Activists have today hung a banner on Glastonbury Tor calling for Somerset institutions to boycott the “Bloody Insurance” companies that support Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine.
Members of the Red Rebel Brigade encircled the tower while 50 others carried a long “Red Line” across the hillside to symbolise the blood of innocent Palestinians Israel has spilled in in its West-backed genocide in Gaza. So far Israel has slaughtered around 700,000 people, more than two thirds of them children.
Glastonbury Tor protest
The protest calls on all organisations in Somerset – churches, museums, councils, schools, community groups, and businesses – to boycott insurers who continue to funnel financial support to Israeli arms makers as well as to fossil fuel companies, arms manufacturers, and corporations making millions each year from migrant detention centres. It follows a similar protest at Glastonbury Festival’s ‘Pyramid Stage’ a week ago demanding the festival drop its insurer, Allianz, which underwrites Israel’s biggest arms supplier Elbit Systems.
Activists are urging institutions to switch to ethical insurance, a process they describe as both simple and cost-neutral or even cheaper, as easy as approaching an ethical broker to switch to insurers that refuse to underwrite the genocide and fossil fuel industries and the abuse of refugees.
Speaking at the protest, local councillor, Indra Donfranscesco said:
With world leaders in paralysis ignoring ongoing genocide and the accelerating destruction of our planet it falls to ordinary people to highlight the solutions our institutions refuse to confront. I applaud the action taken to demonstrate how Somerset council, local businesses and even Glastonbury Festival can lead the way by divesting from “blood insurance” and ensuring its financial practices align with its longstanding values.
[Glastonbury Festival owner] Michael Eavis and his family have always stayed true to the festival’s roots. I am confident they would want full transparency about where their money is going and the impact those investments have on communities around the world.
It is time for all of us local leaders, cultural institutions, and global citizens to show moral courage where governments have failed.
Dave Ware, an engineer from Bath who attended the protest, added:
The insurance industry is a key pillar of global capitalism and imperialism. By targeting insurance, we’re targeting a chokepoint — a system designed to shield corporate greed while communities and ecosystems pay the price. This is a shared struggle across movements: liberation for Palestine, climate justice, and migrant justice are intertwined, and insurance is one of the threads that binds them.
Boycotts work
Organisers behind the action stress that public pressure works, as companies like McDonalds and Starbucks have already found to their cost. The insurance boycott aims to apply coordinated grassroots pressure that disrupts financial safety nets that allow destructive companies to continue operating with impunity. Insurance companies make record profits while insulating their corporate clients from public scrutiny and financial risk – removing insurance coverage is one of the most powerful, and overlooked, tools available to campaigners.
This is particularly true for those working for the freedom of the Palestinians, who suffer continual horrors as the imperialist settlers steals their land and resources.
Featured image via Lizzie Goldsack/Boycott Bloody Insurance
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.