To

Staffordshire County Council and Pensions Committee
1 Staffordshire Place, Stafford
Staffordshire ST16 2DH

We, the undersigned, as Staffordshire residents and Council tax payers, workers, students, organisations and trade unionists, and/or members of Staffordshire County Pension Fund, call upon Staffordshire County Council and the Pensions Committee administering its Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), to urgently undertake a thorough and transparent audit of its “responsible engagement” strategy and pension fund investments in companies involved in any way in the ongoing Israeli occupation of and military and air assault of the Occupied Palestine Territories and Lebanon with a clear commitment to immediate, complete and permanent divestment of all investments from such companies (see below).

Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal assault [1] on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians - almost half of them children. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and dispossessed in Gaza and also in the West Bank and increasingly in Lebanon. Entire residential neighbourhoods have been levelled, UN schools sheltering the displaced, and hospitals treating the wounded, have been repeatedly targeted. Palestinians in Gaza are dying of 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” [2].

As a State Party to the Genocide Convention, the UK, including its local councils, have a binding obligation to employ all means reasonably available to prevent and deter further genocidal acts. Exporting arms to any nation without robust procedures to avoid civilian casualties and to minimise harm to civilian life is illegal and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) makes it clear that arms sales to Israel are in deliberate defiance of its orders. Recent advisory warnings by the UN and the ICJ and several other international human rights organisations state that a failure to divest from investments in entities that are involved in (or benefit from) potential breach of law may expose the Council to legal liability for (i) complicity in such breaches, (ii) breach of its fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of its stakeholders, and (iii) breach of its duty to promote equality and eliminate discrimination [3].

Our Freedom of Information (FOI) findings and research by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign show the Staffordshire County Council LPGS is investing over £126 million of our workers' pension funds in companies complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people (data as per March 2024). Investing in these companies, which breaches human rights and international law, is being done via the LGPS Central Global EQ Active Multi Manager Fund (CG) and the JP Morgan AM - Longview Partners - Global Active Fund (JP). The companies are listed below:

1. Companies that supply Israel with weapons, military technology and equipment
● Amazon (£33,828,150.73 via JP + CG). Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military (BDS)
● Oracle (£14,934,985.56 via JP). A tech company, Oracle has donated money to Israeli employees after October 2023, with an additional 10,000 Israeli shekels for employees who serve in the IDF (Calcalistech)
● Mitsubishi (£7,110,826.403 via CG). Mitsubishi vehicles are used by Israeli army and police officials and governmental bodies
● General Electric (£6,736,213.801 via CG). General Electric engines are used in Israel’s primary air and naval military platforms, F-16 jets, Apache helicopters, Sa’ar ships, and other weapons systems used to attack densely populated civilian areas in Gaza (WhoProfits)
● ExxonMobil (£3,639,441.22 via JP). Exxon Mobil has a military contract to supply Israel with aviation and diesel fuel for attack helicopters, fighter/bomber planes, Merkava tanks, jeeps, heavy trucks, and other equipment used in militarised attacks on Palestinians (AFSC)
● Airbus (£2,386,514.483 via CG). The second largest arms producer in Europe and the seventh largest in the world (SIPRI). Has applied for arms export licenses to Israel (CAAT)

2. Companies providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military occupation of Palestinian land
● Nvidia (£14,476,986.31 via JP). Nvidia is building a supercomputer for Israel, a country whose use of AI has proved to enable its massacring of Palestinians in Gaza (Reuters)
● CNH Industrial (£7,901,945.474 via CG). Has been in involved in settlement enterprise and Israeli construction on occupied land (WhoProfits)
● Siemens (£2,187,110.217 via CG). Siemens traffic control systems and train electrification systems are used in Israel’s apartheid wall and Isreali-only transport system (Corporate Occupation)
● Safran (£1,764,908.74 via JP). Safran has provided equipment to the Israeli police force in the occupied West Bank (Corporate Occupation)
● Motorola (£1,261,608.978 via CG). Motorola’s equipment is installed in illegal settlements and the apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank, and it is used by the Israeli military, police, and prison service (included in UN OHCHR list)
● Sony (£1,239,324.076 via CG). Sony cameras are used in Israel’s surveillance system in the occupied area (WhoProfits)

3. Companies conducting business activities with/in Israel’s illegal settlements on the occupied and stolen Palestinian land
● Booking.com (£24,618,893.33 via JP + CG). Hosts numerous rental listings in illegal Israeli settlements, on stolen Palestinian land (included in UN OHCHR’s BDS list)
● Cisco Systems (£3,839,841.624 via CG).Two of Cisco’s ten IT-equipped hubs are located in occupied Palestinian West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights land
● Heidelberg Materials (£678,809 via JP). HiedelbergCement owns and operates four plants in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank (WhoProfits)

Total: £126,605,559.9

Staffordshire Council’s investments in the 15 companies listed above also reveal a complete disregard for the well-evidenced human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians, which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describe as the crime of “apartheid”: Amnesty International's 2022 investigation showed that Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control [4].

The time to move from “responsible” engagement to full divestment is now

A detailed list of Staffordshire Council’s investments during 2022 in companies complicit in Israel's occupation is available on the Palestine Solidarity Campaign website (https://lgpsdivest.org/). Clearly, the numbers of investments by Staffordshire County Council in companies complicit in Israel’s genocide and profiting from it has reduced from 48 in 2022 to 15 in 2024 as per Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s research. However, the amount invested has only reduced by £10m (from £134,229,575 to £126,605,559.9) and while some companies have been dropped, other companies complicit in Palestinian Occupation are now included in the funds (e.g. Amazon, the company in which over £33 million has been invested as per March 2024 data).

Staffordshire County Council claims to have a responsible engagement investment policy with a a set of common investment beliefs that include:

“Responsible investment and engagement, which covers a wide range of Environmental, Social and Governance issues, can enhance long-term investment performance across all asset classes and should be integrated into all investment processes.”

“A strategy of engagement, rather than exclusion, is more effective and supportive of responsible investment. The opportunity to influence through stewardship is waived with a divestment approach."

(From section 2.14)

However, the research by Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 2022 and 2024 reveals a funding pattern of switching companies which is in direct contradiction with the notion of long-term relationship building for responsible engagement. Moreover, the clearly toxic environmental costs of Israel's bombing campaign, including its use of white phosphorous bombs [5], means that the Council is clearly not meeting its investment beliefs or fulfilling its responsible engagement strategy. In contrast, the impact of divestment is well established [6]. We therefore demand an audit of the responsible engagement strategy while also asking the council to immediately divest from the companies noted above on the grounds of the worsening human and environmental situation in West Asia (Middle East).

Councils such as Waltham Forest [7] and the Clywd Pension Fund [8], which covers the Welsh counties of Flintshire, Denbighshire, and Wrexham, have already made concrete divestment commitments -- demonstrating that where there is the will, there is a way.

We therefore ask Staffordshire County Council to join these councils and other public bodies and institutions divesting for Palestine and demand that, with immediate effect, Staffordshire County Council:

1. Disclose full details of its current Local Government Pension Scheme holdings for public scrutiny.

2. Divests from all companies complicit with Israel and its genocide, occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people:
● Companies that supply Israel with weapons, military technology and equipment;
● Companies providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military occupation of Palestinian land; and
● Companies conducting business activities with/in Israel’s illegal settlements on the occupied and stolen Palestinian land.

3. End, or not commence, 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.

Workers across unitary, town and parish councils, educational institutions, housing associations and several charities, as well as residents in Staffordshire and City of Stoke on Trent should not be forced to be complicit in genocide and breaches of international law through their pension schemes and the services that they benefit from. All political leaders, including Staffordshire and Stoke-on Trent City Councillors and MPs, have a responsibility to do everything in their power to represent the will of their communities and end their complicity in Israel's senseless massacre of the Palestinians and increasingly the Lebanese; the destruction of their homes, businesses, and infrastructure and the daily humiliation they experience at the hands of Israeli security forces.

We call upon the Council to support this objective.

[1] https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-experts-declare-famine-has-spread-throughout-gaza-strip
[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2024/09/un-experts-warn-international-order-knifes-edge-urge-states-comply-icj-advisory
[4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/
[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/3/25/israels-toxic-legacy-bombing-southern-lebanon-with-white-phosphorus
[6] https://bdsmovement.net/impact
[7] https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/2024/07/23/council-commits-to-arms-trade-divestment-amid-pressure-from-palestine-activists/
[8] https://www.room151.co.uk/local-government-pension-scheme-investment/clwyd-pension-fund-to-exclude-assets-complicit-in-israeli-human-rights-violations/