The DBS campaign spotlights TIAA-Cref

TIAA-Cref is, as its website tells us: a Fortune 100 AAA rated finance service and insurance company’ investing pension funds for a fee, and good returns. TIAA is also the object of pressure from the worldwide Boycotts Divestment Sanctions movement, to peacefully persuade TIAFF clients to stop helping Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, including building the long dividing wall and illegal Jewish colonization.

BDS.org has support by Jewish peace groups, even though the Israeli government tries to tar and feather it with the smear of ‘Islamic terrorism’. The organization is adept at adapting its message through song and dance, slogans and determination to shine the light of shame of, say, the following companies in TIAA-Cref portfolio: Northrop Grumman, Veolia, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, and Motorola.

Protests spotlight the activities of these companies which they would best like kept under wraps. Consider Northrop supplies the Israeli occupiers with parts for helicopters, Hellfire missiles, etc. Veolia, a French company, exploits Palestinian natural resources for the sole use of illegal Jewish settlers and is building a light rail system for their exclusive use by connecting it to Israel proper. Caterpillar’s bulldozers have a long and notorious role in clear the ground of Palestinian houses and even killing peace protesters as it did in the case of Rachel Corey; the company also supplies armour plated bulldozers mounted with weapons for the ‘tsahal’ or Israel Defence Force, which US taxpayers money. Elbit Systems is an Israeli defence electronics manufacture whose equipment drones to the IDF and electronic surveillance and electronic systems to keep Palestinians under 24 hour control. And, finally, Motorola that has developed surveillance systems for illegal Jewish settlements and military bases on the West Bank.

BDS is in the movement for the long haul. You cannot gainsay it for lack of inventiveness and flexibility in bringing its message to the largest audience it can. So far as TIAA prepares for its annual meeting, it has managed to persuade 20.000 persons to sign a petition calling on TIAA’s investors to stop aiding and abetting illegal Israeli seizure of Palestinian land and providing the infrastructure of illegal Jewish settlements.

The boycott movement has also spotlighted products, such as cosmetics, soap, food, honey, and the like produced by illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

The BDS is a few years old but in spite of Israeli subterfuge, sabotage, deceit, and black propaganda, keeps growing and growing and growing. As the old song from the German Peasants War reminds us ‘thoughts and ideas are free’ and no weapons can kill them, nor can prison cells stop them.