Oslo newspaper Aftenposten dropped a bomb of its own on Tuesday, when it reported how Norway’s huge sovereign wealth fund has earned millions on an Israeli firm that repairs Israel’s fleet of F15- and F16 fighter jets. The jets’ bombs have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023, when Israel declared war on the Palestinian organization Hamas after it had attacked Israeli citizens, killed hundreds and taken hostages.
Nearly two years later, Israel continues to bomb Gaza, occupy vast areas and severely limit supplies of food and humanitarian aid to the civilian population. The Palestinian death toll is believed to have surpassed 60,000 and Israel is being widely accused of carrying out its own form of genocide against the Palestinians, while also expanding its occupation of the West Bank and attacking Palestinians there.
Norway is long known for its efforts to broker peace in the Middle East, but relations with Israel’s far-right government have been strained for years. Now even some of Israel’s most ardent supporters in Norway believe the Israeli government has “gone too far,” as Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug said on national radio Tuesday morning, in its retaliation against the Palestinians.
The Norwegian government, meanwhile, relies on an ethics council to make sure that what’s popularly known as the Oil Fund avoids investing in firms that violate the rule of law. Something seems to have gone wrong along the way.
Aftenposten’s report began with the direct human consequences of Israel’s bombings over the past 22 months. It cited how families were frightened and killed when the F16 jets began flying over Gaza and bombing residential buildings with no warning. Israel’s fleet of fighter jets needs constant maintenance, providing lots more business for the Israeli company Bet Shemesh Engines Holdings, which also maintains the motors for F15 fighter jets and Apache helicopters on missions for the Israeli defense department.
The Oil Fund’s initial investment in Bet Shemesh Engines Holdings in 2023 comes in addition to other questionable investments in Israeli companies, even though all are supposed to be screened by its ethics council. Oil Fund chief Nicolai Tangen confirmed later on Tuesday that the fund first bought stock in the Israeli company after the war on Gaza began, but claimed it wasn’t on “any exclusion list.” He also stressed that the Oil Fund has long invested in Israel, not least because “Norwegian politicians have wanted us to invest in Israel.”
By the end of 2023, the Oil Fund owned 1.28 percent of Bet Shemesh and valued the stake at NOK 36.7 million. Aftenposten reported on how the fund, meant to finance pensions for future generations of Norwegians, later bought more stock in the company as its profits rose. By the end of 2024, the Oil Fund held 2.09 percent of Bet Shemesh, valued at NOK 172.2 million. By the end of July, after many more months of Israel’s constant attacks on Gaza, the value of the company’s shares had risen by 530 percent.
Aftenposten broke the news Tuesday morning (external link, in Norwegian) just before Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labour Party went live on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) for a debate with his rival Sylvi Listhaug of the Progress Party. Støre has earlier made a point of refraining from direct political meddling in the Oil Fund’s investments, relying on the fund’s ethics council instead and not wanting to undermine it. Støre stressed, however, that the Oil Fund should not invest in any companies that violate the rule of law: “We have an ethics council and we have made clear decisions that we will not invest in companies that beak the rule of law.”
When confronted with Aftenposten’s report, Støre quickly reponded that it made him “very uneasy” and that he already had asked Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg to contact Norges Bank (Norway’s central bank, which is in charge of the Oil Fund) “and find out what the situation is.” The prime minister added that he wanted “good answers” on how the Israeli company had been handled, or reviewed.
Stoltenberg later told NRK that he had already done that and asked the Oil Fund’s ethics council to go through all of the fund’s investments in Israeli companies. “The point is to ensure that the fund isn’t invested in companies that contribute to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and to the war in Gaza that violates the rule of law,” Stoltenberg said.
Tangen leads the Oil Fund’s work and claimed that neither he nor his staff had any warnings about Bet Shemesh Engines Holdings from the fund’s ethics council. He also stressed that there is a “clear” division of roles at the Oil Fund, with the ethics council responsible for maintaining ethical standards for investments and Oil Fund staff responsible for achieving returns on the investments. Political decisions can also guide or otherwise affect investment decisions, he said.
Svein Richard Brandtzæg, the former chief executive of one of Norway’s biggest companies, Norsk Hydro, has led the Oil Fund’s ethics council since 2023. He confirmed on Tuesday that the committee had not excluded Bet Shemesh Engines Holdings from the Oil Fund’s investments, telling TV2 that it hadn’t viewed “sales of aircraft motors to Israel … as being in conflict with ethical guidelines.” He admitted later in the day to NRK that “we should have more thoroughly looked into” Bet Shemesh’s activities. “I wish we had discovered this earlier.”
The “new information” about Bet Shemesh will lead to a new evaluation of the firm, Brandtzæg said, given its involvement in keeping Israeli fighter jets in the skies over Gaza. It remains unclear how a company that maintains and produces parts for aircraft motors, and has the Israeli defense department as a major customer, could have escaped the council’s attention, or that of fund managers. Tangen insisted in a live interview with NRK on Tuesday that news of the Israeli fighter jet maintenance was also “new information for us.” He claimed neither he nor his staff were aware that Bet Shemesh Engines Holdings has been profiting on the war by maintaining Israeli fighter jets. It’s unclear what influenced the decision to invest, in the of fall of 2023.
That has also amazed several Members of Parliament, with the Reds Party even calling on Parliament to interrupt its summer recess to reconvene and demand answers from the government. “We demand that the president (of Parliament) calls in members to an extraordinary meeting,” Reds leader Marie Sneve Martinussen, told NRK. She thinks it’s necessary for Parliament to “clean up.” If that doesn’t happen, she’ll take up the issue among members of the foreign relations- and defense committee.
“This is very serious, and there’s a political responsibility to clean up,” Martinussen said. “The government has assured the Parliament and the Norwegian people that guidelines will be followed, and now it’s been well-documented that that’s not correct.” Une Bastholm of the Greens Party thinks Nicolai Tangen should resign as head of the Oil Fund. “I think it will be strange if the Oil Fund chief remains in his post after this,” Bastholm told NRK.
Law professor Hans Petter Graver, however, noted how the Oil Fund is invested in as many as 8,500 stocklisted companies around the world, and that it’s “not possible” to follow the operations of them all. Graver, who led the work to set up ethics guidelines for the Oil Fund back in 2002, said many companies are instead often chosen for investment via index references. “The system isn’t set up so that the fund can evaluate every company they invest in,” Graver told NRK. “That’s not in practice possible.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund