| Teachers urged to lobby pension plan to divest from companies working with Israel |
| Written by -- | |
| Wednesday, 04 November 2009 | |
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TORONTO – A group of activists hopes that by emphasizing the right to education and so-called Israeli apartheid, they will convince teachers to lobby the government and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) to divest from companies that do business with Israel. About 40 people attended Let’s Talk About Divestment presented by Teachers for Palestine at the University of Toronto on Oct. 28. Speakers included Lynda Lemberg of Educators for Peace and Justice, Jenny Peto of Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and Michael Kutner of Teachers for Palestine.Lemberg spoke of the success she and other members of the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) had during the 1990s in garnering support for the El Salvador Marxist guerrilla group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) by focusing on the war’s impact on students and teachers. She said they “learned to link concretely issues that teachers could relate to.” The speakers focused on five corporations – Siemens; MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates; Cement Roadstone Holdings; Lockheed Martin and Finning International – and described their involvement in what Michael Kutner called, “Israel’s seizure and colonization of Palestinian land.” As an example, Kutner said, “ethnic cleansing...has been accomplished through the use of bulldozers.” The OTPP, he added, is “substantially investing in all aspects of Israeli apartheid,” including “the wall, aerial bombardments, targeted assassinations, water theft.” The speakers’ rhetoric became heated during the Question-and-Answer session after some audience members asked about Israel’s right to defend itself and a woman said it was “reprehensible” to call Israel an apartheid state. Peto excused Palestinian rocket attacks as a consequence of the “root cause” of “ethnic cleansing.” She said, “You don’t need to teach hate to Palestinian children because they learn every day that Israelis hate them.... When that kid is on fire from white phosphorous you can’t tell him to love anybody.” As noted in their literature, the law was changed during the 1990s to permit pension plans to divest from apartheid-era South Africa. Deborah Allan, director of communications and media relations for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, told the Jewish Tribune, “The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan does not have a policy or plan to abstain from investing in specific countries. That would only be in the exceptionally rare circumstances when the Canadian government has imposed sanctions.... We do not ever exclude investments on the sole basis of social, political or any other non-financial criteria.” ‘What this episode tells us is that we can make a difference,” said Anita Bromberg, director of B’nai Brith Canada’s legal affairs department. “B’nai Brith Canada became aware of this meeting, then sent out widely a community alert. The community, including teachers, responded by writing letters to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and attending the meeting. A clear statement from the pension plan was the result. “It just shows that propaganda and the false campaign against Israel can be countered if each of us stays aware.” A staff member of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan communications department said in an email, “If teachers want us to avoid specific sectors or investments and are willing to risk earning lower returns, teachers would have to first agree on what investments are acceptable (through the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, one of the plan sponsors), and then convince the Ontario government (the other plan sponsor) to change the law. Without the mandate or legal authority to screen investments, we will continue our current practice in investing for the best possible returns at an appropriate level of risk.” |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 November 2009 ) |