More than 300 churches all over Norway rang their bells for seven minutes on Thursday afternoon, in what Norwegian bishops called a “collective demonstration of solidarity” with the civilian population that’s suffering in Gaza. A majority of Norwegians, meanwhile, are demanding that their huge sovereign wealth fund sell off investments in Israel, which has been attacking Gaza continuously for nearly two years.
The church bells started ringing at 3pm, after weeks of news reports from the area have dominated headlines and sparked debate in Norway. Several specific incidents have struck a nerve, including the recent murder of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, who took part in the Oscar-winning and Norwegan co-produced film “No Other Land.” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has, under pressure, acknowledged how the UN, legal experts and human rights organizations are now referring to Israel’s repeated attacks on Palestinians as folkemord (genocide), as scores of Palestinians in Gaza are also dying of starvation after Israel has long restricted deliveries of food and humanitarian aid. There’s been outcry in Norway as others have been shot while trying to acquire food.
“Day after day we’re hearing news reports of how the situation is getting even worse, and it was already a human catastrophe,” said Norwegian Archbishop Olav Fykse Tveit. The long-standing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians escalated dramatically after the Palestinian organization Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, injuring and killing hundreds and taking hostages. Israel’s retaliation has left more than 60,000 Palestinians dead since then, a reaction that even conservative political parties in Norway that have long supported Israel now deem as “going too far.”
That’s all prompted Thursday’s unusual reaction by the Norwegian state church. In May the church called for using “all legitimate political and economic means” to pressure Israel into stopping “what now appears as ethnic cleansing in Gaza.” Since then, Tveit said, “the situation has grown worse and we see a need to break the silence.” Hence the church bell action that also was carried out in Finland and Iceland. Bells will also ring in Sweden on Sunday.
There were some objections to the bell-ringing. Several churches in Agder in Southern Norway, known as Norway’s “Bible Belt,” refused to take part, while Jewish organizations in Oslo and Trondheim expressed disappointment. “When church bells ring, we hope they ring for everyone,” they wrote in an email to news bureau NTB, “both for the civilian Palestinians who are suffering in Gaza, Israeli civilians who are injured by rockets from Hamas and the the hostages who still haven’t come home.”
Tveit said the bell-ringing was meant to show how everyone is affected by the suffering. “We’re ringing in solidarity with them, we pray for them, and we’re ringing to say that this (the attacks) must stop,” said Tveit. He acknowledged that it’s seldom church bells are used in such a way, but noted a long history in Norway of the bells being used to warn of danger. “When we use them symbolically in such a way, it’s a means of saying that we must react to what we’re seeing,” Tveit told state broadcaster NRK. “We must wake up and react.”
Many Norwegians are also reacting to news earlier this week that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund known as the Oil Fund has invested in several Israeli companies that are involved in Israel’s war efforts and profiting on them. In addition to holding a profitable stake in a firm that maintains Israel’s fighter jets’ motors, the fund (fueled by Norway’s oil revenues over the years) also has stakes in Israeli companies that deliver drone-cameras to the Israeli military and own shopping centers on the occupied West Bank, and in Israeli banks.
The now highly controversial stakes were largely arranged through external fund managers in Israel. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported this week that most of the fund’s purchases are handled internally by employees of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which runs the fund, but it also uses 106 external companies including three in Israel.
That’s suddenly become controversial itself, and NBIM’s chief Nicolai Tangen stressed that he and his staff remain responsible for the Oil Fund’s investments. He has claimed repeatedly this week that many of the Israeli investments, which have been highly profitable, were new to him and that he wasn’t aware of their direct ties to the war on Gaza. “We’re owners in nearly 9,000 companies worldwide and we don’t have full analytical coverage of 9,000 companies,” he told DN.
Both the Oil Fund and the ethics council that’s also supposed to monitor all investments are now charged with going through the fund’s entire Israeli portfolio. The council is responsible for making sure companies in which the fund invests meet ethical standards. Contributing to any form of human rights violations, and certainly any genocide, is not allowed and can force sell-offs.
Since the Oil Fund, meant to fund pensions for future generations, plays a huge role in Norwegian society, it’s also hugely important to the vast majority of Norwegians. It’s ultimately a political responsibility in Norway, though, and Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg of the Labour Party was quick to take that on as questions and criticism swirled this week.
“What I’m mostly concerned about is that we don’t contribute to any violation of the rule of law,” Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday. “The responsibility for the fund functioning as it should, is mine.” His predecessor, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum of the Center Party, was finance minister when several of the investments in Israeli companies were made in 2023, and when holdings were even increased last year. His party’s youth group was among those demanding that the Oil Fund should pull out of any Israeli companies operating in occupied Palestinian areas.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund