• Between 7th October 2023 - 3rd February 2025, I
srael killed 17,492 children in the Gaza Strip. This is the
equivalent of 11 % of all children in Nottinghamshire.
•
Nottinghamshire Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) fund has millions of pounds worth of
shares in arms and technology companies complicit in Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza, and its attacks in the West Bank. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down an interim ruling affirming there is plausible evidence the State of Israel is committing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people.
In June 2024, United Nations (UN) experts issued a statement demanding states and companies stop all arms trade with Israel. They warned that failure to do so “
could move them from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes”.
Nottinghamshire’s LGPS fund currently holds shares worth
more than £170 million in
companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and apartheid in occupied Palestine*. The LGPS is administered by Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC).
Additionally to legal, NCC has also a
moral obligation to divest from companies and organisations complicit in the oppression, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people. This is a m
oral obligation both to the people of Palestine, and the people of Nottinghamshire who NCC represents. NCC has so far rejected calls to invest pension funds ethically. NCC has forgotten the county’s hard-fought values and history of choosing to stand for human rights and justice.
We, the undersigned, call on Nottinghamshire County Council to:
1.
Commit to divest the Nottinghamshire Local Government Pension Scheme fund 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.
*LGPS Investment Database - LGPS DivestSIGN BELOW to have your name included in the
petition that will be submitted to Nottinghamshire County Council.To sign this petition, you need to be either:
1. An individual who lives, studies or works in Nottinghamshire.
2. An organisation in Nottinghamshire such as a business, place of worship, trade union branch etc.
