The Irish Independent’s piece titled “State fund Isif questioned over its investments in four Israeli banks,” reinforces the false media narrative regarding the United Nations Human Rights Council’s anti-Israel blacklist, which was first made public in 2020.
The story, published amid efforts to update the controversial UN database and attempts by Irish lawmakers to divest from areas under the control of the Jewish state, charges the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (Isif) with investing in “four Israeli banks named in a UN report from 2020 as helping support illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories”:
Isif confirmed to the Irish Independent that it owns shares in the four banks: Mizrahi Tefahot, Bank Hapoalim, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Leumi-Le Israel. The stocks are on a public register of Isif’s voting records at the annual general meetings of the companies.
The banks were among 112 companies named in a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights report listing businesses that have ties to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The report prompted a number of international investors to divest themselves of those stocks.”
Written by business editors Caoimhe Gordon and Donal O’Donovan, the piece fails to mention that Isif’s stakes in the four Israeli banks, which amount to just €150,000 ($160,700), comprise less than 0.01 percent of its total investments. The four banks named in the article serve all Israeli citizens, regardless of where they live, as required by Israeli law.
Furthermore, by only citing human rights concerns as the motivation behind the UN organ composing a list of international companies that do business in Israeli communities beyond the Green Line, the Irish Independent misleads its audience regarding the insidious nature of the initiative.
In reality, the UN database was created with one goal only: to unfairly single out Israel for a boycott.
It is imperative to note that many corporations around the world have investments in disputed territories — yet only Israel is the target of boycott campaigns. As UN Watch highlighted in the past, the European fishing agreement with Morocco for years allowed EU-based companies to operate off the coast of Western Sahara, despite the fact that much of the international community considers the area to be occupied by Rabat. In fact, the UN, or any other intergovernmental organization for that matter, has never actively tried to discourage companies from doing business in Western Sahara or Turkey-administered Northern Cyprus.
Additionally, the claim that the UN Human Rights Council is concerned with human rights and international law is laughable at best. Case in point: Resolution 31/36, which called for the Office of the High Commissioner to “produce a database of all business enterprises” that “directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the [Israeli] settlements,” was backed by some of the world’s prime human rights violators, including Russia, China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
The world’s leading democracies, meanwhile, consistently opposed the UN list, with the United Kingdom stressing that “human rights obligations are directed at states, and not individuals or businesses, who must determine their trading relationships for themselves.”
Even Gordon and O’Donovan themselves, halfway through their article, acknowledge that “there are no legal barriers to Irish money managers investing in Israel.”
Sadly, for the business writers at Ireland’s largest daily, the goal seems to be political activism rather than real investigative journalism.
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