Business & Economics
Norway’s $2 Trillion Oil Fund Dumps 11 Off-Index Israeli Stocks and Fires Local Managers
On 11 Aug 2025, after a week-long emergency review, Norges Bank Investment Management liquidated all off-benchmark stakes in 11 Israeli companies and cancelled every external asset-management contract in Israel, citing the escalating Gaza humanitarian crisis.
Focusing Facts
- The divestment cut the fund’s Israeli holdings from 61 to 50 companies, disposing of positions valued at roughly $260 million between 4-11 Aug 2025.
- All Israel-based external mandates—covering about $1 billion in assets—were terminated and brought in-house the same day.
- Norway’s Finance Ministry demanded a full report on remaining Israel exposure by 20 Aug 2025, signalling possible further action.
Context
Sovereign funds rarely move this fast; the last comparably swift state-led divestment was the University of California’s 1986, two-week sell-off of South African assets after U.S. sanctions (Public Law 99-440). Both episodes used capital flight to protest alleged human-rights abuses. The oil fund’s step fits a 25-year drift toward values-based investing—UN PRI in 2006, EU taxonomy in 2020—and shows how ‘ethical’ screens once limited to tobacco or cluster munitions now reach mainstream equities in active conflict zones. Over a century, petro-wealth is morphing into a geopolitical lever: Norway converts North Sea revenues into normative power by signalling that access to its $2 trillion pool hinges on conflict conduct. Whether this sets a precedent, as South Africa divestment did for apartheid, will shape the next hundred years of how capital markets police state behaviour—or reveal the limits of finance when divestments merely reshuffle shares to less scrupulous owners.
Perspectives
International financial press
Reuters, Bloomberg, U.S. News & World Report — Portrays the divestment as a measured move driven by the fund’s established ethical guidelines and risk-management procedures in light of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank. By focusing on compliance language and market mechanics, these outlets largely sidestep the political stakes and moral judgments, reflecting a business-audience incentive to appear technocratic and non-partisan.
Pro-Palestinian Middle Eastern outlets
Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Daily Sabah — Present the divestment as a moral repudiation of Israel’s "genocidal" campaign in Gaza and evidence of mounting international pressure to sever financial ties with Israel. Charged terminology and selective sourcing elevate Israel’s wrongdoing while giving little space to Israeli security arguments, aligning coverage with regional and ideological support for the Palestinian cause.
Israeli media
The Times of Israel, Israel Hayom — Covers the move as a politically tinged setback in Norway-Israel relations, noting that it follows Norway’s recognition of a Palestinian state and highlighting that only off-benchmark holdings were sold. By stressing diplomatic motives and the limited scope of the sales while recalling Hamas’s October 7 attack, these outlets aim to contextualize or minimize the divestment’s impact and defend Israel’s position to their readership.