[News] Success: Barclays Divests from Elbit thanks to Palestine Action campaign

[Anti-Imperialist News]

thecanary.co
<https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2024/10/31/barclays-divest-elbit-palestine-action/>
SUCCESS: Barclays DIVESTS from Elbit thanks to Palestine Action campaign
The Canary
October 31, 2024
------------------------------

After a year-long campaign against its premises by Palestine Action
<https://www.thecanary.co/topics/palestine-action/>, Barclays PLC has sold
all of its shareholdings in Elbit Systems Ltd (ELST). Until recently,
Barclays owned over 16,000 shares in Elbit Systems, Israel’s
<https://www.thecanary.co/topics/israel/> largest weapons company.
Barclays: divestment from Elbit, finally [image:
Credit-to-Milo-Chandler-Bolton-2-2048x1366.jpg]

Starting just over one year ago, Palestine Action’s
<https://palestineaction.org/> campaign saw activists undertake 54 actions
against Barclays
<https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/09/12/palestine-action-barclays-12-september/>
premises nation-wide. Smashing branch windows, spraying them in blood-red
paint, many of these actions put Barclays sites
<https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/06/11/palestine-action-barclays/>
out of operation for weeks, actions which sought to raise the costs
associated with dealing with Elbit:

In the latest U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings,
Barclays owned 0 shares in Elbit Systems Ltd (ELST), down 16,345 since the
previous filing, 15 May 2024, worth over $3,400,000.

Until then, recent filings had showed Barclays’ Elbit shareholdings
<https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2024/03/21/barclays-account-closure/> at
record high quantities, having steadily increased from zero ten years ago.
The most recent SEC filings and NASDAQ data record an immediate total sale
of Barclays’ ELST shares, abruptly sold just when Palestine Action’s
campaign hit them hardest.

Initial research published in July 2022 by Campaign Against Arms Trade, War
on Want, and Palestine Solidarity Campaign showed the bank held
shareholdings worth over £1.5billion in companies complicit with Israeli
apartheid. Palestine Action adopted the campaign in October 2023 due to the
bank’s investments in Elbit Systems — the group’s primary target.
A sustained campaign by Palestine Action

Palestine Action’s 11-month long campaign against Barclays reached its peak
on 10 June 2024, when 20 branches had their windows smashed, drenched in
red paint, in a co-ordinated nationwide overnight action:
[image: image30-1-2048x1366.jpg]

[image: Barclays Palestine Action Elbit]
<https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/image30-1-scaled.jpg>

Four days after, Barclays CEO CS Venkatakrishnan penned in the *Guardian*
that the bank is concerned about “overall suffering” in the region, and is
very accepting of the type of “peaceful protest” seen in multiple years of
campaigning up until this year. But, in a media campaign co-ordinated with
former Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Venkatakrishnan complained of
Palestine Action’s disruptive actions against the bank.

Inadvertently, Barclays CEO affirmed Palestine Action’s strategy, which is
to make the cost of dealing in genocide, occupation, and apartheid exceed
the potential to profit from it. Throughout this year-long campaign,
several activists were arrested:

During questioning, police claimed that many actions caused damage between
£250k to £500k in value. Most actions forced bank branches to close for
weeks at a time, contributing to the financial disruption to the bank.
There are still many complicit institutions

These actions were taken as part of Palestine Action’s four-year campaign
against the premises of Elbit Systems, and against the financial and
industrial partners which support them like Barclays.

Elbit Systems is a major supplier of the Israeli military, its
contributions including the vast majorities of Israel’s drones, along with
mortuary munition and artillery rockets currently being used in Gaza.

The campaign has seen two of Elbit’s weapons factories forced to
permanently shut down in Britain, and has forced a number of partners to
halt relations with Elbit. Recently, activists have struck at over a dozen
premises in Britain of Allianz a major shareholder in and insurer of Elbit.

A Palestine Action spokesperson said of the Barclays decision:

Through a focused strategy, direct action has achieved multiple successes
and forced the hands of many complicit institutions. We will remain
committed and focused to the task at hand and target any and all
institutions and businesses which enable Israel’s biggest weapons firm to
maintain their genocidal operations.

That means, if Barclays does reinvest into Elbit Systems in the future,
Palestine Action will come knocking again.

*Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action*
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