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ISRAEL

Nordea puts Israeli holdings under the loop

Swedish bank Nordea has vowed to review its holding in two Israeli banks for possible ties to the building of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

Nordea puts Israeli holdings under the loop

Several European pension funds have pulled funding from and blacklisted companies that contributed to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories considered illegal by the international community.

However Stockholm-headquartered Nordea, which has investments in two banks, wants to meet to discuss the matter before taking a decision.

The continued building of Israeli settlements on occupied territory remains a complicating factor in Middle East peace negotiations. The settlements are considered illegal by the United Nations and other international bodies.

On Friday, Norway's oil fund blacklisted two companies with ties to the settlements. Last autumn, Danske Bank sold its stake in an Israeli bank and blacklisted it.

Nordea, which has holdings in Israeli banks Mizrahi and Hapolaim, plans to examine the banks for possible ties to settlements said Nordea's head of corporate social responsibility, Sasja Beslik, to the TT news agency.

Nordea has launched a dialogue with the banks as well as companies HP and Veolia regarding their activities in Israel, and plans to meet with them in the coming months.

"We haven't come to any decision about a ban. We're going to meet them in March in order to understand how they manage their risk in relation to dealing with human rights in their operations in Israel. After we've met with them, we'll analyze what comes up and then our committee will take a decision," she told TT.

Beslik emphasized that Nordea only owns about four million kronor ($610,000) worth of stock in the two banks.

Sweden's three other large banks, Swedbank, Handelsbanken, and SEB have no investments in Israeli banks, nor do any of Sweden's AP state pension funds, TT reported.

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ISRAEL

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street

A former Israeli soldier was attacked in the German capital Berlin, police said Saturday, with one or several unknown assailants spraying him with an irritant and throwing him to the ground.

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street
Israeli soldiers on operation near the Gaza Strip. Photo: dpa | Ilia Yefimovich

The 29-year-old was wearing a top with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) logo when the attackers started harassing him on Friday about his religion, the police added, calling it “an anti-Semitic attack”.

Officers are seeking the assailants, who fled immediately after the attack, on suspicion of a politically-motivated crime.

Saturday is the second anniversary of an attack by a far-right gunman on a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle, who killed two in a rampage when he failed to break into the house of worship.

It was one of a string of incidents that led authorities to declare the far right and neo-Nazis Germany’s top security threat.

Also this week, a musician claimed he was turned away from a hotel in eastern city Leipzig for wearing a Star-of-David pendant.

While the allegations prompted a fierce response from a Jewish community unsettled by increasing anti-Semitic crimes, several investigations have been mounted into contradictory accounts of the incident.

In 2019, police recorded 2,032 anti-Semitic crimes, an increase of 13 percent year-on-year.

“The threat is complex and comes from different directions” from jihadists to the far right, the federal government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism Felix Klein said recently.

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