How public pensions in Wales are being used to support illegal Israeli activities and the genocide in Gaza
Nicholas Waterfield, Amnesty Colwyn Bay
Since 2022 Amnesty International groups throughout Wales have been writing to councils and local
authority pension funds urging them to divest public pensions from companies that benefit from
and support the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.
Lately too, we have been urging divestment from military and arms companies supplying weapons to Israel, and thereby guilty of supporting, and benefitting from the devastation in Gaza.
The settlements in the West Bank have long been illegal under international law, and as such are
condemned by the British government, nevertheless investment in complicit companies continues.
What’s more, it is widely acknowledged (by Amnesty and many others) that the Israeli government
is guilty of apartheid against the Palestinian people under its control, and guilty of genocide in Gaza.
Without the knowledge or consent of public employees whose wages are invested in this way, the eight Welsh public pensions funds, and the central Welsh Public Pension Partnership invest an astonishing £480 million p.a. (2023) in companies involved in the Israeli settlements.
The UN database of companies complicit in Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians include
everyday names such as Palantir, Airbnb, Booking.com, and JCB.
When we have approached people with our petitions they have been appalled to discover how their pension money has been invested.
There is no doubt that the terrible war against Gaza, played out daily on our TV screens, increased
awareness of the situation of Palestinians. With a renewal of appeals and petitions from Amnesty and other organisations such as Palestine Solidarity Campaign there has finally been some discussion of investments in the councils and pension committees.
And it is a credit to the people of Wales that some councils have voted to divest from such complicit companies: to date 9 out of 22 Welsh councils have voted this way, and one of the Welsh Public Pension Funds (Clwyd, covering Wrexham, Flint and Denbighshire).
Ethical investments
English councils too have started to make moves, but Wales is leading the way in calling for ethical investment with regards to Israel.
However, the crisis is far from over. Whilst the world’s focus has moved on the situation in Gaza is a ceasefire in name only, with bombing, murder and starvation still visited daily on the people trying to survive in the ruins.
As for the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinian communities is out of control, with murder and terrorism supported by the Israeli military, and open talk of ethnic cleansing, and of the eradication of all hope of a Palestinian homeland.
Whilst there have been crimes against humanity on both sides, and Amnesty has rightly condemned the actions of Hamas on October 7th 2023, Israel’s response has been utterly disproportionate, with an estimated 67,000 people killed, including 20,000 children, and thousands more lost under the rubble.
Far more have suffered injury, and there are more child amputees per capita in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
What will it take for us to stop supporting Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people, and the destruction of their hopes? It’s vital that the Pension Funds comply with the wishes of the councils.
Complicity
Furthermore, according to the International Court of Justice, those that continue to support Israel’s illegal actions could be guilty of complicity.
We in Amnesty International Wales join other human rights organisations, including those in Israel, in calling upon all Welsh councils and Pensions Funds to abide by international law, and to remove their support from those companies that enable Israel’s apartheid, unlawful military occupation of the West bank, and genocide in Gaza.
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I am sure all our Welsh councils and pension funds will be removing their support from these evil companies whatever there portfolios may be. Wales will not be complicit in the atrocious behaviour and intentions of the evil zionist government.
I think many people have their pension funds investing in fields that they would not be happy with if they were properly informed about it.
Great article
The settlements in the West Bank have long been illegal under international law, but which international law is that? If it is UN resolutions then they are non-binding, so hardly law. Currently, Israel has full sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank). Under international law (Uti possidetis juris), occupation occurs when a country takes over the sovereign territory of another country. But the West Bank was never part of Jordan, which seized it in 1949 and ethnically cleansed its entire Jewish population. Nor was it ever the site of an Arab Palestinian state. Moreover, a country cannot occupy… Read more »
Within one paragraph of your rant, you have proved that you know very little about the whole situation. The rest of it is just fluff to justify Isreali aggression against the Palestinian people.
The illegal Isreali settlements contravene Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
I hope that helps.
But well done for supporting a genocidal, apartheid regime. I’m sure your mother would be proud.
There are entire books dedicated to Israeli violations of international law Tucker lists a few below. It’s the usual nonsense of trying to deny the existence of the Palestinian people. When Israel ‘ declared independence ‘ they were really declaring dominion over the Palestinian lands that they had just ethnically cleansed, massacred and destroyed. There was no empty land every village, town and city was built on top of a destroyed Palestinian one. The agenda remains the same exterminate and remove the indigenous population and replace them with European and American settlers. It also must be said that in it’s… Read more »