A friend said something to me recently that I can’t shake off:
“Investing in US stocks is tricky, you never know which companies are benefiting from genocide or actively participating in it.”
It stopped me in my tracks.
It also quietly answered a question I’ve been wrestling with for months:
“How did the world allow genocide in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s?”
The truth is uncomfortable: we’re allowing it to happen in exactly the same way, by whispering to ourselves that there’s nothing we can do, that we’re too small to make a difference, and then quietly slipping back into business as usual. I’ve sat with this for a while, and it’s left me with two realisations. One: We need to rethink how we invest. Two: We need to rethink how we live. This piece is about the first — our money, our markets, our choices.
The second, the harder conversation about our habits and daily actions, I’ll save for a follow‑up on my blog. You can follow it by subscribing it below.
How Companies Get Involved
When you start looking into it, there are usually three layers of corporate involvement:
Direct profiteering: The company is directly earning from the genocide. That might mean selling weapons, technology, or services that enable it (Major defence companies and Tech companies in the US).
Indirect profiteering: The company supplies goods or services to another company that is directly involved, and benefits from that relationship (example JCB or many others in the construction space).
Active support through bias: Company leaders take sides, publicly or quietly, in ways that enable or excuse atrocities. This could also come from bias for Israel or bias against Palestine — either can be used to justify their actions on the ground.
How to Spot Them
The first group is the easiest to uncover. Media reports, NGO investigations, and sometimes even a company’s own earnings calls make it clear. A simple starting point: check if they have a subsidiary or office in Israel.
The second group requires a bit more effort — consider their top clients, partnerships, and supply chains. Follow the money and you’ll see the links.
The third group is harder. Maybe a 50–50 chance of figuring it out.
Two quick checks:
Is the company named in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement?
Where is the CEO based? If in the US, search their speeches, interviews, or donation records for signs of support for the occupation or the violence.
Why This Matters to Us as Investors
We’ve been here before. Remember the global outrage over Blood Diamonds in the late 1990s? The media exposés, the NGO reports, the celebrity campaigns? It led to the Kimberley Process in 2003, an imperfect but significant attempt to choke off the trade.
That happened because enough people refused to keep their money in companies that profited from bloodshed. It’s time we dusted off that playbook.
I’ve been compiling a list of well-known, publicly listed companies that many investors would consider “safe” or “blue-chip” but that, in my view, belong under one label: Genocide Profiteers.
It’s not a comfortable read. It shouldn’t be.
The Small Things We Can Do
No one person can stop a war. But as investors, we hold levers of influence we don’t always use.
Research before you invest – Don’t just check the P/E ratio. Follow the supply chain.
Ask your fund manager – If you own mutual funds or ETFs, find out if they’re holding these companies.
Use your shareholder rights – Question management. Vote on resolutions.
Support ethical alternatives – Allocate capital to businesses that show transparency and responsibility.
When our children will ask us, “What did you do?”
I’d like my answer to be something more than, “I looked away.”
Footnote:
(1) Blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds, are gems mined in war zones, often under brutal conditions involving forced labour and violence, and sold to fund insurgencies or warlord activities. They fuelled the civil wars of Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s. Global outrage led to the Kimberley Process in 2003, designed to certify diamonds as conflict-free. It reduced conflict diamonds to under 1% of global trade, but loopholes remain, proof that vigilance can’t be a one-time effort.
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