Divestment of Israeli Government Bonds

AFSCME Local 3399 partnered with Jewish Voice for Peace, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and other labor unions from across the state in the Maryland Break the Bonds campaign that successfully pushed the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System to divest more than $62 million of Israeli government bonds from the state pension system. The divestment represents 85% of the pension system holdings and is the largest known state-level divestment of Israeli government bonds to date.

The campaign included more than a year of organizing, lobbying, and introduction of a bill at the Maryland legislature to call for divestment of Israeli bonds which directly support and fund Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Thousands of public employees like our union members must contribute wages from our paychecks to fund the state pension system,” said AFSCME Local 3399 President Brendan Smith. “We stand in solidarity with Palestinian trade unions, and we don’t want to be implicated in the horrific genocide, system of apartheid, and ongoing war crimes that are being committed by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.”

The Israeli military has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, during a ruthless campaign that was acknowledged to be genocide by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations. Israel also is continuing its apartheid policies, including systematic torture of Palestinian detainees, denial of voting rights, and widescale theft of land and support for Jewish settler violence in the West Bank. Israel also has devastated southern Lebanon by razing villages and killing more than 2,600 people in an ongoing pursuit of war and ethnic cleansing.

There is still more work that needs to be done because the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System still holds about $11 million in Israeli government bonds, but this major divestment shows that public support for human rights for the Palestinian people can have real results.