Divestment from one of Israel’s major banks is gathering pace in Scotland as Israel’s status as an apartheid state becomes harder to dispute. Lothian Pension Fund’s divestment makes it the third such local authority institution to divest from Bank Hapoalim. Falkirk Pension Fund divested in 2018 in response to pressures from activists and trade unions; in early 2019 Tayside Pension Fund followed suit.
Scotland's second largest local authority pension fund, Lothian Pension Fund, divests from Israeli Bank Hapoalim.
Aye Scotland! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
— Malaka (@MalakaShwaikh) June 9, 2021
Bank Hapoalim is one of nine Israeli banks listed in the UN’s database of companies helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities by providing loans for housing and the development of businesses. The long-awaited database containing the names of companies complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise was released last year.
Lothian Pension Fund had defied pressure to divest from Bank Hapoalim until recently, according to timetodivest.net, a website that monitors local authority pension funds investing in Israel and campaigns for divestment from Israeli companies.
Former #Israeli Envoys to #SouthAfrica: #Israel is an #Apartheid State https://t.co/aarPU2Xeji via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/mRVzlKAVIw
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 10, 2021
The Lothian decision coincides with remarks by former Israeli ambassadors in which they denounced Israel as an apartheid regime and called on the international community to join the struggle to end the Zionist state’s racist regime in the same way that people united to dismantle the apartheid regime in South Africa.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
