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UK Moves to Ban Boycott of Israel in Public Pension Funds
(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Kirsty Buchanan - The British parliament on Tuesday approved an amendment to stop local authority pension funds from backing BDS sanctions against UK companies connected with Israel. Former Communities Minister Rob Jenrick told the Commons that public sector pensions, paid for by the taxpayer and underwritten by the government, were "quite clearly the preserve of the state" and it was "perfectly legitimate" for the government to have a say in how they were regulated. "For too long we have seen public pension schemes pursue pseudo foreign policies and all too often the foreign policy of these public pension schemes is, I'm afraid, exclusively focused on re-writing the UK's relationship with the world's only Jewish state, Israel....You don't have to look very hard to find a pattern of anti-Semitic behavior in connection with campaigns promoting a boycott of Israel." Jenrick told the Jewish Chronicle: "BDS against Israel...is increasingly out of step with the mood in the Middle East following the Abraham Accords, whereby a number of Gulf states are forging productive links with Israel....[The amendment] will be the first step in legislation outlawing BDS in the UK."