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AT THE END of June, the United Nations released a new report which denounced 48 companies it claimed had profited from “the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and [...] genocide” in Palestine.
The report by the UN’s Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, claimed that “far too many” companies had profited from the decades-long conflict.
Albanese called for these companies to end their complicity in “human rights violations and international crimes” or “be held to account”.
Earlier this week, Norway’s wealth fund made headlines when it divested from Caterpillar – one of the companies on the list – over the use of its machinery by Israel to demolish Palestinian properties in the West Bank and Gaza.
But the country is not the only one whose sovereign wealth fund invests in companies that are named on the UN list.
Ireland’s fund, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, maintains direct investments in exactly a quarter of the 48 companies, which are valued at almost €97 million.
Who are these companies and why are they named on the list?
ISIF investment value: €440,000
Airbnb is one of two accommodation websites listed in the report, and was named for listing properties and hotel rooms in illegal Israeli settlements.
The Journal Investigates previously searched Airbnb and found a number of listings for properties that are based in settlements in the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
These listings – and Airbnb’s attempts to stop featuring them – have prompted a number of legal actions against the company.
In the US and Israel, Airbnb has found itself at the centre of a legal challenge over its decision to remove around 200 listings for accommodation in West Bank settlements that it said “are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians”.
It settled four of those legal challenges and reversed its decision to remove the properties the following year.
The company said at the time that it would instead donate all profits from its listings in the occupied West Bank to “non-profit organisations dedicated to humanitarian aid that serve people in different parts of the world”.
The Journal contacted Airbnb Inc for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication.
Recent statements given by the company to other news outlets have pointed to its donation of profits from host activity in the West Bank to an international charity.
ISIF investment value: €21.54 million
Alphabet Inc, better known as the parent company of Google, was named in the report as one of four tech giants which are deemed central to “Israel’s surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction”.
It claims that Alphabet also grants Israel “virtually government-wide access” to its cloud and artificial intelligence technologies, which allow Israel to enhance its processing of data and surveillance capacities against Palestinians.
The report also outlines how the company was awarded a $1.2 billion (€1.03 billion) contract in 2021, alongside Amazon, to provide cloud tech infrastructure to Israel’s government and military.
Google workers openly protested against the contract last year, because they demanded to know whether their labour was being used as part of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Journal contacted Alphabet for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication.
In previous statements to other outlets, Alphabet has said that its contract for Project Nimbus “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services”.
It also said that the company works with governments around the world.
ISIF investment value: €790,000
German insurance company Allianz was named in the report for investing in shares and bonds which Albanese claimed are “implicated in the occupation and genocide”.
The report claims that Allianz holds at least $7.3 billion (€6.3 billion) in these investments, which it says are made partly as policyholder claims and regulatory requirements, but whose primary focus is to generate returns.
The report also claims that Allianz’s policies underwrite risks taken by other companies which operate in illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
As well as this, the report names Allianz’s asset management subsidiary Pimco as one of 400 investors to have purchased Israeli state bonds that have financed the country’s war in Gaza.
Earlier this month, 800 current and former GAA players signed an open letter calling on the organisation to end its partnership with Allianz over its link to the war in Gaza.
A spokesperson for Allianz Ireland was contacted by The Journal and the company declined to comment.
ISIF investment value: €23.53 million
Like Alphabet, Amazon is named in the report as one of four tech giants that the UN special rapporteur deems central to Israel’s surveillance apparatus and the destruction of Gaza.
It also holds part of the $1.2 billion (€1.03 billion) Project Nimbus contract to provide advanced AI and machine-learning capabilities to the Israeli government.
And it was also among the companies that provided the Israeli internal military with necessary cloud and AI tech after the IDF’s cloud system overloaded in October 2023.
The company’s e-commerce platform Amazon.com is also named for operating directly in illegal Israeli settlements, which the report says helps to both sustain the economy of the settlements and to enable their expansion.
The Journal contacted Amazon for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication.
The company does not appear to have addressed its appearance in the UN report to date.
ISIF investment value: €2.24 million
Unlike other companies on the list, which tend to operate in Israel or illegal settlements or have contracts with Israel’s defence industry, asset management firm BlackRock is named as one of several companies deemed to finance “Israeli occupation and genocide”.
The New York based firm is specifically named in the report because the UN says it is “among the largest investors in arms companies pivotal to the genocidal arsenal of Israel”.
It is considered to have done this by purchasing bonds that are deemed to have “a critical role in funding the ongoing assault on Gaza” and for holding shares in companies that are alleged to be “implicated in the occupation and genocide” in Gaza.
This includes significant investments in a number of the companies named in the report (which also feature in this article), such as Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Alphabet, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar.
A spokesperson for BlackRock was contacted by The Journal, but the company declined to comment.
ISIF investment value: €1.04 million
Booking Holdings, the company behind the Dutch-based accommodation company Booking.com, was named in the report for listing properties and hotel rooms in illegal Israeli settlements.
It noted that Booking.com more than doubled its listings in West Bank settlements from 26 in 2018 to 70 by May 2023.
The Journal Investigates previously browsed Booking.com and was able to find hundreds of listings for hotels and guesthouses based in settlements in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and occupied East Jerusalem.
The company announced in September 2022 that it would start adding safety guidance to any listings in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, including guidance that the reservations are “occupied”.
It subsequently backtracked on this policy the following month after pressure from the Israeli government, and instead opted to use the term “conflict-affected” in its warnings.
The Journal contacted Booking.com for comment for this article, but received no response by the time of publication.
The company told this publication for a previous article about its activities in the occupied territories that it believed it was “not our place to decide where someone can or cannot travel”.
ISIF investment value: €260,000
Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, features throughout the report for providing machinery and equipment used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure.
The company is well-known for producing machines like excavators and bulldozers, as well as industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.
The UN report claims that Caterpillar’s products have been used to carry out “mass demolitions” of homes, mosques and other infrastructure, as well as the raiding of hospitals, and burying wounded Palestinians alive.
The report further claims that Israel has evolved Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer into a piece of “automated, remote-commanded core weaponry” of its military.
It says this has been deployed “in almost every military activity since 2000″, such as clearing incursion lines, ‘neutralising’ Palestinian territory and killing Palestinians.
The company was contacted for comment by The Journal, but no response was received by the time of publication.
Caterpillar has not yet commented on its inclusion in the report, or the decision of Norway’s wealth fund to divest from the company over the use of its bulldozers in the destruction of Palestinian homes.
ISIF investment value: €1.38 million
The Japanese Fanuc Corporation is one of the lesser-known names on the list, in which the ISIF maintains a seven-figure investment.
The corporation is a group of companies that provide automation products and services like robotics and wireless computer systems.
It is mentioned just once in the report in a section about companies which facilitate the arms trade in Israel – though Fanuc appears to do this indirectly.
The UN claims that the corporation provides robotic machinery for the weapons production lines of manufacturers such as Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin, all of which are named as being pivotal to Israel’s violence against Palestinians in Gaza and in illegal settlements.
In response to the report, a spokesperson for Fanuc told The Journal that there are “no records of sales or services for military use being conducted by our company or our European subsidiaries to Israeli companies”.
It added that in the event that Fanuc sells products or services destined for Israel, the company conducts necessary screening in accordance with Japanese legislation.
“If it is confirmed that the intended use is of a military nature, we do not proceed with the sale,” the company’s spokesperson said.
ISIF investment value: €700,000
American tech multinational Hewlett Packard is named in the report for previous, rather than current activities.
According to the UN special rapporteur, one part of the company known as Hewlett Packard Enterprises maintained a database for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority until 2019.
The report claimed that this enabled the “collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians” and supported “the discriminatory permit regime of Israel”.
A spokesperson for Hewlett Packard Enterprise told The Journal that the company is “strongly committed to socially responsible business practices” and always has been.
The company’s statement continued that it works in markets that are consistent with its “values, standards, and global human rights policy”, adding that it was comfortable that its business with the state of Israel is “in alignment with our human rights policy”.
ISIF investment value: €5.94 million
Technology company IBM is named in the report for a number of activities, including taking over maintainence of the database for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority from Hewlett Packard Enterprises.
The UN alleges that IBM has collaborated with science and technology faculties in ways that contribute to the production of tools for surveillance, crowd control, urban warfare, facial recognition and targeted killing that are “effectively tested on Palestinians”.
IBM was contacted for comment on these allegations, but no response was received by the time of publication.
ISIF investment value: €38.01 million
Another of the big tech platforms named in the report, Microsoft is named as basing its largest centre outside of the United States in Israel, where it has operated since 1991.
The report says that the company’s technologies are “embedded” throughout Israel’s state infrastructure and in illegal settlements, including in the prison service, police force, universities and schools.
As with Amazon and Alphabet, the report further alleges that Microsoft has given “virtually government-wide access” to its cloud and AI technologies in ways that allow Israel to enhance data processing and surveillance.
It also names Microsoft’s Azure platform as stepping in when the IDF’s cloud system overloaded in October 2023.
The Journal contacted Microsoft for comment,and was directed to a blog post from May, in which the company said it took “seriously” concerns that its AI technologies were being used by Israeli military to target civilians in Gaza, though it said it had found “no evidence” that this was happening.
The company also said that it would formally review the use of Microsoft Azure by a unit of the IDF, after The Guardian reported the system was used to store data files of phone calls obtained through surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
ISIF investment value: €950,000
Data mining company Palantir, which made headlines here last year after it emerged Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes held shares in the company, features throughout the UN report.
The company has been widely criticised for its involvement with Israel and the conflict in Gaza since the war began.
The UN says there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the company has provided Israel with its AI programme and other technologies to enhance the IDF’s decision-making capabilities in real-time.
It also points to a strategic partnership that the company has with Israel and how it’s CEO responded to accusations that Palantir had been involved in the killing of Palestinians in Gaza by saying “mostly terrorists, that’s true”.
The company did not respond to a request for comment from The Journal.
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