At the request of Ann
Arbor Friends Meeting, Lake Erie Yearly Meeting and other Quaker Meetings
around the nation, Friends Fiduciary Corporation, the Quaker investment
management company with assets of $400 million, has agreed to exclude companies
from its investments that contribute to any and all internationally recognized
conflict zones and occupations – including, of course, Israel’s occupation of
Palestinian lands.
Here is the relevant wording
of Friends Fiduciary’s new (March 2018) policy: We evaluate companies on their human and labor rights performance using
industry standard objective ratings data and conducting our own research. . . We
also consider company involvement in internationally recognized conflict zones
and occupied territories, due to the unique risks such involvement may
pose.
We avoid investing in companies that provide products or
services that materially contribute to the maintenance and expansion of
occupied territories and conflict zones.
You can find their complete
investment guidelines here.
This is a big deal! PIAG
and the Ann Arbor Meeting have been in dialogue with Friends Fiduciary for
seven years on this issue. For much of that time, Friends Fiduciary’s Board was
concerned that excluding companies that were complicit in Israel’s occupation would
be seen as punitive, or that supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
was anti-Semitic, or that screening out companies that manufacture weapons or
weapons components (as they already did, as Quakers) was enough. But in March,
2018, they changed their minds.
Here are some of the
arguments the Ann Arbor Meeting used to persuade them to rethink the issue.
From our letter to the
Friends Fiduciary CEO and Members of the Board (October, 2017):
“We agree that
discernment about controversial issues in difficult. We hear in [your] concern
a worry that economic action that speaks to the government of Israel about its
mistreatment of the Palestinians is directed against Jews as a persecuted
people, which Quakers should not tolerate. Further, we hear . . . that
expanding Friends Fiduciary’s investment procedures from excluding not only
companies that make weapons of war, but those that support the repression of the
Palestinian population in other frightening and injurious ways, would be “punitive”
and therefore, perhaps, un-Quakerly.
“We respectfully disagree
with both these premises.
“As Quakers, we are
convinced that the goal of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is not to punish Israel or the companies that
support its actions. Instead, we believe that its purpose is to hold companies and
institutions accountable for their violations of human rights and/or
international law by pressing them to make changes in their behavior.
“We appreciate that
calls for divestment can cause discomfort among individuals and institutions
that hold power and privilege. But this discomfort should not be given
precedence over the pain and injustice Palestinians suffer under occupation. As
Quakers, we believe that seeing God’s light in all people means that the
feelings of the privileged group should not outweigh the rights of the
oppressed.
“Boycotts and
divestment are proven nonviolent tactics that were considered by many at one
time to be controversial but are now widely celebrated as brave, principled,
and just. Examples range from Mahatma Gandhi’s boycott of British-controlled
salt and imported cloth, to the Montgomery bus boycotts and lunch counter
sit-ins in the segregated U.S. South, to the grape boycotts in defense of
farmworkers in California, to the divestment from corporations doing business
in apartheid South Africa. Quakers, too, have a long history of supporting
economic activism, including boycotts, to advance movements for social justice.
In the 18th century, John Woolman and Anthony Benezet argued that
the purchase of slave-produced goods helped keep the institution of slavery
viable. In the 19th century, Quaker activists such as Lucretia Mott
led the Free Produce movement to undermine the market for goods produced by
enslaved people and to promote the buying and selling of goods produced by free
labor. The Israel-Palestine conflict presents similar challenges and affords
principled people and institutions similar opportunities.
“As to the concern
about anti-Semitism, we take this issue very seriously. We are clear that the
BDS movement categorically rejects and condemns all forms of racism and
bigotry, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Throughout our years of work
for peace in Israel-Palestine we have been buoyed and supported by Jews who
share our dismay at Israel’s repression of the Palestinian people. Over the
last five years we have noticed a distinct increase in the support of the
Jewish community for BDS, especially among younger Jewish Americans who feel
that Israel’s repressive and cruel occupation does not embody the prophetic
Jewish values they were taught growing up, values they cherish and believe in.
They know that their work for BDS does not make them anti-Semitic.
“In this new climate
of openness, Quakers, too, are becoming more willing to learn about Israel’s
repressive policies and to discuss how they can best support justice in the
region. Many Meetings have now approved Minutes affirming their support for
divestment or other economic action. . . Please see www.quakerpi.org for a full list of such
actions.”
We congratulate
Friends Fiduciary Corporation for their principled decision!
