BUST ELBIT: Stop bankrolling Israeli wars and ghettos

I. Introduction
The call to divest from Elbit Systems Ltd. has become a key element of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement aimed at ending Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid against the Palestinian people.

One and a half years after Stop the Wall Campaign initiated campaigning efforts within the framework of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) to pressure international investors and public authorities across the world to divest from the Israeli corporation, victories for the Bust Elbit campaign are beginning to mount rapidly. The Bust Elbit campaign is part of the wider BDS efforts which seek to hold Israel and its supporters accountable by pressuring Israel on all fronts - politically, culturally, and economically.

Founded in 1967, the Israeli company has become one of the world’s premiere “security and defence,” firms, specializing in military electronics, surveillance systems, Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs or “drones”), and security systems. It is a symbol for the Israeli economy, which essentially thrives on and fuels war, repression and control in Palestine and around the globe.

Elbit Systems is built on the expertise of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Research Institute and has profited greatly from supplying the Israeli military with a variety of equipment used to sustain Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people. It produces the drones used in the wars and attacks against Gaza and Lebanon and provides equipment for the Israeli Merkava tanks. The Israeli Apartheid Wall, which is crippling Palestinian communities by isolating them in walled-in ghettos, has provided a massive source of revenue for Elbit. Elbit Systems provides “intrusion detection systems” for the Wall, in particular around Jerusalem1. Subsidiaries Elbit Electro-Optics (El-Op) and Elbit Security Systems supplied and incorporated LORROS surveillance cameras in the Ariel settlement section as well as around Ar Ram2. One product made by Elbit Systems, “Torch”, is manufactured specifically for use on the Wall3.

Elbit offers its experience in ghettoizing and killing Palestinians to repress other people. In 2006 its American subsidiary Kollsman Inc. won a contract to participate in the creation of the US – Mexico border wall, dubbed by activists the ‘Wall of Death’4.