because of links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In May, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it would divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy because of the company’s involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.

This came after an earlier decision in December last year to sell all shares it had in another Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements.

Other pension funds as well as wealth funds have also, in recent years, distanced themselves from companies accused of enabling or cooperating with Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its war on Gaza.

In February 2024, Denmark’s largest pension fund divested from several Israeli banks and companies as the fund feared its investments could be used to fund the settlements in the West Bank.

Six months later, the United Kingdom’s largest pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), said it would sell off all its investments linked to Israel because of its war on Gaza. The fund, which totals about $79bn, said it would sell its $101m worth of investments after pressure from its members.