–  By Fred Schlomka & Yahav Zohar –
First published in the Shetland Times – 28th November 2025 –
The article was written is support of the campaign to persuade the Shetland Island Council to divest from Israel. –

What is this Israel/Gaza ‘ceasefire’? It is a mechanism that has allowed Israel to maintain the siege and bombing of one of the world’s most crowded enclaves, Hamas to take back power and execute its enemies, and the rest of the world to forget that any of this is happening – that the people of Gaza are still dying – every day.

The appearance of a ceasefire has taken off the pressure, and now the Israelis can get back to the business of destruction. Most of the political opposition within Israel have completely supported the siege and bombing – they would just prefer to be supervising it instead of Netanyahu.

The Israeli military still directly occupies half of the Gaza strip, and in the other half, a narrow strip along the coast, 2 million Gazans still live under Hamas rule and Israeli siege. The ceasefire agreement promised 600 trucks a day would be let into the strip, but the actual number has averaged less than 100. Enough to supply Hamas and those connected to it, but food is still scarce, and the vulnerable are still dying of malnutrition. The weather is getting colder, soon the rains will start, and the vast majority of surviving Gazans are in tents.

According to informal surveys, most Shetlanders do not support the actions of the state of Israel, and certainly do not want their local council, pension funds, and charitable organisations to be investing in the Israeli economy. Yet the Shetland Island Council and the Shetland Charitable Trust together have invested tens of millions of pounds belonging to Shetlanders, into companies that are either based in Israel, do business with Israeli companies, or directly provide the Israeli government and military with cloud services, hardware, software, military vehicles and weapons.

This needs to end. Our political leaders cannot invest islander funds in support of the state of Israel, which stands accused of Genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The SIC should immediately divest from this pariah regime.

At last month’s meeting, the Shetland Island Council ordered a report to be prepared on the status of SIC’s investments in the Israeli economy. The report is due at the next meeting a few weeks, and was requested  as a result of the growing pressure from Shetlanders for SIC accountability in supporting Israel’s Apartheid regime and the Gaza genocide.

At the end of of December 2024 the Shetland Island Council’s long term investments had a value of £387 million, and were invested with two main fund managers:  Baillie Gifford (59.6%) and  BlackRock (37.8%) The Shetland Charitable Trust also invests over £300 million, the bulk of its assets, with these two investment funds.

BlackRock is an institutional investor in a number of companies based in Israel, including Elbit Systems Ltd. (ESLT), an Israeli defense company that is a major supplier to the Israeli military. BlackRock is also a major institutional shareholder in several large multinational corporations that have business operations, contracts, or supply products used in connection with Israeli military and surveillance activities. These companies include Palantir, a data analytics company, whose technology is reportedly used by Israeli security forces – and Caterpillar bulldozers which are used in home demolitions in Palestinian territories.

Blackrock CEO, Larry Fink, is an outspoken supporter of the apartheid regime in Israel. The company is the world’s largest investment firm, and has so many assets invested in the Israeli economy that it maintains an office in Tel Aviv. It is shameful that so much of the collective assets of Shetlanders are invested in support of a regime that most of the world condemns. Protests against Blackrock’s complicity in genocide have been held outside its offices in Edinburgh.

Many Islanders were active during the 1960s to the 1990s in opposition to South Africa Apartheid. Now they are coming together again in support the liberation of the people in Palestine and Israel.  Consensus is building among Shetlanders, and public pressure is being brought to bear on the Shetland Islands Council, Shetland Charitable Trust and other local institutions, to divest from all companies with economic interests in Israel. Are they listening? Will they act?

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Fred Schlomka is co-Managing Partner of the Green Olive Collective and divides his time between Shetland and Jaffa.
Yahav Zohar is based in Jerusalem and a Senior Partner in the Green Olive Collective.