Activists Push Retirement Fund to Divest Firms Linked to Israel

By RACHEL SILBERSTEIN

A Columbia professor and the head of the activist group, Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), tapped Columbia student groups Tuesday to help relaunch a campaign pressing the retirement firm TIAA-CREF to divest from five companies that they say profit from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Though Columbia and Barnard faculty have a choice of three retirement plans, including TIAA-CREF, which serves most academic institutions and is the largest retirement fund in the nation, Columbia law professor Katherine Franke insisted the company take a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“There is a growing consensus that the Israeli occupation of Palestine violates the Geneva convention, international law and human rights law,” she said. “We cannot tolerate the idea that one day we may live on retirement income that finds its source in the profitability of the illegal occupation.”

In 2011, when 200 shareholders wrote the retirement firm proposing divestment from three companies, nike kobe 9 elite gs the firm took a decidedly neutral position and requested permission from the Security Exchanges Commission (SEC) to “take no action,” saying the proposal interfered with the company’s investment decisions on behalf of its 3.7 million customers.

A new petition has been sent to the TIAA-CREF, this time signed by 100 Columbia and Barnard faculty members, said Franke, requesting the divestment plan be addressed at the company’s annual shareholders meeting in July. According to a spokesperson for TIAA-CREF, an almost identical “no action” letter has been filed with the SEC this time as well.

JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson, who started the WeDivest movement, criticized the firm’s response.

“[TIAA-CREF] built its reputation on transparency, and now they are trying to suppress the views shareholders,” she said to murmurs of approval from audience members.

The petition claims to represent the faculty of the sister schools, but professors stopped on the Columbia campus Tuesday had not heard of the campaign effort and many did not agree with its objective.

“My first reaction is the world is a complicated place and I wouldn’t want my retirement fund choosing particular geopolitical conflicts to get involved in, without doing a thorough analysis,” said Michael Doyle, a professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs

Among the companies listed in the letter is Caterpillar (CAT), a manufacturer of bulldozers used by the Israeli army to dismantle Palestinian homes.  Critics of the TIAA-CREF divestment campaign, like the pro-Israel group Stand With Us, point out that CAT is also a major supplier of bulldozers in the Palestinian territories and has enabled economic growth in Gaza and the West Bank.

Caterpillar has issued a statement of “compassion for all persons affected by the political strife in the Middle East” and called for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The company also stated that the company’s relationship to the U.S. government makes is subject to anti-boycott laws, prohibiting it from participating in boycotts not sanctioned by the U.S. government.
TIAA-CREF has since dropped Caterpillar only from its “Social Choice” portfolio, and JVP has repeatedly taken credit for the move, despite the retirement fund’s insistence that decision was unrelated to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

TIAA-CREF uses the Wall Street firm MSCI to rank companies according to  social and environmental responsibility, and MSCI has said Caterpillar was downgraded over “a controversial lockout and plant closing in London, Ontario.”

In 2011, TIA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson told divestment groups, “it is not likely that engagement is going to get the outcome you’re looking for. We have decided, in the way in which we manage the portfolio, that this is not something in which we’re going to engage.”

Also on the boycott list was Elbit Systems, a company manufacturing drones; Motorola, whose Israeli subsidiary allegedly develops motion-detection “virtual fences” for Israel’s West Bank settlements; Hewlett-Packard (HP), nike lebron 11 which maintains the biometric ID system used by Israel to monitor Palestinians; Veolia, a company involved in the construction of the light rail system connecting annexed East Jerusalem with Israeli settlements and Northrop Grumman, which supplies the Israeli Army with weapons and parts for helicopters and jets.

When asked about the objectives of the campaign, student organizer Maya Wind, who is herself Israeli and part of a small, Israeli activist group called “Divest from Within,” said she hopes it will raise awareness for injustices in the West Bank and Gaza more than anything else.

“We are playing a dual role of educating the public and pressuring companies to perhaps reconsider collaborations with the Israeli state,” Wind said. “The other side of it is joining a national effort to put pressure on the Israeli government. Israelis are watching America very closely. Israel is becoming increasingly isolated and boycott and divestment is a very effective way to get through to them.”