SCOTIA
BANK
FUNDS
GENOCIDE
Scotiabank invests $327,000,000 in
Elbit Systems
Elbit Systems is Israel's largest weapons manufacturer. Scotiabank owns 2.5% of Elbit Systems' outstanding shares, making them among Elbit's top 5 shareholders.
Elbit Systems produces 85% of Israel's drones
Elbit manufactures 85% of Israel's drones and up to 85% of their land-based military equipment.
Scotiabank's direct investment in Israel’s war industry cannot be reconciled with Canada’s arms embargo on Israel.
Elbit Systems is deeply implicated in Israel’s war crimes. As a major investor in Elbit, Scotiabank directly benefits from the Palestinian suffering in Gaza which the International Court of Justice has ruled is a ‘plausible genocide’.
DEMAND THAT SCOTIABANK
FULLY DIVEST
FROM GENOCIDE
Join Canadians from all across the country on Tuesday, June 25th to demand that Scotiabank fully divest from genocide.
NATIONAL
DAY OF
ACTION
TUESDAY
JUNE
25TH
ADOPT A
SCOTIA BRANCH NEAR YOU!
$0
IN ELBIT
ACT NOW
BASELINE AGREEMENTS
◉ Zero Tolerance for Hate ◉ Be Non-Violent ◉ Aim to be Non-Arrestable
1) Join us on Tuesday, June 25th to demand that Scotiabank fully divests from Elbit Systems. Contact your local Palestinian solidarity groups to see what is being planned or form a group of your own!
2) ‘Adopt’ a Scotiabank location in your neighbourhood with some friends and allies and hand out flyers and brochures outside while picketing peacefully (see below)
3) Close your Scotiabank bank account and tell your branch manager the reason why. If you're not in the position of doing so, speak to your manager to voice your concern in Scotiabank's investment in Elbit Systems.
4) Sign this petition
5) Poster and sticker your neighborhood (see below)
Our action toolkit is now ready, please email us if you would like to receive it!
REGISTER YOUR ACTION!
Help us track our reach & impact by registering your local action!
UPDATES
Grassroots Communities Pushed a Canadian Banking Giant to Divest Millions
On August 14th, 2024 Scotiabank’s 1832 asset management company announced it was cutting its stocks in the largest Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems by half.
Thousands of Canadians from coast to coast have claimed this move as part of what they are calling “a victory for the Palestine solidarity movement”.
Scotiabank has explicitly tried to refute this claim by saying “Individual securities are held based on their investment merit and are not influenced by protest activity.” The bank alluded to ‘risk adjusted returns’ as their motivation for divesting nearly 75% of their holdings in Elbit Systems over the past fiscal quarters.
However Elbit’s releases from this same fiscal quarter showed a 12% increase in revenues year-over-year and the same rate of stability on the S&P stock index and a “stable outlook” on its stock portfolio.
For many of the grassroots activists, this is proof that their efforts to pressure Scotiabank to divest have been working. On June 25th there was a national day of action to push Scotiabank to divest from Elbit systems, which saw over 35 different branches of Scotiabank picketed and several main branches shut down across the country.
Tamer Aburamadan, a local Palestinian activist in Vancouver said:
“It’s clear that Scotiabank has recognized the damage being done to its reputation by being associated with Elbit Systems during Israel’s relentless genocide. We have seen a mass movement of ordinary people rising up to force Scotiabank to divest, for the sake of humanity.”
Elbit Systems supplies 85% of both Israel’s drones and land-based military equipment and according to community organizers like Aburamadan, this makes the bank complicit in what the International Court of Justice has deemed a “plausible genocide”.
Numerous groups have been involved in the campaign to shed light on Scotiabank’s investments in Elbit Systems. Amongst them is the new group No Arms in the Arts and initiative called Canlit Responds which has seen numerous authors withdraw their participation in the Scotiabank Giller prize until the bank, who sponsors the event divests from its holdings in the Israeli arms industry.
These grassroots initiatives have all been formed in response to the violence taking place in Gaza as a result of Israel’s ongoing offensive which is now in its 11th month with no end in site. Accounts vary but the well-reputed British medical journal The Lancet placed the death-toll in Gaza at around 186,000 back in June.
LEARN MORE
In March 2023, Scotiabank had invested $585 million (USD) in Elbit Systems. Due to pressure from activists (here, here, and here), they've more than halved their investment to $238 million (USD), representing 2.5% of Elbit Systems' outstanding shares. While this is a huge win for our movement, Scotiabank remains in the top 5 international shareholders of Elbit Systems.
We continue to demand that Scotiabank completely divest from Elbit Systems. There is no acceptable level of investment in genocide.
Elbit Systems is Israel's largest weapons manufacturer. They produce 85% of Israel's drones and up to 85% of their land-based military equipment.
To date, Elbit Systems' weaponry has been used in the genocide in Gaza, where more than 37,000 Palestinians have been murdered or are missing, over 81,000 are injured, and 70% of Gaza's housing infrastructure has been partially or fully destroyed. Currently, there are 2 million Gazans displaced, and according to the UN, nearly half the population of Gaza faces "catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine,” while the healthcare system is in ruins.
In 2014, an Elbit missile was used to massacre four children playing soccer on a beach in Gaza. Israel maintains that the strike occurred because they believed that Hamas used a jetty, supposedly nearby, as a storage for weapons. Many journalists who were close-by said that they did not see any militants in the area.
During the genocide in Gaza, a strike using Elbit's Hermes 450 drone killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen. Before leaving their warehouse in a convoy of clearly marked trucks, the workers communicated their location. Each truck was struck one at a time while the survivors escaped from one to the other.
Israel claimed that the unit that ordered the strike saw an armed man escorting the aid workers before leaving. In spite of the advanced notice provided to the IDF, and the very clearly marked vehicles, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the massacre was unintentional and tragic.
Elbit's surveillance system is also used in maintaining the apartheid barrier wall in the West Bank. The International Court of Justice has ruled that any actors participating in the construction and maintenance of the wall are in violation of international law through the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Elbit has produced the internationally banned incendiary weapon White Phosphorus, which is designed to set fire to a wide area surrounding its impact and to burn through both skin and bone.
Given that the Canadian government instituted an arms embargo on Israel and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel's actions in Gaza plausibly constituted a genocide, why does Scotiabank so stubbornly refuse to fully divest from such an obviously morally bankrupt and abhorrent company?
According to The Intercept, Scotiabank's outsized investment in Elbit has more to do with ideology. Scotia’s investment comes through Dynamic Funds, run by David Fingold, who has consistently stressed the profitability of the Israeli defense contractor. According to the Intercept, Fingold has shared an article on Twitter where the author wrote that the anti-semite of the year was Ben and Jerry’s board of directors chief Anuradha Mittal. They also reported that Fingold shared posts characterizing Palestinians as supporters of terrorism and Nazism.
The massive civilian casualties in Gaza are entirely preventable and companies like Elbit have been making massive profits off this unprecedented loss of life as ‘land revenues’ for the company rose by 26% between the first quarter of January 2023 and 2024, due to the increase in ammunition and munition sales in Israel.
Other groups and funds have already completely divested from Elbit Systems like the Government Pension Fund of Norway and AXA IM. Danske Bank, a Danish multinational bank, referring to Elbit Systems, said that they refuse to place their funds in companies that "violate international standards."
Now it's time for Scotiabank to completely cut ties with Elbit Systems.
Scotiabank, if we don't see a full divestment from Elbit Systems in Q2 2024, we will be back. We will remind the Canadian public and your customers that your bank supports war criminals and genocide.
Want a step-by-step guide to planning a successful branch action? We’ve created an Action Toolkit for you along with this template to use!
RESOURCES
POSTERS AND STICKERS
FLYER AND PAMPHLET
This pamphlet can be used to reveal the truth to Scotiabank customers. As they read from panels 1 to 6, the pamphlet becomes progressively creepier, sinister, and revealing.
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