Starving the funding: how to cope with the Israeli war machine
Israel’s remorseless campaign in Gaza continues, with the ever-increasing risk of its spread to the north and the east. One of the reasons for such incessancy is the assurance Israel has in its support, one shored up by the strength of its lobbies in various Western states. What then, can we do?
Legal deliberations have been held. Interim orders have been issued by the International Court of Justice demanding immediate observance of international law, including an opening up of humanitarian aid routes, the prevention of famine and observing the UN Genocide Convention. Applications for arrest warrants have been lodged with the International Criminal Court. But Israel’s remorseless campaign in Gaza continues, with the ever-increasing risk of its spread to the north and the east. While this takes place, the Israeli authorities will not shy away from assassinating commanders and leaders of its opponents, even those of the more diplomatic persuasion.
One of the reasons for such incessancy is the assurance Israel has in its support, one shored up by the strength of its lobbies in various Western states. Ties to the military industrial complex are strong. However publicly frowned upon in certain capitals, Israeli innovation in military technology is something sought after and admired.
What, then, to do? Since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, and the ferocious, all slaughtering response from the IDF, the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has received greater interest. There have been protests and actions, some of them successful, in frustrating collaboration with Israeli weapons manufacturers.
In October 2023, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology revealed that it no longer had any partnerships with Elbit Systems, Israel’s premier manufacturer of lethal drones. The university, however, did not clarify the standing of two partnerships entered into in 2021 with Elbit’s Australian subsidiary. In a statement from the Palestinian BDS National Committee in November, “the demand for a comprehensive military embargo on Israel” was reiterated “to hold it accountable for its genocide, apartheid and other crimes against humanity”.
On August 7 this year, over 500 students attended the fifth Student General Meeting of the University of Sydney, unequivocally endorsing resolutions that the university disclose and divest from its partnerships with weapons manufacturers and higher institutions in Israel, and endorse Palestinian statehood and the right to resist.
Some progressive Australian Jewish organisations have also taken the view that specific financial and economic targeting of Israeli entities is warranted. The Australian Jewish Democratic Society, Inc (AJDS), established in 1984, has argued that boycotts of goods and services coming from the Occupied Territories is justifiable. In August 2010, the body became the first Australian community-affiliated Jewish organisation to adopt that position. In a submission to the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs, the AJDS did, however, stop short of embracing the BDS movement, “which calls for a general or global boycott of Israeli goods and services, and it is a distinction we wish to strongly emphasise.”
For the organisation, a more focused approach is needed against funding that is directly linked to human rights violations in the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem. The submission pre-dates the Israel-Hamas War by some years and can be said to adopt a forensically unfeasible position, given the aims of the Netanyahu government and ongoing policies that serve to deny Palestinian autonomy in either Gaza or the West Bank.
Despite the protests, the enthusiastic activism, and broader public discussion about the Palestinian plight, the deeper financial and military base regarding Australian support for the Israeli war machine remains untouched. Publicly, the Albanese government reiterates its meek stance that the warring parties in Gaza abide by international law while still maintaining ties with the Israeli Defence Forces. Australia’s Future Fund, for instance, continues to regard Elbit Systems as a suitable investor, placing the board at odds with Australia’s various obligations under convention and treaty law.
The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, persists in quibbling about Australia not exporting or transferring military equipment to Israel while defence contracts with Israeli defence companies continue being made. In February, for instance, Hanwha Defence Australia (HDA) was awarded a $US600 million contract with Elbit Systems to supply protection and fighting capabilities and sensors to Australia’s Redback infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). HDA, in turn, had signed a $US2.4 billion with the Australian Department of Defence in December 2023 to deliver 129 Redback IFVs as part of the service’s Land 400 Phase 3 program.
In June, another avenue for targeting sources of Israeli funding presented itself. Following a years-long auditing process, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) concluded that the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada should be revoked. The grounds for doing so: the organisation’s use of donations to support infrastructure projects for the Israeli military which violated Canada’s Tax Code concerning support for foreign militaries. The action is not without precedent, given the CRA’s 2019 decision to revoke the charity status of the Beth Oloth Charitable Organisation, a body that spent, over five years, CAN$193 million outside Canada, most of it intended for the Israeli military.
Ultimately, the success of the campaign to halt the war in Gaza and Israel’s ongoing, ruthless exploitation of Palestinian territory will not take place purely on a financial, money-based approach. In 1995, Siew Hong Teoh, Ivo Welch and C. Paul Wazzan published a paper on the divestment movement that was organised to target the South African apartheid regime. They found that the campaign “had little discernible effect either in the valuation of banks and corporations with South African operations or on the South African financial markets.” Financial markets, in the main, regarded such public pressure as a “sideshow”.
Ann C. Logue, writing in The Washington Post, has also made the relevant point that divestment – and here, we can also include other measures such as targeting the charitable status of Jewish groups providing assistance to the IDF – “is most effective in combination with more difficult work such as that carried out by a multiethnic coalition of citizens of South Africa.” And even then, divestment, to be effective, must alter the nature of investment portfolios.
The stark picture, in that regard, remains. Actual change can take place with sealing off the military and financial support Israel’s warring economy receives from its backers, something achievable with a complete halt of military aid and weapons transfers simultaneously undertaken with diplomatic pressure. It is exactly this convergence of factors so tenaciously battled by the pro-Israeli lobbies from The Hill to Canberra.