The targeted boycotting of businesses involved in Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories is legitimate

The Norwegian government's divestment from Elbit Systems is an entirely appropriate response to Elbit's business involvement with the occupation of the West Bank. Despite the howls of protest from Israeli officials, the Norwegians' decision is a principled stand, which bears the closest of scrutiny, especially when viewed in the context of previous decisions by the country's council of ethics regarding state investments.

Claims that Elbit is being unfairly singled out due to its being an Israeli company ring hollow given that Norway's public pension fund also refuses to invest in 30 other firms' shares, including Boeing, Wal-Mart and British Aerospace. Elbit's role in constructing and maintaining Israel's separation barrier – deemed illegal in its entirety by the international court of justice (ICJ), and in part by the Israeli supreme court – means that any fund interested in maintaining an ethical stance towards investment ought to steer well clear of Elbit's stock.

While an indiscriminate boycott of all Israeli produce is both wrong-headed and counterproductive, that does not mean specific sanctions ought to be proscribed in cases where the companies involved are clearly making money from piling misery on the Palestinians. It has been pointed out that Norway's fund managers could go even further than simply scratching their investment in Elbit, given that almost two-thirds of the 41 Israeli companies in which the Norwegian pension fund holds stock "have significant economic interests in the continued Israeli occupation", according to the Coalition of Women for Peace.

Read more @ The Guardian's Comment Is Free

In another stunning blow to Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev, the Israeli business magazine Globes Online has reported that BlackRock Inc., one of the world's largest investment management firms, has divested from Leviev's Africa-Israel Investments. The Globes article follows a similar report by the Norwegian news service Norwatch. The move comes after a nearly two-year-long global boycott campaign of Leviev's businesses that developed in response to the billionaire's construction activities in at least four Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, all of which violate international law, and his abusive labor practices in the diamond industry in Angola and Namibia.

In a 23 August article, Globes noted that BlackRock has been under pressure from three Norwegian financial institutions to remove Africa-Israel from its portfolio of funds offered to investors.

Read more @ Electronic Intifada

Israel is to lodge an official complaint with Sweden over claims in a newspaper that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to sell their organs.

The article was published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet this week.

The Swedish ambassador to Israel condemned the newspaper article as "shocking and appalling".

The government in Stockholm has not issued a similar condemnation, and Israeli foreign ministry officials have reacted furiously.

"It is regrettable that the Swedish foreign ministry does not intervene when it comes to a blood libel against Jews," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

"[This] reminds one of Sweden's conduct during World War II, when it also did not intervene."

In a blog post on Thursday evening, Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote that he would not condemn the article, and that freedom of expression is part of the Swedish constitution.

Read more @ BBC News