Teachers for Palestine

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 over 40 years in Israel-Palestine another apartheid system, as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, as well as Article 7 of the UN Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), 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, and former Israeli Education Minister, Shulamit Aloni, have drawn the parallels. Human Rights Groups such as the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Canadian Jewish organizations such as Not In Our Name (NION) and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) have spoken out against Israel’s apartheid policies and human rights abuses.

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. Both IJV and NION support the BDS campaign.

In 2009 the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) passed a motion demanding that the OTPP adopt the UN's “Principles for Responsible Investment”. This should require the Plan to consider divesting 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.

Isolating territories and people

In South Africa, during the apartheid era, one’s racial classification prescribed by the Population Registration Act determined every aspect of life. All blacks were required to carry “pass books” containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. In 1951, the South African government established so-called independent ethnic states, known as “homelands” or Bantustans, to which each black African was assigned by the government, forcibly removing 3.5 million blacks from their homes, stripping them of their South African citizenship. The South African government exercised complete control over these Bantustans. Political protest, even non-violent protest, was met with severe, often brutal repression.

Israel’s creation was based on settlement and colonization of Palestinian land. The “transfer” of Palestinians from their land (ethnic cleansing) has been central to Zionist ideology and still is. Israel forcibly expelled the majority of the Palestinian population from its land when the state of Israel was established in 1948. Following the Six Day War in 1967 Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territory—the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. This annexation of land has resulted in one of the world’s largest and most enduring refugee populations. The Fourth Geneva Convention protects the human and property rights of civilians under occupation and forbids an occupying force from annexing land or from transferring its citizens in. Israel is clearly in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Since 1967 Israel has pursued a policy of “bantustanization” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians have been herded into isolated cantons divided from one another by Israeli-only settlements and highways, military checkpoints, and most recently, the Wall (“Separation Barrier”), declared illegal by the UN and International Criminal Court. Israel controls all movement into these areas as well as exports and imports, electricity, water, telephone lines and the Internet. Home demolitions, revocation of residency rights, the absorption of land by the erection of the apartheid wall and construction of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian-owned land have significantly increased the number of displaced Palestinians.

In 2007 Israel “withdrew” from Gaza, but continues to control its borders, its coastline, imports and exports and to keep the population under military siege. The military invasion of Gaza during the winter of 2009-10 destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure and left over 1400 Palestinians dead and thousands homeless.

Clearly Palestinians have been racialized as an oppressed group. According to Israeli law, any Jew, regardless of national origin, can gain automatic Israeli citizenship, while Palestinian Arabs are denied their right to return to their homeland as stipulated by the UN. Palestinian citizens of Israel must carry identity cards that identify them as non-Jewish through an ID number and the way birth dates are recorded. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza must carry different coloured ID cards, without which entry to and exit from Palestinian ghettoes within the West Bank is impossible. In May 2006 Israel`s High Court upheld a law denying Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza married to Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with their spouses.

In the West Bank Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law. More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 400 children, are being held as political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers. In violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip are transferred out of the occupied territory into prisons in Israel proper. Israel regularly practices torture against prisoners and has been condemned by UN bodies and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Over 1,000 Palestinians are held as “administrative detainees”, without charge or trial. These orders can be renewed indefinitely.

Why Educators Should Care

Education Funding Currently the Israeli government invests $1100 in each Jewish pupil’s education compared to $190 for each Arab pupil. In the popular state-funded religious schools the gap is 9:1, resulting in a two-tiered education system.

Closures of Educational Institutions Since September 2000, dozens of schools have been closed by the Israeli Army and turned into military barracks, while hundreds more have been forced to close periodically due to prolonged curfew and obstructed access.

Incursions, Attacks and Destruction of Schools Hundreds of schools, kindergartens, and eight universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been shelled, shot at, and invaded by Israeli occupation forces since September 2000. Students and teachers are regularly stopped and harassed by soldiers at gunpoint on their way to school and university, and many children have been injured or killed on the way to school and even while sitting at their desks.

Students in Detention In 2007, some 398 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli detention, including 10 under administrative detention.

Casualties Since Sept. 2000 a total of 1373 children have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian conflict violence, over 300 in Gaza alone during the last Israeli invasion, representing 20% of the total number of conflict deaths. Thousands have been injured. Of the overall number of children killed, 91% were Palestinian and 9 % were Israeli.

Psychological Impact on Children A 2003 report by Save the Children UK demonstrated how the lives of Palestinian children are affected by the instability and political violence that surrounds them. They are frightened, anxious, demoralized and have difficulty concentrating. UNICEF reports that distress within households is tangible, with caregivers reporting acute signs of distress among their children and themselves.

Why BDS?

After more than 40 years of failed attempts at a peace process that would bring justice and security to Palestinians and Israelis, and the flagrant violation by Western governments, including Canada, of their own policies forbidding relations with occupying powers, only a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions can make Israel listen to the international community and bring an end to the occupation. Polls in North America and Europe have shown majority popular support for an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands. People want it, but governments will not act. So people must act, and BDS is the way that people can become involved and have an effect. Teachers can play a primary role in demanding divestment of their pension plan from companies that support apartheid practices in Israel.

What you can do

• Educate yourself and others about the Israeli occupation of Palestine
• Bring resolutions to your district supporting boycott, divestment, sanctions against Israeli Apartheid
Bring resolutions to your district for divestment of the OTPP from Israel
Sign the petition to the OTPP board, asking them to divest and to sign the UNPRI: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/otpp/
Contact Teachers for Palestine and join the BDS campaign: teachersforpalestine@gmail.com

Resources

Amnesty International: The Road to Nowhere
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/093/2006
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/093/2006/en/9dc8177a-d3cf-11dd-8743-d305bea2b2c7/mde150932006en.html

Birzeit University Right to Education Campaign and News Center
http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/

B’Tselem: The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
http://www.btselem.org/English/index.asp

Stop The Wall: Education Under Occupation
http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/UnderOccupation.pdf

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87711

Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement
http://www.gisha.org/

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/%28httpEnvelopes%29/98F0726BF7D6AA45C12574B30055BD32?OpenDocument

Statements by former UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, John Dugard
http://www.pchrgaza.org/Library/Dugard.pdf
http://www.peacengo.org/article.asp?ID=128
http://www.hic-mena.org/documents/Dugard%205_06_07.pdf
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/7E34F6161316075E852572EA004CC062

Statements by UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk
http://www.driesvanagt.nl/p_gaza_statement_falk.pdf
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/0/F1EC67EF7A498A30C125752D005D17F7?opendocument
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4A2E6CA774FC3A57852576950054D7EE

UK Save the Children: Education and Chronic Crisis in Palestine, by Susan Nicolai
http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/EducationSupplement/16.pdf

UNICEF
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_56025.html

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
http://www.ochaopt.org/

World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/statement04/en/
http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA59/A59_ID3-en.pdf
http://www.who.int/hac/crises/international/wbgs/sitreps/gaza_9jan2009/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/hac/crises/international/wbgs/en/

Teachers’ Pension Plan and Apartheid: Time to Divest Again

Selected Resources

BDS

A list of links about BDS and why we use the term “apartheid”:
http://stopthewall.org/news/boycot.shtml

International Law concerning Palestine

UN Convention on Apartheid
http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/pdf/ha/cspca/cspca_e.pdf

UN Rome Statute
http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/english/rome_statute(e).pdf

Socially Responsible Investment

UN Principles of Responsible Investment (note that OTPP is not a signatory)
http://www.unpri.org/

OTPP on “Being a responsible investor”
http://www.otpp.com/wps/wcm/connect/otpp_en/Home/Investments/Investment+Principles/

OTPP “Q & A”
http://www.otpp.com/wps/wcm/connect/otpp_en/home/investments/investment+principles/q_and_a

Other pensions funds that have divested

Norwegian State Pension Fund
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11621.shtml

Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (Dutch pension fund)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11621.shtml

Some organizations supporting BDS

Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario division)

Fédération Nationale des Enseignantes et Enseignants du Québec

Not in Our Name

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada)

Congress of South African Trade Unions

Irish Congress of Trade Unions

Scottish Trade Union Congress

National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (Britain)

Norwegian Civil Service Union

South African Municipal Workers Union

World Council of Churches

Anglican Church of England (General Synod)

Episcopalian Executive Council (US)

Anglican Church of Canada (Council of General Synod)

European Jews for a Just Peace

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions