Bedford Borough Council: Divest For Palestine!

Bedford Borough Council

Bedfordshire Divest for Palestine is a diverse group of local residents, workers, students, retirees and trade unionists, united in our commitment to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid the ongoing suffering inflicted by the Israeli state.

Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights and international law are enabled by products, services, and funding from complicit companies and financial institutions. These include manufacturers and suppliers of weapons, military technology, and infrastructure, as well as businesses active in illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.
Research by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign shows the Bedfordshire Pension Fund holds over £31.5 million in such investments. This includes over £7 million in Alphabet Inc (Google’s parent company), £4.5 million in Amazon, and nearly £1 million in Cisco Systems, all major providers of cloud and computing infrastructure to the Israeli government and military. Additional investments include Booking.com and Airbnb, which list properties in illegal settlements, and banks such as Barclays and HSBC, both complicit in financing the occupation.
Bedford Borough Council manages the Bedfordshire Pension Fund, which serves local government workers across Bedfordshire, including Bedford, CBC and Luton.

Our petition calls on Bedford Borough Council to divest from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and potential genocide.
Once we reach are target number, Bedfordshire Divest for Palestine will deliver this petition to the council and to the pension committee.
To sign this petition, you need to be an individual who lives, studies or works in the Bedford Borough council area.
Petition by
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Bedfordshire Divest
Bedford, United Kingdom

To: Bedford Borough Council
From: [Your Name]

We, the undersigned, call on Bedford Borough Council to divest the Bedfordshire
Pension Fund it administers from companies enabling Israel’s grave violations of
Palestinian rights.

Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip has killed many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians. Over 90% of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced, most multiple times. Israel has destroyed much of Gaza’s life sustaining infrastructure, including hospitals and water sanitation facilities. The UN backed hunger monitor, the IPC, has now declared that there is famine across the Gaza strip due to Israel’s blockade.

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
Palestinians 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 July 2025, the ICJ issued a further advisory opinion ruling that Israel's military occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end, and that Israel is in breach of the international prohibition on the crime of apartheid. The court affirmed that all states are under an obligation not to render aid or assistance to this unlawful situation.

Stemming from these obligations, councils must avoid procuring from or investing the funds they manage, including Bedfordshire Pension Fund, in companies that facilitate Israel's breaches of international law. This includes: companies producing weapons and military technology used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians; financial institutions providing investment and loans to these arms companies; and companies conducting business activity in Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

We, the undersigned, call on Bedford Borough Council to:

1. Commit to divest the Bedfordshire Pension Fund, administered by the council from
companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, military occupation 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.

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.