Hertfordshire residents hold protest calling for Herts County Council to divest for Palestine

Representatives of organisations from across the county – including a number of Palestine solidarity groups and Watford and Stevenage Trades Councils – gathered outside the Council building to coincide with a meeting of the Council’s Pension Committee, which oversees the Hertfordshire Pension Fund that holds these investments. Later on the same day, HPSC representatives attended a meeting with Cllr Andrew Williams (chairman of the Pension Committee), Cllr Bob Deering (cabinet member for resources), and Head of Pensions Patrick Tovey to explain the urgent need for divestment.

HPSC has gathered hundreds of signatures – both in person and via an e-petition on the Council website – calling for the council to “commit to divesting the Herts Local Government Pension Scheme (HLGPS) from companies complicit in Israel’s well-documented human rights abuses against Palestinians”. The campaign is on track to easily gather the 1,000 signatures required to be allowed to address a full council meeting in the coming months.

Herts County Council’s investments include over £7.7 million in RTX Corporation, a US arms firm that supplies Israel with missiles used in the Gaza genocide, and over £4.8 million in Booking Holdings Inc, which advertises rental accommodation in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

In recent months, a growing number of councils across the country have committed to ending such investments. This wave of divestment comes amid the Israeli assault on Gaza, which has been described as a genocide by Amnesty International and UN human rights experts. It also follows a ruling by the International Court of Justice in July last year, which confirmed that Israel’s 58-year occupation of the Palestinian Territories is illegal – as are the settlements it has built there – and that it is subjecting Palestinians living in those territories to an illegal system of racial segregation/apartheid. Further information on all of these points can be found at divestherts.org

During the County Hall demo, protestors read out a statement by a local resident: “I have been living with my wife and three children and working as a doctor in North Hertfordshire for the last 30 years. I was born in Palestine and after the 1967 war, my family and I were forced to leave and were displaced in the neighbouring country Jordan. Since my childhood I suffered traumatic experiences due to the devastating armed conflict. The recent war on Gaza created a wakeup call for the whole world when they have witnessed the genocide crimes against the Palestinians. As a resident in North Herts, I call on the County Council to terminate the Pension Fund’s investments in companies working in occupied territories where settlements have been built to terrorise the local population and to steal their land.”

Peter Segal, chair of St Albans Friends of Palestine and one of the organisers behind the HPSC campaign said: “I come from a Jewish Zionist family and I went to Israel in the late 1970s and was completely shocked by what I saw. When I got back, I committed to working for Palestinian rights and I’ve been doing that now for 45 years. We need to get county councils withdrawing investments from the pension fund that actually abuse human rights and oppress Palestinians. So I urge everyone, please sign our petition and support this campaign.”

The Herts Palestine Support Coalition is a county-wide initiative, with member organisations including St Albans Friends of Palestine, North Herts Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and the East Herts Palestine Support Group. The HPSC website includes details of Herts County Council’s investments and statements of support for the campaign from pension scheme members and a wide range of Hertfordshire councillors, local election candidates, civil society groups, religious leaders, trade unionists, and local residents.

A spokesman for Hertfordshire County Council said: “Members of the Pensions Fund Committee have considered a petition presented in relation to our investment portfolio and have provided the petitioners with their response.

“The Hertfordshire Pension Fund Committee has a fiduciary duty to invest responsibly and in the best interest of pension scheme members. We insist that our investment managers invest ethically, and investments will continue to be made in line with our financial responsibilities.

“We note that while the petitioners will have strong views, the beneficiaries of the pension scheme themselves may also hold a different view as to where their retirement savings are invested.

“The Pension Fund Committee will continue to maintain a responsible investment policy where the stewardship of assets will remain paramount as they are there to enable the payment of pensions.”