Norwegian finance ministers do not normally have the tools or the temperament to provoke fury among Israeli leaders and jubilation among Palestinian activists.
Yet those were the reactions when Kristin Halvorsen announced in September that her country's giant pension fund had excluded an Israeli defence company from its portfolio for "ethical reasons". The fund, she added, had sold its holding in Elbit Systems because of the company's role in supplying surveillance equipment to Israel's controversial West Bank barrier. "We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law," Ms Halvorsen said at the time.
