UK's local council pension funds invest billions in companies, enabling Israel’s crimes: Study

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Funds, held by Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in Britain, invested nearly $15 billion in arms companies supplying Israel with weapons, a new research revealed on Thursday.

According to an updated research, published by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) group, showed that a total of 81 LGPS funds were invested in arms firms supplying Israel with weapons including BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin.

The PSC said that the details regarding the investments of funds, administered by local councils across Britain, obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

According to the PSC's research, LGPS funds that were invested in arms companies supplying Israel with weapons amount over £12billion ($14.9 billion).

The group said they also for the first time identified investments in Amazon and Alphabet Inc (Google), which totals £4.7billion ($5.8 billion) nearly 40% of the value of all investments listed.

"The scale of LGPS fund investments in companies that are complicit in Israel’s grave abuses of Palestinian rights is shocking," said Lewis Backon, campaigns officer at PSC.

The new research comes as campaigns calling for the divestment of LGPS funds from companies enabling Israel’s human rights abuses continue to gather momentum.