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We Support Students for Justice in Palestine

Editor’s note: A shortened version of the following was published in the October 27, 2015 issue of the Minnesota Daily:

When Fadi Alloun became the second Palestinian teenager in as many days to be killed by Israel, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) re-posted a report by Electronic Intifada on their Facebook page. For this they were attacked as supporters of terrorism and “disgusting.” As this is only the most recent of attacks on SJP, several organizations issued the following statement:

“For months the world has watched as the racial violence in Palestine perpetrated by Israeli civilians escalates while the Israeli government refuses to hold accountable those responsible. The extrajudicial execution of Fadi Alloun is a recent example. No attempt was made to arrest Alloun; he was killed by the military urged on by a mob of Israeli settlers. Only after his killing was he accused of having perpetrated a knife attack on an Israeli Jew, as if an excuse was needed to kill him without due process.

“The accusation is typical of a mentality that claims victimhood for the oppressors. The world is slowly waking up to Israel’s human rights violations.

“Members of the SJP student group at the University of Minnesota are helping Minnesotans wake up and learn about these human rights violations. But as any human rights activist knows, exposing Israel’s human rights abuses and international law violations makes one vulnerable to accusations of anti-Semitism from pro-Israel advocates. These advocates, bankrolled by wealthy right-wing neo-cons like Shelden Adelson, spend millions attempting to silence advocates for human rights, especially advocates for Palestinian rights, and most especially those on campuses in the US.

“Recently, the SJP became the target of some of these pro-Israel forces and has been on the receiving end of threats and accusations.

“This fits perfectly into the model that the Israel advocacy organizations typically use: accuse the students of anti-Semitism for speaking against Israeli human rights abuses, escalate to accusations of “incivility” (see Steven Salaita’s new book, Uncivil Rights), and get the university to cancel events or even suspend a student group for exercising their First Amendment rights.

“These tactics are all spelled out in a new report by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal called “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech.” Threats to First Amendment rights should concern everybody, regardless of one’s stance on Israel or Palestine.

“Tactics going beyond suppression of speech, such as disrupting future job prospects or threatening bodily harm are also in the pro-Israel advocacy arsenal, and should trouble all Americans.

“All who value human rights must equally value Palestinian human rights. All who value constitutional rights should be proud and humbled by the courageous students of SJP who speak out for justice and equality in the face of suppression tactics. “

Signatories:

Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign2015 SJP
Coalition for Palestinian Rights – MN
Women Against Military Madness – Middle East Committee
Middle East Peace Now
Anti-War Committee
Minnesota BDS Community
United States Palestinian Community Network

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Dark Money

 

This article, by Robert Kosuth, originally appeared in the Zenith City Weekly LLC, Volume 9, Issue 141, September 1, 2015.

On June 3, the Minnesota State Board of Investment voted unanimously to end consideration of human rights in their investment decisions.

The State Board of Investment (SBI) manages $80 billion in assets used to pay for state pensions and other trusts. In 2014, SBI saw an 18.6 percent yield, with an annualized return over the last 10 years of 8.4 percent.

SBI’s authority rests in four officers outlined by the state constitution—the attorney general (currently Lori Swanson), the secretary of state (currently Steve Simon), the state auditor (currently Rebecca Otto), and the governor (currently Mark Dayton) as chair. The officers supervise a staff headed by Executive Director Mansco Perry.

The vote on the June 3 resolution was initially split 2–2, with Dayton and Otto opposed. Perry repeated the major points of the resolution and they voted again, this time 4–0. But none of the constitutional officers is eager to discuss his or her vote.

Spokespeople for Dayton and Simon did not respond to multiple phone and email requests for comment. Ben Wogsland, a spokesman for the Attorney General, refused to accept questions and deferred comment to Perry.

Jim Levi, a spokesman for the Auditor, accepted questions, but deferred response to the June 3 meeting minutes, which, as of press time, had not yet been released. Levi read a prepared statement from Otto: “If I’m approached about potential investments, I refer them to SBI staff. If I’m approached about divestment of any of the investments, I listen. Everything I do on the Board I do as a fiduciary and according to state law.”

State law requires SBI to follow the “prudent person rule,” meaning the Board is to manage the state’s assets as carefully as they would manage their own. The law includes a few clauses about the types of allowable investments, as well as risk and performance standards, but the four constitutional officers have considerable latitude in setting SBI’s policies and making investment decisions.

Former Duluth Representative Mike Jaros was in the state legislature in the ’80s when it first passed divestment resolutions stemming from human rights concerns. “I think our resolution said that the Board should not invest in South Africa.” Jaros says the resolution was well received and passed easily.

In 1992, the Board adopted task force recommendations to consider human rights in its investment decisions. In its summary, the task force examined 34 countries, including South Africa, China, and Israel, but the details are only available in the full task force report. SBI accepted a data request for the full report last April, but a few weeks later, SBI Chief Operating Officer LeaAnn Stagg called to say the full report couldn’t be located.

Union leaders were involved in SBI’s human rights issues in the ’90s, but have since been silent. AFSCME Council 5 head Eliot Seide was on the task force in 1992, but Council 5 Public Affairs Director Jennifer Munt responded to questions via email. “It would be best to interview someone closer to recent actions to change the investment policy.”

UNITE/HERE did not respond to requests for comment, despite appearing at an SBI meeting in 2013, seeking support for one of their workers who was employed by a firm connected to one of the Board’s investments.

Having now withdrawn its human rights policy, SBI is free to continue giving taxpayer money to entities flagged by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Through SBI, Minnesota invests in scores of Chinese companies or those doing business in China, including more than $40 million stock in the Bank of China and $190,000 in Taiwan’s Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer notorious for its 2010–13 employee suicides in protest of working conditions.

Chinese labor law fails to meet international standards. Average manufacturing wages are 25 cents an hour and workers lack the right to organize. The Chinese government persecutes dissidents, censors the press, and displaces farmers to give their land to developers.

SBI owns more than $35.5 million stock in Rio Tinto, a mining company that holds mineral exploration leases to 36,000 acres of Minnesota land. Through its Kennecott subsidiary, Rio Tinto is drilling for copper, nickel, and other precious metals in Aitkin and Carlton Counties.

Rio Tinto’s environmental record—from burning PCBs in Utah to groundwater contamination at Wisconsin’s Flambeau mine—and its record of union–busting and squalid working conditions prompted Norway to divest from Rio Tinto in 2008.

SBI owns over $100 million stock in Royal Dutch Shell, which paid out $15 million in 1996 to settle a lawsuit over the oil company’s collaboration in executing tribal leaders in Nigeria. Despite promoting itself as a sustainable energy company, Shell has been linked to dozens of oil spills, fires, and toxic dumps.

SBI owns $80 million stock in Coca–Cola, whose Colombia subsidiaries were accused in 2003 of contracting with paramilitaries to kill union organizers.

SBI owns $100 million in bonds and dozens of companies in Israel, which has conducted a violent military occupation of the Palestinian Territories since 1967. Sometimes compared to South African apartheid, Israel walled off the West Bank, imposed a blockade on Gaza, set up military checkpoints that restrict Palestinian access to jobs, education, and medical care, and built civilian settlements on Palestinian land—acts declared illegal by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

Israel engages in targeted assassination and disproportionate force (e.g., a crime by a Palestinian prompts Israel to respond with ground troops, home searches, and bombing civilian targets like schools or hospitals).

“We have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the returns,” says SBI Executive Director Mansco Perry. “Absent a legislative mandate, the sole criterion is to exercise fiduciary responsibility, to maximize returns.”

Perry says SBI’s investment decisions are “very apolitical…We invest in most stocks around the world. When it comes to choosing one or the other, the factors are weighed to try to determine which will give us the best return. We also have to take diversification into consideration, not just the simple, ‘I like A and I don’t like B.’”

But it’s hard to make a case that SBI’s divestments have not been influenced by parallel political trends. In addition to South Africa, the legislature restricted SBI from investing in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and it currently prohibits investment in Iran and Sudan.

More importantly, SBI’s behavior does not suggest its decisions are apolitical.

In 2011, SBI was sued by Minnesota Break the Bonds, an organization seeking divestment of publicly held stocks and bonds in Israel. [Author’s disclosure: I’m a member of Break the Bonds, which has been attending SBI meetings since 2009.]

Opposition to divestment was led by the Jewish Community Relations Council, where Secretary of State Steve Simon serves on the board of directors in addition to being a constitutional officer of SBI.

The Council retained St. Paul attorney Charles Nauen, who was Dayton’s lead attorney in the 2010 Dayton–Emmer vote recount. In addition to contributing to both Dayton and Swanson’s campaigns, Nauen “spent election night with Dayton in case elections issues came up,” according to the Star Tribune. Nauen also represented Otto last year in an election dispute with Matt Entenza.

Break the Bonds’ lawsuit was dismissed for lack of standing, but SBI considered a divestment motion at its quarterly meeting on March 4, 2015. After comments from the Arab–American Anti–Discrimination Committee and the Jewish Community Relations Council, Dayton presented a motion declining to divest from Israel. Simon seconded the motion, opening the floor to discussion.

A member of the public asked the Board to speak louder so observers could hear them, and Dayton replied that they are not required to.

After repeating the mantra of “fiduciary duty,” Swanson asked Perry about the lawsuit. Perry said the court upheld SBI’s right to invest in Israel bonds, but he did not mention the human rights issues in the suit.

Swanson noted that Israel bonds yield more than treasury bills (2.4 percent versus 1.54 percent). Perry said the rates were “competitive,” but made no reference to his 2014 report that SBI’s Combined Funds yielded 18.6 percent in 2014 and 8.4 percent annualized over 10 years.

Simon, making no mention of his board position with the Jewish Community Relations Council, stated, “I will be voting today according to our fiduciary duty, and on that alone.”

The motion passed 3–1 with Otto opposed after reiterating her concern that, “Politics should not drive our decisions, as we are fiduciaries.”

Followed three months later by the Board’s vote to no longer consider human rights, labor rights, or environmental concerns in its investment decisions, Minnesota pensioners can now be assured their retirements are funded in part by human misery, military violence, and the destruction of the planet.

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Why Using Pension Money to Fund Israeli Bonds is both Wrong and Illegal

by James Abourezk

This piece first appeared in CounterPunch on March 27, 2015. James Abourezk is a former US senator from South Dakota. He is the author of: Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of an ex-Senator.

The Minnesota State Board of Investment is honor bound when it invests monies from Minnesota’s public employee pension funds. Each of the Board members, which includes Governor Mark Dayton (Chair), State Auditor Rebecca Otto, Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Lori Swanson know, or should know, that the Board has violated its fiduciary responsibility to only invest public pension funds prudently by investing in Israel Bonds. Israel Bonds are government bonds issued by the State of Israel.

Earlier this month, I appeared before the Board members to urge them not to invest in Israel Bonds. Immediately after I ended my presentation, the Governor handed the other Board members a previously prepared written motion to continue investing the state’s pension funds in Israel Bonds. All of us in the packed hearing room understood that my testimony had been wasted. Facing members of the pro-Israel Lobby who had been seated in the front row, three of the four board members voted to invest. Only the State Auditor, Rebecca Otto, voted against the motion.

I’ve seen this pressure before. It usually consists of a subliminal threat by the pro-Israel Lobby to cut off any campaign money to those who defy what the Lobby wants. That is the same kind of threat that allowed Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to travel to the United States to dictate to our Congress how American foreign policy should be conducted. I believe that the 36 standing ovations for Bibi and the 47 Republican Senatorial signatures on the letter to Iran were eager messages to the Israeli Lobby telling them how much Congress appreciated the campaign money given each election cycle to its obedient members. When I served in the US Senate I well remember the threats directed against me for not being obedient enough to the Lobby.

The Board of Investment’s vote to use Minnesota pensioners’ money to buy the low-yield bonds issued by Israel is, without question, highly imprudent and illegal, especially because the Board knows how the money will be used. American money plunged into Israel Bond sales is fungible, meaning that the money is lumped into Israel’s General Fund, and then used for anything Israel wants, without
abourezkrestriction. That also means that the money sent to Israel is used for settlements. Israel’s settlements are illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupier from transferring any part of its civilian population into the territory it occupies. Article 49 was adopted by the international community after WWII as a direct response to Nazi Germany’s illegal and brutal occupation of lands belonging to its neighbors. Both the United States and Israel have signed the Fourth Geneva Convention.     Even the United States Government has acknowledged that Israel’s settlements are illegal.

Beyond just exploiting American elected officials in their political zeal to become complicit in financing illegal Israeli settlements by using money from taxpayer funded public employee pension plans to do so, Israel has a long history of inflicting damage on American interests. During the 1967 Middle East War, Israel’s military attacked and attempted to sink a fully flagged American Navy vessel—the USS Liberty—which had been ordered to monitor the War by assuming a listening post off the coast of Egypt and Israel. Using fighter jets, as well as torpedo boats, Israel killed 34 American sailors and wounded another 171 sailors in the process.

What was painful for the survivors and the families of those Americans killed and wounded by Israel were the duplicitous actions of our own public officials, starting with President Lyndon Johnson, by refusing to allow fighter jets of the Sixth Fleet to come to the aid of the Liberty when it was under attack and working to cover up evidence of Israel’s deliberate attack on our ship and the killing and wounding of our sailors.

That wasn’t the last injury against American interests by our so called “ally.” In the 1970s, Israel recruited and paid a Pentagon employee, Jonathan Pollard, to sell to Israel a “truckload of secret documents,” as described by our then Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger.

More recently, a Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, was indicted by the Justice Department in 2004 for handing over classified information on Iran to two employees of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the leading lobby for Israel. Franklin, a former United States Department of Defense employee, pleaded guilty to several espionage-related charges and was initially sentenced in January 2006 to nearly 13 years in prison. Amazingly, Franklin’s sentence was later reduced to ten months house arrest and 100 hours of community service. In reducing his sentence, the Judge told Franklin that his community service should consist of “speaking to young people about the importance of public officials obeying the law.”

Franklin had passed highly classified information to AIPAC policy director Steven Rosen and AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman, whom AIPAC later fired. Initially indicted for illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to Israel, all charges against Rosen and Weissman were eventually dismissed.

These are just a few examples that we know about where Israel’s activities have seriously damaged United States interests. What we do not know, including the extent of the duplicity of our public servants, would most likely fill the pages of a book.

Not only is the Investment Board’s action imprudent and illegal with respect to giving Minnesota retirees’ money to a country that has never hesitated in harming America’s interests and will use the money to violate international law, it also tells Israel that it can do what it wishes, without paying any penalty, and that it can even get the United States to pay the price for it.

The Minnesota Investment Board should obey the law whether or not Israel’s Lobby dislikes that decision.

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MN BBC Interactions with the State Board of Investment Thus Far

Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) members and supporters attended the quarterly State Board of Investment (SBI) meeting on March 4, 2015, as we have for almost all quarterly meetings for more than three years. More than 50 supporters packed the room holding signs that encouraged the SBI to divest from the Israel Bonds that it holds. More supporters were turned away from the overcrowded meeting room, held in the State Board of Investment offices, rather than its usual meeting place of the Capitol building, due to renovations at the Capitol. Also in attendance were two members of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota spoke on behalf of MN BBC. He spoke about why Minnesota should not be investing in a country which commits human rights abuses and undermines US Foreign policy, backing up his statements with a history of Israel’s involvement in human rights abuses against both Palestinians and Americans. He was himself, the target of an attack because of his co-founding of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and his colleague, Alex Odeh was assassinated. Although the perpetrators of the murder were never brought to justice for that crime, Israel was clearly implicated.

It did not matter, however, what Senator Abourezk, a friend of Governor Dayton, said. The script for the day had been written in advance. For as soon as the opposing side from the JCRC spoke (Steve Hunegs spoke about the article that he and his friend Walid Issa wrote for the MinnPost, which said that Israel Bonds are a good investment and Israel has always repaid those bonds), Governor Dayton passed out pre-printed copies of his resolution calling for continuing investment in Israel Bonds. The decision had been made prior to the meeting. The debate that ensued did not discuss the issues that MN BBC had been bringing to their attention since the beginning of the campaign – that Israel uses the money from Israel Bonds for illegal purposes. Indeed, never in the history of our dealings with the SBI, have they addressed this issue, much less answered it to anyone’s satisfaction.

So even though this is an apparent loss to our cause, it is also an opportunity for us to step back and look at our strategies in all our interactions with the SBI. While MN BBC has been active in many other areas, this posting will discuss what we have done just with the SBI. It is not written in chronological order, but rather by topic, and hopefully will give activists in other states and municipalities techniques and ideas in executing their campaigns.

The struggle continues! We will not give up until all Palestinians are accorded their full human rights!

We address the SBI

In 2011 at least 30 MN BBC supporters from all over the state (from as far away as Luverne in the southwest and Brainerd in the north central), read statements to the Board during the public comment period of the SBI meeting. Governor Dayton thanked everyone for coming and listened patiently as everyone spoke.

Since that time we have addressed the SBI many times, always insisting that their investments in Israel Bonds are illegal and immoral. At one meeting a student intern stood to speak and Governor Dayton fast-gavelled a close to the meeting. This was a disappointment for the student who had prepared his statement and was looking forward for a chance to speak. We then wrote a letter to Dayton, informing him that his rude behavior had been a frustration to a student who was just learning about the political system. After that letter Dayton allowed speakers again.

Lesson: In an open meeting system, the public has the right to speak. We always (well, almost always) remained respectful and non-disruptive, so there should not have been a reason to bar us from speaking. Always insist on your rights under the US and State Constitutions.

We have conversations with the Executive Director and staff of the SBI

We began speaking with the Executive Director, Howard Bicker, and his staff early in the campaign. None of us at the time had experience in getting information from governmental agencies and we find that, because we didn’t ask the right questions, there were many details that Bicker never included in his responses to us (for example, that the Development Corporation of Israel thanked Howard Bicker personally for his “support of the State of Israel.” It was only recently that we learned this fact.) But we did learn some essentials about the Israel Bonds: date of maturity, approximate amount of investment, average rates of return, and the fact which the SBI continually tries to claim, that they do not invest based on politics, but only for fiduciary purposes. Yet this letter which Bicker received belies that claim, since investing in Israel is a political act.

Lesson: It takes time to know what questions to ask. Get to know your State’s equivalent of a FOIA request. In Minnesota it’s called a Data Practices Act Request (see below).

MN BBC files lawsuit

We brought a lawsuit against the SBI in December 2011. (You can read the complete documents here.) We alleged three counts:

1. That the SBI had invested in Israel Bonds contrary to state statutes 11A.24 subdivision 2, which restricts investments in foreign sovereign bonds to those of Canada and requires substantial restrictions on those investments. We alleged that the State of Minnesota violated those statutes for Israel only, again showing political solidarity with a country against its own stated policy of investing only on the basis of fiduciary duty.

2. That the SBI had invested in Israel Bonds with the knowledge that the money from the sale of those bonds goes into the Israeli treasury and is distributed to various ministries, some of which carry on illegal activities according to both US and international law. The United States is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions and therefore it is incumbent upon all states to comply with those international treaties. Investments in activities which violate ratified international treaties are illegal according to the US Constitution.

3. That the SBI had violated the “prudent person standard” of investment, exposing the state’s pensioners and taxpayers to potential lawsuits based on the harm caused by the international law violations.

The lawsuit was dismissed from the lower court and from the Appeals Court (November 2012) and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The court asserted that the SBI did have the legal authority to invest in foreign securities.
The important point which was not addressed is the fact that Israel uses the money from the sale of Israel Bonds for illegal purposes. This has not been disputed by the courts or the SBI.

Lesson: Don’t get discouraged by apparent losses. There were many avenues to go after this dismissal. We began to pursue the avenue that the SBI had violated its own investment guidelines.

We begin a postcard campaignSBI Post Card

The postcard campaign began about the time the lawsuit was filed. The front of the postcard shows pictures of desperation from the Occupied Territories, with the words “This is how MN invests.” The back had a statement saying that the undersigned urged the SBI to divest from its Israel Bonds. Whenever we received a number of signed postcards we delivered them to the SBI. No acknowledgment was given on their receipt.

Lesson: It is vital that the broader community continues to be informed, educated and involved about the campaign and its purposes. A petition or postcard campaign is a great way to involve and educate people.

We allege that they are violating their investment guidelines

In September 2013 we delivered a report to the SBI called “Twenty Years of Failure – A Report on the MN State Board of Investment’s Neglect of Human Rights”. This White Paper pointed out that in the 1990s, then State Auditor (now Governor) Mark Dayton urged the SBI to adopt guidelines to include the consideration of human rights, labor practices and environmental practices in their investment decisions. Each country was to be categorized in one of three groups based on their human rights, labor and environmental records. A Group I country had the best record and investments could be made in those countries without restriction. Group II countries had laws protecting workers, but there were problems and fund managers who recommended those investments were required to make a statement that it would be a breach of the fund manager’s fiduciary duty NOT to invest. Group III countries had the worst human rights, labor or environmental records and the fund manager had to justify a decision to invest in that country. Israel had always been placed in Group II, yet no fund manager ever was required to make the statement that it would be a breach of fiduciary duty not to invest in Israel… until we filed the lawsuit. In June of 2012 the first statements appeared. However these statements did not exactly say that it was a breach of fiduciary duty not to invest in Israel. The best the fund managers could muster was to say it was a breach of fiduciary duty not to have a diverse portfolio.

We also noticed that countries did not change classification from year to year. The country review process, originally required to take place annually, had been skipped for several years. After a Data Practices Act Request, we realized that they had changed the review period to quadrennially, and finally quit reviewing countries altogether after 2005.

Since they had neglected their own requirement for country reviews, we submitted a Shadow Report which reviewed Israel’s human rights record based on the same categories that the SBI was supposed to have used. No response to either of these papers was received.

Lesson: Even though these are politicians who don’t care about human rights unless it will get them votes in the next election, we thought we could shame them for not even following their own internal investment guidelines. It didn’t seem to work, although who knows how they will react when suddenly they can support Palestinian human rights and not suffer political repercussions? We don’t know what will affect someone, so we have to approach it with different tactics.

We file Data Practices Act Requests

Howard Bicker retired in 2013 and Mansco Perry replaced him as the Executive Director. We have met with Perry several times also, and he continues the claim that they only invest based on fiduciary reasons. Perry, however, has been much more forthcoming with records than his predecessor, and we have filed several Data Practices Act Requests from him.
These requests included any written material showing decisions on changing the country review process to extend it to four years instead of annually, and changes to the internal investment guidelines. The guidelines did not change until March 4, 2015 in an important motion that was most likely overlooked by most of our supporters attending that meeting.
The internal investment guidelines had been implemented when Dayton was State Auditor, with the encouragement of several labor unions. That they had not been followed was not an issue for them until MN Break the Bonds insisted that they should follow their own rules on investing. So without attracting any attention to what they were doing, Perry announced that the guidelines were being changed. From now on, the country grouping no longer applies to anything but “emerging markets.” In other words, a developed country can commit whatever crimes against humanity it feels it needs to do and this will not prevent the SBI from investing in it. The SBI voted unanimously to adopt the changes.

Lesson: I already denigrated politicians – enough said!

We encourage them to not reinvest

We have consistently encouraged the SBI to divest from or not to reinvest in Israel Bonds. It is undisputed that the money from the sale of these bonds goes to illegal activities. We confronted the SBI with legal arguments and human rights arguments. We will not be deterred from seeking justice for Palestinians. March 4, 2015 was just another disappointment showing that the SBI, while claiming not to consider politics in their investment decisions, make the very political decision which will get them reelected. Even the fact that Dayton’s own guidelines had to be thrown out in order to make his supporters happy was not enough to make him question his support of an apartheid state.

Here is the wording of the resolution which the board voted on following Abourezk’s address:

The SBI declines to divest of its holdings in its bonds issued by the State of Israel and will continue to invest in the fixed and floating rate bonds offered by the State of Israel subject to a determination by the Executive Director that the rate of return is competitive, and that the duration, terms, amount and risk of the investment are consistent with sound investment practices and the prudent investor fiduciary standard of care in Minnesota Statutes 11A.09 and Section 356A.04.

In other words the SBI is letting Mansco Perry make the investment decision. If it’s a good investment, they all get complimented, if it’s a bad investment Perry may suffer some consequences, but the SBI will have made the politically expedient decision of showing solidarity with an illegal and inhumane regime.

Lesson: The March 4 meeting is not the end of the campaign. We continually find new arrows in our quiver! Stay tuned!

And Stay Human!

For an abridged video of the meeting on March 4, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eThLkKUV_-Y

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MN Break the Bonds condemns the State Board of Investment’s decision and representation of Israel bonds

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 5, 2015 — Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) strongly condemns the decision on Wednesday, March 4 by the State Board of Investment, as initiated by a motion from Governor Dayton, not to divest from Israel bonds, which are maturing on June 30, 2015. The motion came after a presentation by former South Dakota Senator and co-founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee James Abourezk urging the State Board of Investment not to continue to use state pension funds to invest in Israel because of its human rights abuses and oppressive occupation of Palestinians, and the Executive Director of the JCRC who claimed that Israel bonds are an important investment for Minnesota and that their rates are competitive.

After hearing the testimony, Governor Dayton put forth a motion calling on the SBI to “decline to divest” from Israel bonds so long as the bonds continue to return at competitive rates and not pose financial risks for the state, as per their fiduciary responsibility. The Governor remarked that he was behind the effort of the initial purchasing of the bonds and believes they are an important investment to maintain. Attorney General Lori Swanson questioned SBI Director Mansco Perry as to whether these bonds were financially lucrative, pose risks, and have rates similar to other bonds, to which he answered yes. The Board voted 3-1, with State Auditor Rebecca Otto voting no on the basis that she did not believe that the Board should weigh in on an individual bond decision or bring political considerations to an individual divestment decision. Otto’s statement affirms the assertion of MN Break the Bonds that the nature of Dayton’s motion and Israel bonds in general are indeed political. Break the Bonds estimates that since the bonds are general Treasury bonds, at least 20% of Minnesota’s investments are used for settlement activity in the occupied West Bank or towards other infrastructure maintaining the occupation. The occupation is illegal under international law and as such Minnesota is making a political statement by continuing to be invested in a military occupation in violation of international law.

Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign challenges the claim that the state’s Israel bonds were purchased for fiduciary rather than political reasons. While the bonds may provide a small and reliable return, this is not the basis on which they are sold. The bonds were purchased as “solidarity bonds” which are sold privately by the Israel Development Corporation as a way to show support for the state of Israel, not for financial competitiveness. “Israel bonds are not prudent investments because they are not competitive; they are not liquid and even the Israel Development Corporation acknowledges that the return is not competitive,” says Karen Schraufnagel, economist and member of MN Coalition for Palestinian Rights.

MN Break the Bonds mobilized supporters in the last several months to call on the SBI to not reinvest in the $10 million bonds, which mature at the end of June. Through this effort they collected over 1,200 signatures from residents of MN calling on the state not to reinvest.

MN Break the Bonds has been calling on the SBI to divest from Israel bonds since 2008 in a broad grassroots campaign with several thousand supporters from around the state, including chapters in the Twin Cities, Duluth, Rochester, Morris, and Willmar. The Break the Bonds campaign follows the Palestinian civil society call in 2005 for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel until Israel complies with international law and enables justice for human rights violations against Palestinians. MN Break the Bonds calls on all supporters of human rights to continue demanding that the State Board of Investments stop investing in Israel bonds.

MN Break the Bonds is a grassroots campaign supported by Friends of Sabeel North America-MN, US Palestinian Community Network-MN, Jewish Voice for Peace Twin Cities, Women Against Military Madness, Anti-War Committee, Middle East Peace Now, and several other community organizations.

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MN BBC to MN SBI: Don’t Reinvest in Human Rights Abuses!

Please come to the next quarterly meeting of the State Board of Investment on Wednesday, March 4 at 10:00 am in the State Board of Investment building, 60 Empire Drive, Room 106, St. Paul. (Come early and pick up a sign.)

Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) announces that former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota (D-SD, 1973-1979) (US House of Rep., 1971-1973) will be addressing the quarterly meeting of the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI). “I intend to call attention to Israel’s repeated bullying by using money from Minnesota’s Israel Bond sales to kill, wound and imprison helpless Palestinians. I’m certain that Minnesotans do not intend that their hard earned tax money should go to the Israeli military’s brutalizing [of] Palestinian people,” says Abourezk, the first US Senator of Arab descent and the founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-American civil rights organization in the United States.

Comprised of Minnesota’s top four constitutional officers and chaired by Governor Dayton, the SBI manages the investment of Minnesota’s $74 billion pool of public employee retirement funds.

For more than six years, MN BBC has attempted to persuade the SBI to divest its holdings in Israel Bonds which are unrestricted loans to the government of Israel. Israel uses the money from the sale of Israel Bonds to construct settlements on Palestinian land and build apartheid separation barriers, including a massive separation wall, among other actions that violate international law. The SBI’s Israel Bond investments will be maturing on July 1. At the SBI’s September 2014 meeting, Governor Dayton announced that the board would consider whether to reinvest in Israel Bonds when it meets at its March 4 meeting.

MN BBC and its supporters are urging the SBI not to reinvest in Israel’s human rights abuses. In addition to Senator Abourezk’s appearance on their behalf at the March 4 meeting, MN BBC will be submitting a petition signed by over a thousand Minnesotans from many different backgrounds.

Because of his leadership role in a community organization that has advocated for the purchase of Israel Bonds, MN BBC has requested that Secretary of State Steve Simon recuse himself from the SBI’s decision whether to reinvest. The letter to Sec. Simon from MN BBC and the Midwest Organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace requesting his recusal can be seen here.

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MN BBC Claims Sec’y of State Steve Simon has conflict of interest, must recuse himself

The new Secretary of State, Steve Simon, is also a board member of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Minnesota and the Dakotas. While active in this position, the JCRC has actively promoted the sale of Israel Bonds and worked against the efforts of MN BBC. The following letter was sent to the Secretary of State claiming that he has a conflict of interest and should recuse himself from decisions regarding the State’s purchase or renewal of Israel Bonds:

Ltr-Conflict-Simon-Short Version 201502

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All Process, no peace

MNBBC at Capitol 2014The following article, written by MN BBC member Bob Kosuth, appeared in the Socialist Worker on February 11, 2015.

AMERICANS WHO follow the news but don’t know this issue thoroughly must be befuddled as to why these endless “negotiations” never produce results in spite of the relentless chatter about how the U.S. and the two parties so badly want to find a “two-state solution” to the conflict.

Of course, there are the stock answers in the U.S. media: “terrorism,” Hamas, and the Israelis having “no partner for peace,” among others. But there are much better answers than these, and the experience of Minnesota Break the Bonds in trying to get the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) to divest its Israel bonds illustrates the nature of the challenges faced by those who seek a just and honest solution to this decades-old dispute.

The thesis presented here is simply that the two powerful actors in this three-way entanglement–the U.S. and Israel–simply do not want any agreement with Palestinians if it undermines their real, unstated goals in the region. For the United States, that means the maintenance of their ability to project military power in the region in order to control crucial shipping lanes and oil supplies. Even if the U.S. doesn’t currently need the oil itself, it desires to control the flow of oil, which translates into geopolitical power.

For its part, Israel claims to be interested in peace, but only on its terms, which put colonizing land and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians far and away above any other concern. The evidence is simple and clear: Since Israel’s 1967 takeover of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the number of Jewish settlers has grown to more than half a million in places where Palestinians used to but can no longer live. Israel can get away with this because they get billions of dollars, weapons and political cover from the U.S. It’s an immoral and unholy alliance, and Palestinians pay the price.

None of this is to deny that acts of violence are sometimes directed against Israelis or Jews outside of Israel, as in the recent attacks in Paris. Such acts are to be condemned, and I unequivocally do so here. But we need to make two points. First, thanks to Israel’s massive firepower financed and supplied by the U.S., Palestinians suffer violence out of all proportion to what is suffered by Israelis. In the 2014 Gaza bombing and invasion, for example, more than 2,100 Gazans died, of whom 1,462 were civilians; 495 of those were children and 253 women. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and seven civilians died, typical proportions in these conflicts. The purpose is clearly to demand submission rather than establish a basis for negotiations.

Second, and more important, if the U.S. and Israel are so interested in peaceful negotiations, why do they constantly thwart any and every attempt by both Palestinians and the world community to bring the Palestine issue before the United Nations or International Criminal Court, even by the usually obedient Palestinian Authority? It was widely reported that both Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry, if not Barack Obama himself, lobbied governments on the UN Security Council to abstain so that the embarrassment of a U.S. veto could be avoided.

Nigerian arms were twisted particularly hard, and it would be truly amazing if the $692 million in U.S. aid to Nigeria were not part of the conversation. Indeed, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz gives Power special credit for having “crafted the president’s defense of controversial Israeli policies.” So much for the U.S. as honest broker. If Samantha Power had been representing the U.S. in the 1980s, she no doubt would have argued for “constructive engagement” in South Africa.

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UNFORTUNATELY, BUT not surprisingly, it has been no easier to get Palestine issues addressed in Minnesota than at the UN or in Washington, D.C. Since 2009, the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MNBBC) has been advocating for the divestment of the state’s millions of dollars in Israel bonds, unrestricted money which is used in the Occupied Territories for a whole range of illegal purposes like building Jewish-only settlements, demolishing Palestinian homes, and construction of infrastructure to allow passage to and from Israel proper for Jewish settlers only.

The Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 49) prohibits all such activities. When Minnesota funds activities that violate an international treaty or convention that has been ratified by Congress, under the U.S. Constitution this constitutes a violation of U.S. law. Because the SBI knows that the money Israel gets from selling its bonds is used for purposes that violate international law, it is financially complicit in those violations.

On these grounds, MNBBC brought a lawsuit against the SBI. As a recipient of a state pension, this author was one of the plaintiffs. In spite of the issues of international treaties and Geneva Conventions referred to above, the state court and appeals court saw fit to dismiss the case on the grounds that, among other reasons, the plaintiffs were merely in “a policy disagreement with the discretionary decisions made by the Legislature and the SBI.” In other words, the courts, much like Samantha Power at the UN, saw fit to sweep aside all the issues of this long history and simply embrace the unjust power relations of the status quo.

It’s not that the state hasn’t or can’t do anything. The SBI has divested from companies in Sudan and Iran based on laws passed in the State legislature. In 1985, acting on its own authority, the SBI established its own divestment policies for companies doing business in South Africa. Thus, both the state and the U.S. government can find reasons to do what they want to do and reasons to avoid doing what they don’t want to do.

More than 23 states and many municipalities and organizations own Israel bonds. Those pursuing divestment will surely encounter the same kind of obfuscation and duplicity that we have met here in Minnesota. The solution is a vigorous and visible grassroots campaign connecting the continued colonization and violence in Palestine with the contradiction of owning Israel bonds right in one’s own state or community. Jettisoning Israel bonds is a moral and political imperative. Not doing so would be nothing less than a violation of the public trust.

A previous version of this article appeared at MinnPost.

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Open Letter to MN Congressional Delegation: Don’t Punish Palestinians for Taking Legal and Non-violent Action

Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) sent the following letter to all ten members of the Minnesota Congressional Delegation asking them to refrain from punishing the Palestinians for taking legal and non-violent action in signing more than twenty international treaties.

Late in December 2014 the Palestinian Authority, with the status of Non-member Observer at the United Nations, signed on to more than twenty international treaties including the International Criminal Court (ICC). All member states of the United Nations have the right and obligation to sign on to international treaties. With this move, the Palestinian Authority not only exercises its rights and obligations as a member of the UN, but also shows that it values non-violent and legal means to address grievances committed against Palestinians.

Yet, rather than applaud the move, the US Congress has voted to withhold payments to the Palestinian Authority in punishment of their legal and non-violent move. Many observers of this reaction feel that the US Congress is making legal and non-violent actions impossible for the Palestinians, and in the words of John F. Kennedy, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

The signatories of this letter, both individuals and organizations from Minnesota, request our Congressional delegation to allow the Palestinians a legal and non-violent method to address their grievances.

The letter follows:

Open letter to Minnesota’s Congressional Delegation:

Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar,

Representatives Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, John Kline, Erik Paulsen, Collin Peterson, Richard Nolan and Tom Emmer

The undersigned individuals and organizations, all based in Minnesota, express our resolute concern that Congress has taken imprudent steps to punish Palestinians for seeking legal redress from the international community for the serious war crimes that Israel, with extreme impunity, has committed and continues to commit against them. In contrast to the charges that some in Congress have made against the Palestinians, the Palestinians are showing maturity and diplomacy by signing more than 20 international treaties.

When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, there were only a handful of illegal (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49) settlers in the occupied West Bank. Since then, an ever-widening encroachment of illegal settlers has caused ever-increasing Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land, the destruction of the Palestinian economy and infrastructure, the theft and destruction of Palestinian natural resources and the loss of thousands of Palestinian lives at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and armed illegal settlers.

According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (founded by Hibbing native and current Israeli citizen, Jeff Halper), since 1967, the Israeli Government has destroyed over 49,000 Palestinian homes forcing the families who owned and inhabited these homes into homelessness in a conspicuous and continuing effort to ethnically cleanse Palestine to create a Jewish-only state. According to respected human rights organizations such as Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch , the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and B’tselem , daily Palestinian existence is dominated by a brutal, illegal and dehumanizing occupation under which self-determination is an unrealizable dream. Checkpoints and road closures make routine activities associated with normal daily life, like going to school, obtaining medical treatment at a hospital or commuting to work, impossible. The infamous Apartheid wall prevents Palestinians from visiting friends and family who live only a few minutes away “as the crow flies.” During his presidency, George W. Bush uttered the words, “This is awful,” when he was spirited through one of these checkpoints in his limousine , having gazed out the window at throngs of Palestinians being dehumanized at the hands of 18-year-old IDF soldiers equipped with machine guns paid for by the United States.

Conditions were horrendous in 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed. The promise of the Accords represented an anticipated negotiated final status agreement between the Palestinians, a stateless, de-militarized, powerless people, and the Israelis, the strongest military and the only nuclear power in the Middle East. This could have been a crowning achievement for both sides. All attempts to reach a negotiated final status agreement, however, failed long ago and the principles for settlement enunciated in the Oslo Accords are unlikely to ever be revived. In 2001, with the election of hard-liner Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel, the Oslo Accords, along with any realistic hopes of an equitable negotiated final settlement, died. Sharon had consistently rejected the Oslo peace process and criticized Israel’s positions in attempting to negotiate a final status settlement with the Palestinians. Fourteen years later, any negotiated settlement between the parties is realistically impossible given Israel’s massive illegal colonization of the West Bank. Israel’s far right government won’t budge. Racist elements in the Israeli government and society are gaining more and more political control. The United States, given the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to serve as a neutral mediator and Israel refuses to deal with any other country or international organization willing to assume that role.

When you arm Israel to the teeth with the most sophisticated weaponry in America’s arsenal while simultaneously blocking Palestinian access to non-violent legal remedies, you are committing the worst form of hypocrisy. In addition to severely tarnishing America’s image abroad, you are providing convincing arguments to those who preach that violence is the only practical means to bring about change.

Presenting a case to the International Criminal Court is, above all, a non-violent remedial legal action consistent with the rule of law. By punishing the Palestinians for pursuing a legal remedy in an international forum, Congress is saying that the Palestinians are not entitled to the same universal rights and protections that others enjoy under international humanitarian law, that Palestinian lives don’t matter, that they must accept that they are lesser human beings entitled to nothing more than a wretched existence, always to be powerless, stateless and dependent on whatever scraps of dignity and sustenance Israel may allow and forever without a path to achieve the freedom, equality and self-determination that many in the U.S. take for granted. Our Congress is telling the Palestinians that their humanity is less than the humanity of the Israelis that rule over them, that they must never strive to be equal human beings and that if they do, they will be punished.

The FY15 Consolidated Appropriations Bill was passed by Congress in December. A provision in the bill cuts off all aid to the Palestinians if they initiate an International Criminal Court investigation against Israeli nationals. For the “crime” of simply attempting to seek the enforcement of international law by an internationally recognized law enforcement authority, Congress has imposed a penalty. This is shameful. Israel, a rich and powerful country, having methodically committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians for more than half a century, continues to be the recipient of a never ending stream of rich rewards from an overly fawning Congress, surpassing in extravagant largesse the financial and military assistance given by the United States to any other country.

We call on the members of the Minnesota delegation to Congress to be strong advocates for justice and human rights. There is only one path towards peace in the Middle East and that is the path of justice. Do not punish Palestinians for seeking justice through legal and non-violent means.

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Divest for Justice in Palestine!