ELBIT SYSTEMS IN CAMBRIDGE SITS EMPTY Headquartered in Haifa, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems houses a facility here in the liberal tech enclave of Cambridge, Massachusetts. This office currently sits empty due to months of direct action undertaken by pro-Palestinian protesters and organizations such as BDS Boston, a group of activists devoted to building the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the Boston area. Whether this signals a permanent shuttering of the facility in Cambridge is unconfirmed, however this development displays how community organization and local pressure can disrupt business as usual.
The struggle for a free Palestine is not divorced from other international struggles for liberation. Elbit Systems is also a prime contractor for the US Mexico border, supplying the Department of Homeland Security with high octane tech such as watch towers equipped with cameras and radar systems capable of identifying humans as far as 7.5 miles away. These surveillance systems and “advanced” weapons supplied and exchanged by companies and governments are the bread and butter of the imperialist core. The systems used to surveil, control, and kill Palestinians are the same tactics developed, practiced, trained, and implemented here in our communities to oppress.
Elbit Systems supplies Israel with its fleet of Skylark and Hermes military unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones used to track and kill Palestinians from the sky in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians refer to these drones as “zanana,” Arabic for “a buzzing sound.” The omnipresence of drones are physical manifestations of In the US, the police are often psychological warfare for those who live referred to as an “occupying force” under their watch, both as unceasing in overpoliced and under-resourced surveillance apparatuses and faceless areas of the country. US law harborers of death. These UAV a enforcement agencies have been ircrafts produced by Elbit Systems known to train in Israel, borrowing carry MPR 500 bombs designed for militaristic police tactics as well as use in urban warfare to obliterate examining surveillance tech for human targets with “high kill targeted killings. Pro-Palestinian probability” as well as many other protests, and those alike that oppose The Israeli government maintains weapons systems and technologies. the horrors of US imperialism are its apartheid state and genocidal subject to monitoring, suppression, campaign upon Palestinians through In the West Bank and occupied East disruption and criminalization using an advanced authoritarian surveillance Jerusalem, Palestinians are subject similar surveillance tactics. The industry supported by both private to military checkpoints where Israeli function of the police, the US military and public sectors of the United States. biometric surveillance programs like and Israeli army are one in the same—a Since October 7th, the Gaza Health “Wolf Pack” build vast databases to globalized force for the protection of Ministry has reported over 40,000 control and track the movements private property, capital, and white Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks. and familial networks of Palestinians. supremacist interests. On August 15th, the US government The labeling of an entire indigenous approved 20 billion additional dollars population as counterinsurgents The US is beyond complicit but an in military aid to Israel. Elbit Systems reinforces the occupation, as it active participant in the genocide is responsible for supplying 85% of criminalizes all Palestinians, therefore of Palestinian people through its its fleet of drones and landdehumanizing them and justifying their exchange of capital, diplomacy, based weapons used in the brutalization by the monitoring force of weaponry, and surveillance Gaza genocide. Israel in the name of “security.” technologies that entrench the apartheid state of Israel. Companies
that profit from genocide should not feel free to fly under the radar in our communities, and the work to get Elbit Systems out of Cambridge is far from done. While Elbit›s failure to continue its day-to-day operations in Cambridge is a testament to collective willpower, BDS Boston urges community members to keep escalating protests to force Elbit›s landlord to remove the business from the building entirely, prevent the entity from moving to another location in the Boston area, and sever its ties with MIT and other area actors. There must be continued action until Elbit Systems is gone from Cambridge, from the US, and from everywhere. To follow along and join in the fight to remove Elbit from Cambridge, you can follow @bdsboston on Instagram and visit their linktree (https://linktr.ee/bdsboston) for more information. You can also follow Palestine Action at @pal_actionus on Instagram. —Grace Raih
DESIGNERS:
Phoebe Delmonte: p.1,4,5 Hannah Blauner: p.2,3,7 Adrian Alvarez: p.6,8