Don’t let my pension contributions fund Israel’s war machine!
Email To Councillor Gerald P Cooney, Lead Executive Councillor at Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (MBC) and the Chair of the Management Panel and the Advisory Board of Greater Manchester Pension Fund – GMPF. at ged.cooney@tameside.gov.uk. Please also bcc contact@gmfriendsofpalestine.org so that we have some record of how many people are taking action on divestment.
Dear Councillor Gerald P Cooney,
As a Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) member, I am deeply concerned that GMPF has invested my pension contributions in multinational companies that are associated with Israel’s war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, their occupation of Palestinian lands and violation of Palestinian human rights.
Through research published by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), many people are now aware that Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) funds, collectively, hold at least £3.5bn worth of shares and bonds, in companies complicit in Israel’s grave breaches of international law and Palestinian human rights.
From your own published figures, it is clear that GMPF holds investments of, at least £786,513,228 in such Israeli-complicit companies. Surely this places financial, reputational, legal and regulatory risks on GMP Fund investments.
And at a time of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, GMPF invests over £18 million in arms and spyware manufacturers, like which supply the Israeli military forces, directly and/or make bombs, missiles and components for the F-35, F-16 and F-15 jets which are exported to Israel from the US and are now deployed in Gaza against the civilian population.
Israel is engaged in grave violations of Palestinian human rights and international law. Their behaviour towards Palestinians in Gaza breaches the Geneva Convention and is presently the subject of a court case at the International Court at the Hague.
Besides the genocidal war they are presently engaged in, Israel is engaged in the military occupation and settlement of Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as affirmed by the UN Security Council and the UK government; the inhumane land, sea and air blockade on Gaza, deemed a flagrant violation of international human rights and humanitarian law by UN experts; the denial of the fundamental human right of dispossessed Palestinian refugees to return to the land from which they, or their family members, were expelled,in violation of UN Resolution 194.
Israel can only maintain its grave violations of Palestinian human rights because of the finance capital, capital products, equipment and services it receives from a range of complicit companies.
These companies are complicit through:
- Financing and supplying the Israeli military with weapons and other technology used to oppress Palestinians.
- Providing technology and equipment used to maintain Israel’s infrastructure of military occupation, such as its checkpoints and the apartheid wall.
- Investment and other activity in Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, based on stolen Palestinian land.
As a scheme member I therefore ask you to take immediate action to:
- Implement strict investment screening and due diligence procedures to ensure my pension contributions and other GMPF members’ money isn’t being invested in companies that supply Israel’s military forces (like Babcock’s and BAE Systems). They are complicit in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and in severe violations of international law;
- Ensure that the fund does not invest in any company identified by the UN Human Rights Office as active in Israel’s illegal settlements;
- Call for a robust, ethical investment strategy statement/statement of investment principles, to ensure that my pension contributions cannot be invested in companies that contribute to a breach of international law or are complicit in human rights abuses.
Please pass on my concerns to your fellow Tameside councillors on the GMPF Management Committee and Advisory Board, both of which you chair.
I hope you will support me in ensuring that my public service pension is not just a decent pension, financially and ethically but is not achieved at the expense of some of the most oppressed and vulnerable people in the world.
If you require more information about companies complicit in Israeli violations of international law, please contact info@palestinecampaign.orgor consult (https://lgpsdivest.org/lgps-investments/)
Yours Sincerely,
Your name………….
Your postal address…………….
Your GMPF membership number, if you can find it. …………