(The Center Square) \u2013 Multiple speakers shared personal stories Thursday from the conflict between Israeli forces and Palestinians in an effort to convince the state legislature to change how it invests pension dollars.<\/p>\n
In recent months, municipalities in Illinois such as Normal Township, Bloomington and Peoria have considered measures related to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions, BDS, on Israel movement.<\/p>\n
Current law restricts the state from investing in companies that engage in any boycott of Israel.<\/p>\n
The law defines a boycott as, \u201cpolitically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who want to change the law have said it punishes companies and stifles First Amendment protections on speech.<\/p>\n
House Bill 2723 proposes to strike language related to Israel from current law guiding state investment.<\/p>\n
Palestinian-American State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Berwyn, introduced the bill to the committee and said he proposed it because it supports Israeli settlement of Palestinian land in the West Bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law I am asking you to repeal is one of the tools of that project. It\u2019s not the most violent tool and it\u2019s not the most visible tool,\u201d Rashid said. \u201cIt\u2019s the only tool with Illinois\u2019 name on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
University of Illinois Springfield Professor Ken Kriz spoke to the committee from a neutral stance, based on his 20 years of experience researching and advising cities on pensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn general when restrictions are put in place, what we see is poor risk-adjusted returns,\u201d Kriz said.<\/p>\n
Kriz told lawmakers current law puts unnecessary costs on taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to have increased costs of monitoring to make sure there\u2019s no investments going into a certain asset,\u201d Kriz said. \u201cIncreasing the cost just reduces the benefits you can offer or increases the cost to the taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rashid said the Illinois Investment Policy Board, which oversees state pension investments, isn\u2019t currently guided by an anti-discrimination law, rather foreign policy guidance that Israel supports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe board has been used repeatedly to coerce American companies \u2013 San Francisco\u2019s Airbnb, Chicago\u2019s Morningstar \u2013 into changing their lawful business practices to align with the foreign policy preferences of a foreign government,\u201d Rashid said.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Weininger, the Midwest senior regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the proposal is antisemitism disguised as policy critique. She further criticized the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis repeal is not about free speech. Individuals, organizations, and companies can still express their views. They can protest and they can support boycotts. This repeal is not about fiduciary responsibility,\u201d Weininger said.<\/p>\n
Marty Levine, a former social worker who led Jewish Community Centers in Chicago for 40 years, disagreed with Weininger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose telling you that this law should stay in place want to depict BDS as something other than nonviolent. They say or hint that it is antisemetic. They say or hint it will lead to violence,\u201d Levine said.<\/p>\n
Levine continued by saying the current law\u2019s sole purpose is to support Israel.<\/p>\n
Rep. Dave Vella, D-Loves Park, said lawmakers on the committee need to do more research on the matter before the change would be voted on. Lawmakers on the committee, aside from Vella, did not pose questions during the informational hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 Multiple speakers shared personal stories Thursday from the conflict between Israeli forces and Palestinians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[13367,11192,37],"class_list":{"0":"post-91696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-financial-services","9":"tag-illinois","10":"tag-israel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116495591843326620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}