Minnesotans demand divestment from Israel at State Board of Investment meeting

Saint Paul, MN – On August 14, members and supporters of the MN Free Palestine Coalition packed every available seat at the quarterly Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) meeting to demand divestment of state-managed pension funds and other public monies from Israeli weapons manufacturers, banks and bonds, and other entities, complicit in Israel’s apartheid system that contribute to the genocide in Palestine.

The MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) has identified a total of nearly $4.3 billion in public Israeli entities and multinational corporations, some of which explicitly contribute to the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, all of which profit from it, including Elbit Systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics.

The SBI meeting was chaired by State Auditor Julie Blaha because Governor Tim Walz, who usually chairs the meetings, was campaigning for the Harris/Walz Democratic presidential ticket.

The meeting had a significantly higher number of state patrol troopers than previous meetings and every attendee was given a purple ticket which informed them that disrupting the meeting would lead to gross misdemeanor charges. Multiple protesters were searched by cops and had their signs taken away. Despite these attempts to intimidate pro-Palestinian protesters, four banners and many pictures of murdered Palestinian children were snuck into the meeting and the protesters chanted loudly throughout the whole meeting.

16 union members and community activists testified at the SBI meeting asking for the state of Minnesota to divest from genocide. Stacey Gurian-Sherman, an anti-Zionist Jew and a former public employee who organizes with the Climate Justice Committee, was the first speaker. Her powerful speech kicked off the public comment section of the meeting, “This is painful to me because it is being perpetrated in my name as a Jew – and in violation of Geneva Convention protocols created as a direct result of Nazi atrocities during WWII that murdered 6 millionJews, and 5 million more Romanies, persons with disabilities and in the queer community. What Israel is today should be painful to all of us for being perpetrated in our names as Americans.”

Omari Hoover, a member of both the MN Anti-War Committee, the Free Palestine Coalition and executive board member of AFSCME Local 2822, gave the SBI the 3425 petition signatures the AWC collected this summer and their updated white paper on the board’s investments.

Hoover stated in his testimony, “Earlier this year, when the Palestinian death toll was just under 30,000, we passed a resolution for divestment in Israel. Since then, the death count has risen to almost 40,000 with an anticipated 186,000 for those unaccounted for. In April, I watched Governor Walz give an impassioned speech at the AFSCME Council 5 Day on the Hill about how he plans to stand in solidarity with laborers and would continue to put efforts into thriving unions. Since then, along with everyone on the Minnesota State Board of Investments, you have shown that the solidarity is only with organizations that build an economy in favor of infinite financial growth. You meet quarterly with no indication that there’ll be any progress in Minnesota’s divestment of the ongoing atrocities that is the current genocide, happening daily in occupied Palestine, of which many labor organizations have put forth divestment and ceasefire resolutions for.”

Neil Radford, a member of MFT 52 and Minnesota Workers United, also has his pension invested by the SBI. He testified, “Divestment is not a request, it is a demand, and it does not stop with Palestinian liberation. The SBI needs to divest from Israeli apartheid and divert itself and this state from a future where increased militarism is our only answer.”

Michael Runyon, an organizer with Students For Palestine-Normandale and the MN Peace Action Coalition testified, “When you decide to invest in companies like General Dynamics you are choosing to fund the only company in the United States that produces that shell casings for the MK bomb series that was used by Israel to bomb a school in a so-called safe zone killing over 100 innocent men women and children who had gathered for morning prayer. You helped pay for the bombs that tore those people to shreds, so much so, that not one complete body could be recovered.” Runyon is also a part of organizing a protest on September 14 in Bloomington, Minnesota at General Dynamics.

Many protesters said goodbye to each other acknowledging that they will ride the Anti-War Committee’s buses to Chicago on Sunday to March on the DNC on August 19.

#SaintPaulMN #FreePalestine #Antiwarcommittee #Walz #MinnesotaWorkersUnited