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As foreign investors warn over Israel’s future, ratings firm accused of anti-Israel bias says it’s not worried — for now
(JTA) — As much of the financial world increasingly eyes political developments in Israel with concern, a company that specializes in assessing investments based on social responsibility criteria made a special announcement Wednesday in which it declared Israel “a low-risk country.”
That designation is both a signal to investors that they are unlikely to get entangled in human rights abuses or other scandals if they put their money in Israel, and a reassurance intended for pro-Israel advocates who have accused the company of bias against Israel.
The announcement from the multibillion-dollar Chicago-based financial research firm Morningstar is the latest entry in a debate about how companies around the world should regard the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One side says that Israel should be treated as regular Western democracy and the other says that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians should put the country in the class of authoritarian regimes.
But another debate about Israel’s investment worthiness has emerged in recent months following the election of a new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whose slim parliamentary majority relies on the support of parties with far-right platforms.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, has vowed to overhaul Israel’s judicial system and rein in the independence of the courts. Many financial analysts consider a weakened judiciary a red flag for investors.
Sarah Wirth, a spokesperson for Morningstar, said that its analysis designating Israel a low-risk country does not yet account for recent developments in Israel.
“Some of the changes developing in Israel may impact their Country Risk Rating once we incorporate them into our analysis,” Wirth wrote in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in reference to the judicial reform plan.
The latest warning about Israel’s place in the global economy emerged Friday with the leak of an internal report written by JPMorgan, one of the largest banks in the world.
The report compared Israel to Poland, which passed a similar judicial reform in 2016 and saw a downgrade to its credit rating, which was a major blow because national credit ratings can either attract or drive away investments from abroad.
JPMorgan analysts wrote that Israel’s credit rating still “stands comfortably in the investment grade bucket” but that Netanyahu’s plan could cause it to go down.
The report adds to a warning by another Wall Street giant, Goldman Sachs, which said last week that the Israeli shekel could be affected by “growing concern over domestic political developments.”
“The five most recent elections over the past three-year period have had typically limited read-through to financial markets,” Goldman Sachs economist Tadas Gedminas wrote in a report. “This is not to say that the current situation could not have a more meaningful impact this time around, and we will closely monitor ongoing developments.”
Netanyahu has rejected criticism of his judicial plan by saying that the proposed reforms are being misrepresented by his critics and that they would merely bring Israel’s courts in line with courts in other Western countries. The plan would limit the ability of the Supreme Court to rule laws and government actions as unconstitutional, give the government control over the appointments of new judges and end the independence of the position of legal advisor across various government offices, among other measures.
Netanyahu has also said that regardless of the warnings by analysts, international investors are excited about Israel and eager to acquire equity in Israeli companies. His latest pronouncement came from France where he said he met with 60 local business leaders.
“What they’re saying about investors running away is nonsense,” Netanyahu said. “We want to increase our investments in Israel.”
Some of Israel’s own business leaders are concerned enough about the country’s direction that they are choosing to decamp. The CEO of tech company Verbit, which was valued at $2 billion in 2021, announced Tuesday that he would leave the country to avoid paying millions in taxes as a protest of the judicial overhaul plan.
“Over the past few years, I’ve paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes and my company has paid hundreds of millions in taxes,” Verbit CEO Tom Livne said on Israel’s Channel 12. He encouraged others in Israel’s vaunted tech sector to do the same.
Livne’s announcement comes about a week after two Israeli tech firms, including one that was valued at $3.7 billion in 2021, said they would withdraw assets from Israel for the same reason.
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.