To Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, State Auditor Julie Blaha, and Secretary of State Steve Simon (the MN SBI):
We, the undersigned residents of Minnesota, oppose our public funds being invested in the Apartheid regime of Israel by the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI).
We oppose the $116 million dollars invested in Israeli bonds and Israeli corporations, which violently oppress Palestinians and profit off of the illegal expropriation of Palestinian land and resources. This includes the board’s investments in Israeli banks that bankroll illegal settlements in occupied Palestine, and in Israeli weapons manufacturers such as Elbit Systems, which advertises its military products as “field tested” on Palestinians and has been contracted to assist in building the oppressive US-Mexico border wall.
We oppose the nearly $500 million dollars invested in weapons manufacturers, including the $117 million dollars invested in Boeing Company, the $94 million dollars invested in RTX Corp (formerly Raytheon), and the $64 million dollars invested in Lockheed Martin. We oppose the board’s notion that it has a “fiduciary responsibility” that is dependent on continuing to financially support and enable the warmongering corporations producing the weapons used in the ongoing genocide of the people of Palestine.
Finally, we oppose the SBI’s investment of an additional $3.6 billion dollars into non-Israeli banks and corporations that conduct business with Israel—profiting off of the continued oppression of Palestinians. This includes the board’s $37.3 million dollar investment in Airbnb, which aims to turn stolen Palestinian homes into tourist destinations, and the $111.8 million dollar investment in Caterpillar, which sells machinery to Israel used to demolish Palestinian homes and build Israeli settlements in their places, and which infamously branded the bulldozer used to martyr American activist Rachel Corrie.
Human rights organizations have clearly established that Israel presides over an apartheid system comparable to apartheid South Africa or the Jim Crow era of the United States, wherein Palestinians lack freedom of movement, access to basic necessities, and other human rights. We know the board has the power to divest from apartheid as it did with over a hundred corporations complicit in apartheid South Africa in the late 1980’s. Our criteria for divestment is no different now than it was then.
The current genocidal onslaught has only resulted in an insurmountable amount of death and irreparable destruction. There is a clear choice to be made. The SBI is choosing to profit off of the devastatingly inhumane conditions being imposed on the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation forces, making Minnesotans complicit in Israel’s war crimes. We are choosing to demand that the board listens to its constituents and takes immediate steps towards divestment from entities complicit in Israel’s abhorrent occupation of Palestine.