I spoke along these lines at the Nakba 75 demo in Liverpool yesterday.

The Israeli National Security Minister is Itamar Ben-Gvir. Two weeks ago he demanded war and withdrew support for the government, but came back after the IDF carried out targeted assassinations in Gaza on Tuesday. His party, Jewish Power, is part of the settler bloc which demanded the coalition government neuter the Supreme Court. Its agenda includes encouraging Arab citizens to emigrate; annexing the West Bank without a Palestinian right to vote; immunity from prosecution for IDF soldiers for military actions.

Ben-Gvir lives in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli Jewish settlement near Hebron. Previously, the settlement’s doctor was Baruch Goldstein from Brooklyn. In 1994, he took an assault rifle into the Cave of the Patriarchs, and gunned down 29 Palestinians at prayer during Ramadan, before he was beaten to death. Ben-Gvir idolized him, and his grave in Kiryat Arba is a magnet for extreme settlers. It faces a park commemorating Meir Kahane, also from Brooklyn, whose extreme Zionist party, Kach, had a similar agenda to Jewish Power.

All the settlements break international law, which bars the occupying power from transferring its citizens into occupied territory, a war crime.

The Israeli Hapoalim and Leumi banks, and the US military telecoms giant Motorola Solutions supply Kiryat Arba with bank loans and security services.

Greater Manchester Pension Fund, which invests the deferred wages of local government staff and others, has over £3.4m in Hapoalim and £3.6m in Leumi. The Merseyside Pension Fund has £200k in Motorola. Local government pensions are supporting Kiryat Arba and all it stands for. That’s just the start.

At 2am on Tuesday, missiles slaughtered Palestinians asleep in their beds in Gaza, targeting three commanders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and taking with them four children, four women, the dentist and hospital chairman who lived with his family in the same apartment block as one of the commanders. There was no immediate threat to Israel before the attack. Previously, the authorities had left Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan to die on hunger strike, refusing to transfer him from prison to hospital as per medical protocol. His death provoked rocket fire from Gaza, which ended quickly in a negotiated ceasefire. It held for a week, until Israel broke it. Deaths mounted – now 33 Palestinians – while Israel continued targeted assassination, a war crime.

Extrajudicial killings and attacks on civilians and civilian objects are war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

By choosing war, the government may have reacted to pressure from the settler bloc, or may have hoped to silence the mass protests against the neutering of the Supreme Court.

Whatever the reason, it’s not new. For decades, Israel has acted with impunity. Over the last 20 years, Labour and Tory governments stood by during repeated attacks on Gaza with thousands of civilian deaths, tens of thousands of disabling injuries, and an ongoing siege which imposes collective punishment on everyone in Gaza. Another war crime.

The Merseyside Pension Fund has at least £29m invested in firms which supply the Israeli military, including BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Motorola Solutions, and Raytheon which sells missiles to Israel. Greater Manchester invests £190m including £28m in Raytheon, and £22m in Thales, which has a joint project with Israeli drone firm Elbit Systems.

Britain condemns the Russian criminal invasion of Ukraine, recognises the Ukrainian right to resist, and opens the door to Ukrainian refugees. I agree. But the hypocrisy is staggering, as they enforce a Hostile Environment on other asylum seekers and migrants, are silent on Israeli war crimes, and do not recognise the Palestinian right to resist. They instruct local authorities to end investments in Russia, but plan legislation to stop local authority Boycott Divestment and Sanctions which could target Israeli war crimes. Hypocrisy, but that’s power politics.

Noa Kirel performs at Eurovision tonight. She is publicly proud to represent the State of Israel, and was publicly proud to enlist in the IDF, remaining in uniform in May 2021 as Israel decided to evict Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque, and bombarded Gaza including the media tower housing Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. A Palestinian general strike spanned Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Israel decided to create a new National Guard to suppress internal Palestinian unrest. It is now directly accountable to Ben-Gvir as National Security Minister. Maybe some day Kirel will learn.

Yuval Dag is a 20 year old Israeli, now in his 3rd prison term. His written statement explains that he refused to take part in “military invasions, violence, killings and oppression which is the norm for many Palestinians. I refuse to give my body and my life to any system, for any country, and in the current situation, especially not to the state of Israel and the Israeli military.” The night before refusing, he spoke on Instagram, concluding “We can continue to make excuses for these crimes as keeping us safe. But as young people about to enlist, we can see that this is wrong, and REFUSE.”

What can we do? Manchester and Merseyside fought against South African apartheid and the military occupation of Namibia. We now see apartheid and war crimes all over again, and maybe even worse to come. Pension funds are only one strand of this story, but it would be a step forward to end their investments in complicit companies. Unison backs the campaign, and I hope other unions will give support. On Merseyside, Wirral Council Pensions Committee administers the Fund. But divestment will only happen if thousands of local government workers demand that their money is taken out of this nightmare. They need to know the wider labour and trade union movement, all of us, have got their back. I think it’s possible. Let’s do it.