CT Treasury Buys Half-Million More Elbit Shares
by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee
For a decade, activists have been asking the CT Treasury to tell us what investments it has in Israeli apartheid and to dump those investments. The Treasury holds the pension money of teachers and state and city employees. We’ve made moral arguments, legal arguments and appealed to their business sense. So far, we’ve failed. As of last June, Connecticut had $106 million invested in Israel. This month, we’ve learned that there are now $141 million in those tainted investments! They include $6 million in State of Israel Bonds. Israel can use that money for any purpose, for military, tractors to knock down Palestinian houses, prisons (that the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls “torture camps”), anything at all. There’s also $250,000 in Cellebrite, which makes hardware and software for surveillance, that is, for spying. Another investment is in ZIM, a company that ships parts and supplies to Israel and exports Israeli weapons to other countries. $600,000 is invested in ZIM.
The worst investment, though, is in Israel’s biggest weapons maker, Elbit. The investment went up from $2.4 million last year to $4 million now. Lest you think that Elbit’s value nearly doubled in 6 months, realize that the Treasury’s fund managers bought 500,000 more shares in Elbit over that short time period.
On April 1, 2024, a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy of three cars drove on a route pre-approved and coordinated with the Israeli military in central Gaza. One car after another was targeted with missiles from a Hermes 450 drone and all seven WCK workers and volunteers were killed. Hermes is made by Elbit. This wasn’t the first time that an Elbit drone was connected to a human rights abuse. In 2014, a Hermes drone attack killed four children playing on a Gaza beach in front of dozens of journalists. Those are the massacres we know about. Palestinians are killed daily by drones. 85% of them are made by Elbit.
Officials at the Treasury have two excuses. They say they have a “fiduciary” responsibility to make money for the pension funds. They also say that they don’t pick stocks directly. They employ companies whose managers make the actual investments. Someone should tell them to read about Pontius Pilate and the washing of hands. Erick Russell is our Treasurer. Maybe you could tell them via state.treasurer@ct.gov.