Call for Welsh pension fund to divest from Israel linked companies

Palestine activists are preparing to lobby Welsh pension bosses. And they’ll be pushing the case for divestment, human rights and justice for Palestinians. The push will call on the Wales Pension Partnership to divest pension money from companies complicit in the oppression of Palestinians.

The activists, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others, will come to Cardiff from all over Wales. They’ll form a Red Line protest from 9.30am on 10 March at County Hall in Cardiff during a meeting of the Wales Pension Partnership. And they’ll call on the pension fund to divest from genocide.

The Red Line for Gaza campaign takes inspiration from symbolic ‘red line’ protests around Wales and the world. Protesters carry a symbolic red line fabric. The red lines the Israeli government continues to cross include starvation as a weapon of war, and targeting and killing civilians seeking safety (including children), journalists, medics and care givers.

The Wales Pension Partnership

The Wales Pension Partnership invests £1.1bn on behalf of Welsh local authorities in companies enabling Israel’s genocide. They include Elbit, Palantir, Barclays Bank and companies critical to the West Bank settlements. The United Nations has declared these settlements illegal.

Despite the declared ceasefire, Israel continues to attack Gaza and the West Bank, with hundreds killed and infrastructure destroyed. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Israel has killed over 100 children in Gaza since the ceasefire. Israel has intensified, not relaxed, land confiscation – especially in the West Bank.

Ten Welsh councils have already voted to back divestment by their pension funds, yet the Wales Pension Partnership refuses to act. On 4 March Rhondda Cynon Taf council will debate and hopefully pass a divestment motion. While on 5 March Pembrokeshire council will debate divestment by Dyfed Pension Fund.

The Wales Pension Partnership approach is what it calls “constructive engagement” with companies identified as potentially complicit in human right abuses.

Bethan Sayed is co-chair of PSC Cymru. PSC Cymru is the Welsh branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Ahead of the protest, she said:

The Wales Pension Partnership prefers to write polite letters to companies selling the means of genocide than pulling the rug on them. It’s not good enough, and that’s why we call on the WPP to change course and set about pulling money out of these companies.

Our focus is firmly on the lack of decisive divestment despite most councils in Wales demanding it. Genocide continues.

Featured image via the Canary