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Nation•Cymru A news service by the people of Wales, for the people of Wales.

Opinion

How public pensions in Wales are being used to support illegal Israeli activities and the genocide in Gaza

By Mark Mansfield
Gaza City. Photo PA/Associated Press

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.

For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.

7 comments

Amir

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.

Reply
Clive hopper

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.

Reply
Jon w

Great article

Reply
Tim Edwards

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 territory to which it has sovereign title, and Israel has the strongest claim to the land.  Uti possidetis juris (Latin for "as you possess under law") is a principle of international law that newly formed sovereign states should retain the internal borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence. This principle has been applied in modern history to such regions as South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union, and numerous other regions where centralized governments were broken up, where imperial rulers were overthrown, or where League of Nations mandates ended, e.g. British territory of Mandatory Palestine and Nauru. It is often applied to prevent foreign intervention by eliminating any contested terra nullius, or no man's land, that foreign powers could claim, or to prevent disputes that could emerge with the possibility of redrawing the borders of new states after their independence. When Israel declared independence in 1948 and was accepted by the United Nations its borders included Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It was only after the first Arab/Israeli war that Israeli territory was lost until it was regained in 1967.  Significantly, the author of the article fails to say which international law. Most such articles usually say "widely considered illegal" which is just opinion and does not actually mean illegal. I am happy to be proven wrong!

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Tucker

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.

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Jon w

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 early iteration the UN acted more as a club dominated by the imperial powers. Since then it has been made clear that Israel is an apartheid state and an illegal military occupier.

Reply
Smae

It is illegal under the Geneva Conventions IV... you know the same set of Geneva Conventions that prevent things like you know... Cluster Bombs, stops kids being executed during war time. Israel is a signatory to the relevant parts. Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and split off by the British known as the Mandate for Palestine, which became Mandatory Palestine. This was the result of the treaties ending World War I. Syria and Jordan were also part of this, the latter being known as Trans-Jordan (excellent naming sense Britain...), well the Syrian/Lebanon was a French Mandate. The whole thing went to hell in a hand cart. Israel has about as much claim to exist as Palestine does. You can argue niceties about how they were there decades before... but history and the law of being conquered and wiped out by the Ottomans which rule the region from 1566 up until 1922. Israel if you could call it that back then Iron Age times... had a rule of about 300 years. After that between the Mongols, the Turks... the British Crusades... not exactly a great time. There's a reason why the United Nations ordained a Two State solution. Israel does not have the claim to the land that it thinks it does. It was a mistake by the UN to insert people into an already settled land with different cultures and beliefs and expect them all to get on... but we are where we are. Israel's declaration of independence was accepted on the basis of a continued Arab state (i.e. Palestine). Naturally this was all done arbitrarily forced through not by consensus but by America and the "Allies" against the states that were actually there. Had more concessions been given... might not have had this problem.

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Replying to Amir Cancel

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 governm...

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