Even in West Bank colonies Gulf business (with Trump's son-in-law)

Middle East Eye investigation: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are linked through Kushner's Affinity Partners to UN blacklisted companies. Involved are banks and companies in telecommunications, transportation, energy, engineering and retail. Business in settlements stronger than solidarity with Palestinians.

Riyadh (AsiaNews) - The Gulf States are linked in various ways with Israeli companies on the UN blacklist of those supporting or promoting settlements - illegal under international law - in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This emerges from an investigation published by Middle East Eye (Mee) according to which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (Eau) and Qatar are in business with the company of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. The architect of the so-called “Abraham Agreements” in the Tycoon's first term in the White House, the US businessman of Jewish origin is now reportedly the largest shareholder in an investment company linked to an Israeli counterpart. The latter is reported to have holdings in companies and businesses accused by the United Nations of operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Affinity Partners, a Miami, Florida-based investment company founded in 2021 by Kushner, has received several billion dollars in funding from the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf states. In January, a few weeks after securing additional funding from the Qatar Investment Authority (Qia) and an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, it completed the purchase of a nearly 10 per cent stake in Phoenix Financial. Phoenix, formerly known as Phoenix Holdings, is an Israeli financial services group that offers insurance and asset management services and holds shares in other Israeli companies in its own name and through a subsidiary, Phoenix Investment House.

The investigation showed that the subsidiaries include at least 11 public companies and one private company currently mentioned in a database of companies with links to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The companies, included in the list compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ohchr), include banks and companies operating in the telecommunications, transport, energy, engineering and retail sectors.

According to data from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange reviewed by Mee on 12 March, Phoenix's total holdings in the 11 public companies are currently valued at about USD 4.5 billion, and Affinity, in a note, says it is “proud” to be the largest shareholder. It is, the statement explains, one of Israel's “best-performing and well-regarded” financial institutions. In contrast, “Affinity's investors are passive, i.e. they have no role in Affinity's or Phoenix's operations”.

Commenting in January on Affinity's investment in Phoenix, Kushner said the deal was ‘a decision rooted in my confidence in Israel's resilience’ and described the partners as ‘some of the most sophisticated investors in the entire region’. However, many questions arise as to whether the Gulf States are now indirectly facilitating or profiting from settlement-related activities. Business that continues even as Palestinians in the West Bank face an escalation of military attacks that have displaced tens of thousands of people and provoked a surge in settler attacks.

Activists and experts are not surprised that an investor the size of Phoenix has stakes in companies accused of complicity in West Bank settlement expansion. What is surprising are the investments of the Gulf states that somehow feed the Israeli occupation policy, especially among those - read Saudi Arabia, which even in these 500 days of war in Gaza has paid lip service to solidarity with the Palestinians - who have not signed normalisation agreements. 

Last October, Qatar's ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani declared that Israel had chosen to expand its “aggression” in the West Bank by implementing pre-existing plans. The Jewish state, he added, “is exploiting the opportunity of the international community's inaction”. A month later, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said that calls by the Israeli far right to annex the West Bank “undermine peace efforts including the two-state solution, encourage war, fuel extremism and threaten security and stability in the region”. In January, the Emirati Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned and denounced” Israel's attacks in Jenin. Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based Palestinian human rights organisation, urged states ‘to refrain from normalisation projects’ and pay attention not to be ‘complicit in the ongoing genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people’.

In 2016, the UN Human Rights Council mandated Ohchr to create a database of companies involved in activities in illegal Israeli settlements. Phoeinx, linked to Kushner's Affinity Partners in turn backed by the Gulf petromonarchies, is linked to pro-settlement companies operating in the sectors: financial, with holdings in Israel Discount Bank, Bank Leumi and Hapoalim Bank; telecommunications, boasting shares in Cellcom and Partner Communications; construction, with Electra and Sahpir Engineering and Industry; energy, with Paz Retail and Energy, which controls petrol stations in West Bank settlements; retail, with ZMH Hammerman; and transport, with Mayer Cars&Trucks.

Noam Perry, strategic research coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee, which monitors corporate complicity in state violence, calls it impossible for an investor like Phoenix to avoid exposure in the settlements. These entities, the expert points out, although illegal under international law are "integrated into the local economy and Israeli law defines their exclusion as a form of discrimination. Therefore, it would be impossible for a company like Phoenix to avoid such participations. The same,“ Perry concludes, 'would apply to all large investors entering the Israeli market”.

Finally, in recent days a leading pro-colonial Israeli movement (photo 2) visited the United Arab Emirates and met with senior government officials, as confirmed by Israeli media including the news website 0404 News. The delegation - which included Israel Ganz, Chairman of the Yesha Council, Eliram Azoulay, Hebron Hills Regional Settlement Council, and Yesha Council CEO Omer Rahamim - discussed opportunities for economic, security and diplomatic cooperation. Events on the calendar included an Iftar dinner (breaking the fast in the holy month of Ramadan) at the official residence of Ali Rashid al-Nuaimi, a senior member of the Yesha National Council.