After Norway Divests, Israeli Telecom Stock Soars

Plus, Soros, Rockefeller Brothers, Omidyar fund the Wall Street Journal's “independent” source.

In early December 2024 the Norwegian government pension fund announced it would divest from Bezeq The Israeli Telecommunication Corp Ltd “due to an unacceptable risk that the company contributes to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict.”

As of June 2024, the Norwegian fund had owned 0.76 per cent of the company’s shares, worth NOK 252 million (about $22.5 million at current exchange rates). On December 3, when the Norges Bank Executive Board announced the divestment decision, BEZQ.TA closed at $538, according to Yahoo Finance. Today it closed at $601.60. By selling, the Norwegians missed out on an 11.8 percent gain in about two months.

Regardless of whether you disagree, as I do, with the bank’s assessment on the “rights of individuals” question, it’s an illuminating situation. To begin with, when pension funds start making judgments on “rights of individuals” grounds rather than economic return grounds, the tradeoff may be that the funds lose some economic return. Also, when there is an announcement that some big institution is selling for non-economic reasons, it can sometimes create an opportunity for another investor to swoop in and take advantage of what is, essentially, a forced sale that has the effect of artificially, temporarily depressing the price of an asset below its economic value.

The Norwegian fund describes itself as “the world’s largest single investor,” with a value of about $1.8 trillion. “The aim of the fund is to ensure a long-term management of revenue from Norway’s oil and gas resources,” the fund website explains. The “oil and gas resources” are themselves under attack from some of the same far-left factions urging divestment from Israeli companies, so there’s a certain irony there, too.

It’s always hard to know what drives particular short-term stock price movements, but one factor contributing to positivity about the prospects of an Israeli telecommunications company could be Trump’s Gaza Riviera plan. If Gaza Riviera or something like it happens, it’s better for Bezeq, and for a lot of other Israeli companies, than an alternative future featuring continued Hamas control of Gaza.

Emancipator publication decamps from B.U. to Howard: On January 30, noting that the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at BU, Ibram X. Kendi, is leaving Boston for a position at Howard University, I wrote, “Kendi’s departure is good news for Boston University. With any luck he’ll take the Emancipator and its nightmares along with him.” Sure enough, according to a February 7 email from the Emancipator, “The Emancipator will be going to Howard with Kendi as part of the new institute.”

“Independent government watchdog”: One way that media bias operates is who gets quoted in articles, and how they are identified. A routine Wall Street Journal news article about the Department of Government Efficiency includes this passage:

“If the priority had been to actually cut waste and fraud in federal spending, they’re not looking in the right places,” because the costs of the federal workforce are a fraction of the federal budget, said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent government watchdog. The Trump administration has notified agencies of plans to shrink the federal workforce. Brian said DOGE should focus on excessive payments to government contractors and military spending.

These nonprofit research and advocacy groups aren’t “independent,” they are dependent on, in this case, left-leaning philanthropists and foundations. A quick search indicates that the Project on Government Oversight’s funders have included George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, Pierre Omidyar’s Luminate and Democracy Fund, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where Peter Beinart is a trustee. The Rockefeller Brothers and Soros also support the anti-Israel campus protesters. It’s not news that this crew wants to cut military spending, but why would the Journal pass off a left-leaning nongovernmental advocacy organization as “an independent government watchdog”? Where were the editors?

Thank you: Here at The Editors we get not a dime from Soros, the Rockefeller Brothers, or Omidyar. We are an independent, reader-supported publication. Thanks to those of you who are paying customers. If you are seeing this and are not yet a paying reader, please subscribe now for full access and to sustain this work.