100 signatures reached
To: Oxfordshire County Council and Pension Fund Committee
Oxfordshire County Council: Divest for Palestine!
We, the undersigned, call on the Council to:
1. Commit to divest the Local Government Pension Scheme fund administered by the council from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians. This includes arms companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology; companies providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military occupation of Palestinian land, and companies conducting business activity in Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land; and companies providing financing to companies that are involved in the above activities
2. End procurement contracts with companies complicit in Israel’s attacks. For example, terminate all banking arrangements with Barclays, which provides substantial financing to companies supplying Israel with weapons used in its attacks on Palestinians.
1. Commit to divest the Local Government Pension Scheme fund administered by the council from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians. This includes arms companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology; companies providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military occupation of Palestinian land, and companies conducting business activity in Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land; and companies providing financing to companies that are involved in the above activities
2. End procurement contracts with companies complicit in Israel’s attacks. For example, terminate all banking arrangements with Barclays, which provides substantial financing to companies supplying Israel with weapons used in its attacks on Palestinians.
Why is this important?
Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians - almost half of them children. 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, many of whom multiple times. Nowhere in Gaza is safe: entire residential neighbourhoods have been levelled, UN schools sheltering the displaced, and hospitals treating the wounded, have been repeatedly targeted. Palestinians in Gaza are facing famine due to Israel's blockade and its targeting of life-sustaining infrastructure. In June 2024, UN experts declared that “Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world court, handed down an interim ruling affirming there is plausible evidence Israel is committing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. As a State Party to the Genocide Convention, the UK has a binding obligation to employ all means reasonably available to prevent and deter further genocidal acts.
In June 2024, UN experts issued a statement demanding that both states and companies stop all arms transfers to Israel. In issuing their call, they outlined that financial institutions, such as banks and pension funds, investing in arms companies supplying Israel must cease, writing that financial institutions “failure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes.”
The defeat of the previous government’s draconian attempts to restrict the right of public bodies to take ethical investment and procurement decisions means that there is no barrier to the council exercising its profound moral obligation not to contribute to Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights.
If you are a member of the LGPS in Oxfordshire, please let us know by email:
[email protected]
The defeat of the previous government’s draconian attempts to restrict the right of public bodies to take ethical investment and procurement decisions means that there is no barrier to the council exercising its profound moral obligation not to contribute to Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights.
If you are a member of the LGPS in Oxfordshire, please let us know by email:
[email protected]
