A clash between Israeli settlers and soldiers has divided opinion in the far-right government, with one minister criticised for taking the settlers' side.
The clash in the West Bank on Friday led to a 14-year-old Israeli being shot and taken to hospital in the village of Kafr Malik, near the Palestinian capital, Ramallah. The area has seen an increased rate of settler attacks against Palestinian communities, with attacks on people, property and livestock.
Israel’s military, which was in the area following Israeli settler attacks, denied that any live ammunition was “conducted towards Israeli civilians”. The clash came after days of particularly brutal settler violence against Palestinians, which has been spiralling throughout the Gaza war. Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire in Kafr Malik on Wednesday.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said “our lives are in the hands of criminals” after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich criticised the Israeli soldiers. Mr Smotrich said after the attack that the Israeli military’s “live fire against Jews is a forbidden and dangerous crossing of a red line which requires an in-depth investigation”.
“Jewish terrorists beat IDF soldiers, punched a battalion commander defending them and Smotrich says that the ones who ‘crossed the line’ are not the extremist criminals but actually the IDF soldiers there to protect them,” Mr Lapid wrote on X.
Merav Ben Ari, a politician from Mr Lapid’s party, responded to Mr Smotrich: “I don’t get it, so live fire against Druze, Arabs, Christians, Circassians, that’s cool? Listen, you miserable racist, it’s an embarrassment that you are a minister in the state of Israel.”
Left-wing Israeli politician Ofer Cassif said: “Live fire against Jews, not against human beings. That's what troubles this vile fascist, a follower of the abominable race theory of the [far-right] ultra-Orthodox ‘Rabbi’ Shapira and other evil-doers. These will soon be thrown into the trash bin of history. Very soon.”
The incidents of the past few days have underlined for some Israelis that the growing lawlessness in the occupied West Bank, much of which is being driven by supporters of the country’s far-right coalition, is becoming hard to ignore. On Saturday, a day after the teenager was put in hospital, a police station was vandalised by settlers in the settlement of Beit El.
In the aftermath of the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for an investigation “to bring to justice anyone who violated the law and acted against our soldiers”. He added that the attackers “are a small minority who do not represent the absolute majority of settlers”. Israel’s settlement project, viewed as illegal by the vast majority of the international community, has expanded significantly during the tenure of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.
There were reports of settler land seizures and attacks in Masafer Yatta on Sunday, the recent subject of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Four people were injured after being assaulted by settlers.
There were also reports that a group of settlers destroyed around 180 trees owned by a Palestinian farmer east of the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya, and the seizure of cattle in the northern Jordan Valley.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
MATCH DETAILS
Chelsea 4
Jorginho (4 pen, 71 pen), Azpilicueta (63), James (74)
Ajax 4
Abraham (2 og), Promes (20). Kepa (35 og), van de Beek (55)
