In a resounding victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the French multinational insurance company AXA has sold its investments in all major Israeli banks and divested from Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The news was confirmed by a new report published by the corporate accountability group Ekō, which is part of the coalition that’s been pressuring AXA to divest for nearly a decade.
“BDS pressure works. The confirmation of AXA’s divestment from all Israeli banks and Elbit Systems is a major milestone for the movement that follows years of strategic BDS campaigning,” said BDS Movement Europe Coordinator Fiona Ben Chekroun in a statement.
“Corporate criminals try to sear into our consciousness the impossibility of prevailing over them, but BDS works and we have prevailed over AXA and many other much larger companies,” she continued. “We surely can prevail in many more corporate accountability struggles in pursuit of freedom, justice and equality.”
According to the Ekō report, AXA held over 2.5 million shares, worth $20.4 million in Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, and Israel Discount Bank until last September. However, the new data reveals the company “engaged in clear, fast, and intentional divestment from these complicit banks” and by June 2024, its shares in the banks had effectively dropped to zero.
In 2020 the UN Human Rights Council listed all three of those banks in the UN database of businesses connected to Israel’s illegal settlements.
Last year pro-Palestine protesters in Ireland occupied AXA offices in Dublin calling on people to boycott the company.
The AXA news comes just days after the Cambridge Day reported that Elbit Systems have effectively stopped operating its office in the Massachusetts city. The building has consistently been targeted by protesters for months.
“We will continue organizing until Elbit Systems leaves Cambridge. Should Elbit leave their current offices at 130 Bishop Allen Drive, we advise other local real estate companies that Elbit is a difficult tenant. Where Elbit goes, disruptive community protests follow, as Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. has learned over the past year,” said BDS Boston in response to the story.