The United Nations has warned that there was “clear evidence” that war crimes may have been committed in “the explosion of violence in
Israel and Gaza”. Meanwhile, Wall Street is hoping for an explosion in profits.
During third-quarter earnings calls this month, analysts from Morgan Stanley and TD Bank took note of this potential profit-making escalation in conflict and asked unusually blunt questions about the financial benefit of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Joe Biden has asked
Congress for $106bn in military and humanitarian aid for Israel and
Ukraine and humanitarian assistance for Gaza. The money could be a boon to the aerospace and weapons sector which enjoyed
a 7-percentage point jump in value in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response.
“Hamas has created additional demand, we have this $106bn request from the president,” said von Rumohr, during General Dynamics’
earnings call on 25 October. “Can you give us some general color in terms of areas where you think you could see incremental acceleration in demand?”
“You know, the Israel situation obviously is a terrible one, frankly, and one that’s just evolving as we speak,” responded Jason Aiken, the company’s executive vice president of technologies and chief financial officer. “But I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of that, the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”
That next day, von Rumohr assigned a “buy”
rating to General Dynamics’ stock.
The comments are seemingly in contradiction of
each company’s “statement on human rights” and explicit endorsements of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Eli Clifton@the Guardian.com
www.brookings.edu
