Sunday, October 18, 2009

Teachers for Palestine: 'It's Time for Divestment' Panel Discussion

ATTENTION TEACHERS AND EDUCATION WORKERS: LET'S TALK ABOUT DIVESTMENT

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has investments in:

Cement Roadstone Holdings

Lockheed Martin
Siemens
MDA
Finning International

Each of these companies play a role in Israeli apartheid, from partnering with a company that produces cement used in the construction of the Apartheid Wall, to distributing Caterpillar's D9 bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes.


It's time for divestment. Come learn more at a panel discussion
hosted by Teachers for Palestine.

Wednesday October 28
at 7 p.m.
University of Toronto
Galbraith Building, 35 St. George
Room GB 119

Child Care Provided

For more info contact: tfp@tao.ca


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Background:

DIVESTMENT

WE DID IT IN 1991 - IT’S TIME TO DO IT AGAIN

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) does not, as a matter of policy, consider investment on ethical or moral principles. There was one exception: in the 1990s the Plan, under public pressure, was allowed to divest from apartheid South Africa. For at least the past 40 years in Israel-Palestine another apartheid system very similar to that of the former South Africa has been put in place by Israel. Many prominent public figures, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, U.N. Special Rapporteurs John Dugard and Richard Falk, former Israeli education minister, Shulamit Aloni, and editor of the Israeli daily Haaretz, Danny Rubenstein, have drawn the parallels.

Over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, including the Palestinian trade union movement, have called on the world to adopt a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, similar to that used against South Africa under apartheid. Israeli peace groups such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Canadian Jewish organizations such as Not In Our Name and the Independent Jewish Voices have spoken out against Israel’s apartheid policies and human rights abuses.

In 2009 the OSSTF passed a motion demanding that the OTPP adopt the UN's “Principles for Responsible Investment”. This would require the Plan to divest from companies that are in direct violation of UN and ICC resolutions condemning Israeli Apartheid, and complicit in the
violation of the human rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.