2011-07-24T15:02:00.002-04:00

DEAR friends, I thought you would be interested in the report below of a recent action of which many of us were a part: the JULY 19TH shareholders protest in Charlotte against TIAA-CREF investments in targeted companies intimately connected to and supportive of the Israeli occupation, illegal settlements, Palestinian house demolitions and suppliers of Israeli military parts used in the 2008-09 Gaza bombing campaign. Jewish Voice for Peace, joined by many allies from North Carolina (including TIMELEAP, CPWJ, BDSNC) and around the country organized the event at the shareholders' meeting. Although TIAA-CREF refused to put a divestment resolution before the shareholders for consideration, at least 12 of us - shareholders and proxies, managed to dominate the meeting with questions and comments. Others protested outside the Charlotte offices. TIAA CREF is one of the largest investment houses in the world with most of its shareholders coming from teacher and other academic personnel pension funds.

Watch inspiring video of simultaneous protests in 20 cities nationwide!

We won't back down until TIAA-CREF divests from the Israeli occupation!

This Tuesday in Charlotte, NC, I was proud to stand up and demand answers from retirement giant TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson and CREF Trustees at their annual corporate meeting. I stood side by side with many other TIAA-CREF investors like me who, one after another, told them that we did not want to build our future retirements on a foundation of demolished Palestinian homes, illegal Israeli settlements, and military occupation.

I felt supported to speak out by people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who called the TIAA-CREF campaign "important because it is one of the most broad-based divestment efforts in the U.S." just days before in an op-ed in the Charlotte Observer, and by tens of thousands of people like you who have signed petitions and letters and advocated in your own communities.

TIAA-CREF leadership told us that, when it comes to Israel and Palestine there is no consensus, but rather controversy. In fact, a representative from Amnesty International reminded them that there is consensus in the human rights community: the Israeli occupation is a legal term, not a disputed one, and the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal. A fellow investor asked why, if TIAA-CREF cared so much about the opinion of their clients, did they block a resolution that would have allowed them to be polled about their comfort with investing in companies profiting from the Israeli occupation with their retirement funds? And yet another reminded Mr. Ferguson that on issues of justice -- slavery, segregation, Apartheid -- there was no consensus either, but there was and still there is a moral compass. Challenges like mine dominated the shareholder meeting yesterday in Charlotte. In fact, the main topic of that meeting was our campaign—the largest divestment campaign for Palestinian human rights in US history.

What is the most exciting to me, though, is that as I was inside the meeting in Charlotte, actions took place nationwide—outside the meeting in Charlotte, as well as in Baltimore, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Lexington, St. Louis, New York City, Washington D.C., Detroit, Palo Alto, and Sacramento. See images of the simultaneuous protests.

Here are some of the highlights of Tuesday’s nationwide day of action:
During the CREF shareholder meeting, all questions but one focused on TIAA-CREF’s holdings with companies like Caterpillar, which profits from Israeli destruction of homes, and Veolia, which profits from bus lines that are segregated and serve illegal settlements.
About a dozen people in the CREF meeting challenged TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson on his seemingly inconsistent commitment to socially responsible investing. Ferguson later admitted that his staff--including he himself-- was erroneously telling concerned shareholders to switch investments into TIAA-CREF’s Socially Responsible Investment funds, ignoring the fact that these funds have shares in companies targeted in our campaign, like Motorola and Caterpillar. Mr. Ferguson promised to tell the truth from now on, but he did not commit to cleaning its SRI accounts, which remain socially-responsible, except for Palestine.
Press covered our story in The Charlotte Observer, The Jewish Week, News 14 Carolina, Maan News Agency, Your News Now in Ithaca, and other media outlets across the country.
Gorgeous documentation of the actions, a "TIAA-CREF Client Alert" video by the JVP Southbay chapter, and a daylong twitter presence (#tcdivest).
James Schamus, Oscar-nominated head of Focus Features spoke at the 75 person protest in New York City.
Protest organizers in Ithaca, Denver, Washington D.C., & Philadelphia report stronger attendance than anticipated--even in scorching temperatures. All in all, hundreds of activists took to the streets nationwide to demand that TIAA-CREF divest “for the greater good.”

Congratulations to all of us for a historic day for the BDS movement in the United States.

In Solidarity,

Heike Schotten
Associate Professor at UMass Boston, We Divest Activist, TIAA-CREF investor

Welcome to TIMELEAP

2008-11-25T00:16:00.001-05:00

This blog is an extension of TIMELEAP and a place to discuss the issues of bringing peace between Israel and Palestine. If you want to know more about TIMELEAP, please email us and you will get a response. Ibrahim