‘Sickened’: East Sussex residents demand divestment from Israeli war crimes as 200 children killed in Gaza

At last Thursday’s (20 March) Full Council meeting of East Sussex County Council, members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) handed in a petition of 813 residents calling on the council to divest its pension fund (the East Sussex Pension Fund) from companies enabling Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Hastings & Rye PSC chair Katy Colley reports.

Representatives from Brighton, Lewes and Hastings were present at the handover at County Hall.

‘An obscene distinction’

Hastings resident Grace Lally told County Council Chairman Roy Galley: ‘We have seen, just in the last few days, Israel is in violation of international law, commits war crime after war crime, massacring men, women and children.

‘We are just so sickened that our county council is complicit in that. And not just complicit – is profiting from it… our pension fund [is] making money off the arms companies that are profiting from Israel’s actions in Gaza.’

Councillor Galley responded: ‘But you’re not saying the County Council is profiting. It’s the council pension fund that is presumably profiting.’

Ms Lally objected that she found that an ‘obscene distinction’ to make.

She explained: ‘Most people who look to East Sussex to invest their pension funds on their behalf so they can have security in their old age… they don’t expect their old age to be reliant on profiting from war crimes.’

200 children

Since Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire in the early hours of Tuesday morning with massive air strikes, it has killed over 500 Palestinians in Gaza, including 200 children.

Hundreds attended emergency protests in Brighton and Hastings on Tuesday evening while thousands descended on Downing Street to show their anger and despair at the resumption of Israel’s bombing campaign.

Jo Hutton, a pension fund member, added: ‘I’m a pensioner and I really strongly object to my money coming from unethical sources – any – but particularly the killing of men, women and children.’

Another petitioner, Gabriel Carlyle, said: ‘I would hope that if during the Second World War the County Council had been investing in IBM or other companies that were complicit in the Holocaust that the county council would take action. Amnesty International just published a 296-page report subtitled “Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza” . This is not a controversial issue. We need to see action.’

£170 million

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign estimates that East Sussex County Council currently has around £170 million of local people’s pensions invested in companies that are ‘complicit in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian human rights’.

It defines the latter as companies that are ‘supplying Israel with weapons and military technology it uses to carry out its attacks on Palestinians; companies providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military occupation; and companies conducting business activity in, or with, Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land.’

These investments include companies that are directly supplying the Israeli military, such as BAE Systems (£4.5m), Rolls Royce (£1.2m), Thales, Airbus and Ultra Electronics.

And it also includes companies that are profiting from illegal settlement activity, like Israeli Banks, Airbnb, Booking.com and Motorola.

Illegal occupation

Last year, the UN General Assembly backed an historic ICJ (International Court of Justice) ruling which declared that all of Israel’s occupation was illegal and voted overwhelmingly to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land within 12 months.

The ruling also demanded member states take ‘steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal occupation’.

Laurie Holden from Hastings & District PSC said: ‘As of March last year, there were 85,416 members of the pension fund but none of these people have any say in the running of the fund. Only the five members of the committee.

‘The leader of the East Sussex County Council declined to answer a public question at last month’s full council meeting, asking him for a meeting about the issues raised in the petition. Councils across the country are pledging to divest from Israeli war crimes and apartheid to comply with international law. There is no reason East Sussex shouldn’t do the same.’

Campaigners say they hope to reach the 5000 threshold of signatures to guarantee a full debate is held on the issue at a future council meeting.

East Sussex residents who wish to sign the petition can do so by following this link.

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