How the Cambridge Community Evicted Elbit: An Interview with BDS Boston

After more than a year of untiring protests, Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Boston built the momentum necessary to force Elbit Systems to vacate their Cambridge office. Elbit is Israel’s largest weapons company, arming and profiting from the military’s ruthless genocidal campaign against Palestinians and, now, throughout the Middle East. Inspired by the steadfastness of their campaign, we corresponded with the organizers from BDS Boston to discuss their motivations, strategies, and reflections.

Why did BDS Boston decide that Elbit was an important target, especially given that there are presumably so many other corporations complicit with Israeli apartheid and genocide that also have headquarters in the greater Boston area?

Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons dealer. Elbit manufactures 85% of the Israeli military’s drones — drones Elbit describes as the “backbone of the Israeli Defense Forces” (sic). Elbit also supplies the Israeli military with tanks, munitions, surveillance towers, and an array of other weapons and surveillance products, all of which Israel has deployed over the past year to carry out its ongoing genocide against the people of Palestine. Israel has killed over 42,000 Palestinians in the past year, including through frequent Elbit-drone-assisted assassinations.

Elbit Systems capitalizes upon Israel’s extensive use of its weapons and surveillance products against Palestinians to market these deadly products as “battle-proven” to the world’s most violent and oppressive governments and governmental agencies. In 2014, for example, after a decade of using and refining its surveillance towers and drones against Palestinians, Elbit began selling these same towers and drones to U.S. Customs & Border Protection — the parent agency of U.S. Border Patrol. U.S. Customs & Border Protection currently uses at least 55 Elbit surveillance towers — each 80 to 160-feet tall and capable of spotting people 7.5 miles away — along with a fleet of Elbit Hermes 450 drones to surveil, track, and detain immigrants along 200 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. By militarizing safer parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, Elbit and U.S. Customs & Border Protection are forcing immigrants to cross the border in more dangerous areas, which has caused thousands of deaths by thirst and exposure in recent years alone — what Customs & Border Protection grotesquely calls “Prevention Through Deterrence.”

For Elbit Systems, however, mass death in Gaza and on the U.S.-Mexico border alike is not a problem. It is further evidence the company can cite to market its products worldwide. In 2021, Elbit struck a deal to sell its drones to FRONTEX, the European Border & Coast Guard Agency that hunts down boats carrying refugees across the Mediterranean. Through this deal with FRONTEX, Elbit Systems is supporting Europe to carry out its murderous regime of “pushbacks,” in which boats of refugees are prevented from safely docking in Europe. These “pushbacks” have caused the preventable deaths by drowning of tens of thousands of refugees.

There are indeed many other companies supplying weapons to Israel that operate in the Boston area — Boeing, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and Draper Labs all operate in Cambridge alone. So why did BDS Boston choose to target Elbit Systems rather than one of these other weapons dealers? There are a few reasons.

First, whereas U.S.-based weapons dealers such as Raytheon and Boeing arm the Israeli military, Elbit Systems both arms the Israeli military and is an Israeli company, whose operations provide an economic lifeline to the Israeli economy. Moreover, Elbit is the largest company within the Israeli arms sector, which constitutes a central pillar of the Israeli economy. As a result, blows we strike against Elbit Systems not only inhibit the flow of deadly weapons to a military that is committing a genocide but also weaken the economy of the nation (Israel) that is orchestrating this genocide. It is doubly impactful.

Second, as noted above, Elbit arms many of the world’s most violent and oppressive governments — from providing the drones and surveillance towers U.S. Customs & Border Protection uses to hunt down immigrants; to supplying the right-wing government of the Philippines with tanks, drones, and other weapons it uses against Filipino dissidents; to helping India’s right-wing government carry out its brutal military occupation of Kashmir; to supporting Azerbaijan to oppress and displace Armenians; to arming Honduras in the midst of its 2017 assassinations of at least 22 anti-corruption protestors; to arming Myanmar (Burma) throughout its campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. The list goes on. While U.S.-based weapons dealers arm some of these same governments, Elbit’s footprint often outsizes them, due to the present and historic shamelessness of Israel and Israeli companies in arming right-wing governments that the United States and U.S. weapons dealers cannot openly or extensively support. In the 1980s, for example, Israel continued arming Apartheid South Africa and Central American military dictators after the flow of U.S. weapons to these regimes had waned due to internal and geopolitical pressures. The same may be occuring now with Azerbaijan, which receives far more weapons from Israel, and from Elbit in particular, than it does from the United States. As a result, a campaign against Elbit lent itself particularly well to one of BDS Boston’s goals: building and deepening our relationships with other anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles. Our fight against Elbit Systems in Cambridge facilitated new and deeper connections with Boston area Immigrant, Filipino, South Asian Diaspora, and Armenian community members, to name a few.

Third, we chose to target Elbit Systems because Elbit’s decision to put its Cambridge facility in the heart of Central Square, on a heavily-trafficked street within earshot of Cambridge City Hall, left Elbit more vulnerable to effective disruption than other potential targets. When our demonstrations were noisy, they disrupted the operations of nearby businesses, including Elbit’s co-tenants (Elbit shared its building with three other firms). Elbit’s co-tenants quickly began complaining to their (and Elbit’s) landlord about Elbit’s presence in the building, not because they agreed with our message, but out of self-interest — their building was becoming a difficult environment in which to conduct business. Similarly, when we blocked traffic in front of Elbit’s building, we disrupted commerce in the center of the city of Cambridge.

Can you describe the trajectory of the campaign to get Elbit out of Cambridge? When did it start, how did the tactics change over time, and what is the state of the campaign now?

Our struggle to remove Elbit Systems from 130 Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge began in spring 2023. We started out with a lot of canvassing. We approached canvassing with openness and curiosity, asking local community members how they felt about Elbit’s presence in the city and if/how they felt our fight to remove Elbit fit into their needs and priorities. One of our favorite questions to ask community members was: “When we remove Elbit from the 2nd floor of 130 Bishop Allen Drive, what do you think that space should be used for instead?” Pretty much everyone had something to say in response to this question. Younger folks in particular lit up when we asked it.

In summer 2023, a Filipino diaspora group called Malaya Movement Massachusetts brought a resolution to the Cambridge City Council which included criticism of Elbit Systems for providing tanks, drones, and other weapons to the Philippine government while operating in Cambridge. A historically pro-Israel member of the Cambridge City Council removed all references to Elbit Systems from the resolution before it went to a final vote. Nevertheless, Malaya Movement’s introduction of this resolution to the council and the conversations it inspired drew more attention to Elbit’s presence in Cambridge, which added momentum to our campaign.

Then, following Hamas’s military operation on October 7th, 2023, and the escalated Israeli military campaign in Gaza that followed, Elbit’s Cambridge facility became the site of frequent escalated direct actions by anonymous community members. For over a month, outside surfaces of the building remained covered in red paint that the landlord apparently found difficult to fully remove. These direct actions quickly led to increased police presence around the building. On one occasion in late November 2023, Cambridge Police positioned a sniper on the roof of a building across the street from 130 Bishop Allen Drive. If the goal of this increased policing was to secure Elbit’s position in the community, it backfired. Community members were outraged by CPD’s deployment of a sniper on a building above a street heavily foot-trafficked by residents, all to protect a weapons company. Elbit’s co-tenants in the building felt as though they had become a buffer between Elbit, the police, and an increasingly angry and vocal public — certainly not what they signed up for when they decided to rent space in the building.

In the winter and spring of 2024, BDS Boston turned up the pressure, initiating what became weekly demonstrations outside Elbit’s Cambridge facility, complemented by weekend actions targeting the collaborators responsible for sustaining Elbit’s local and global operations. The disruptive character of weekday protests often forced Elbit and their co-tenants to work from home. Weekend protests routinely forced branches of Elbit investor Chase Bank to close down for the day. One weekend protest brought 100 community members to the North Cambridge home of Peter Palandjian, CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, Elbit’s landlord in Cambridge.

In the summer of 2024, inspired by the militancy of recent student encampments, BDS Boston turned the pressure up another notch through a “Week of Action.” Our Week of Action featured daily disruptions of Elbit and its local collaborators, including one 18 hour long picket and vigil in front of Elbit’s Cambridge facility. By this point, Elbit’s continued tenancy at 130 Bishop Allen Drive had simply become untenable. Elbit’s landlord was telling the leadership of Elbit’s three co-tenants that he wanted to remove Elbit from the building “ASAP,” but that the process was moving more slowly than he would like (Elbit’s co-tenants came out of the building and sent us emails telling us as much). Then, after a local newspaper, the Cambridge Day, did background on rumors that Elbit employees no longer came into the building at all, Elbit and their landlord stated that Elbit’s lease at 130 Bishop Allen Drive had been terminated.

In spite of the significance of Elbit Systems’ departure from 130 Bishop Allen Drive, BDS Boston’s fight against Elbit is not over. We are committed to preventing Elbit from moving to another nearby location. We are also committed to severing Elbit’s ties with MIT and the Boston area healthcare sector. Wherever Elbit is, wherever Elbit goes, we will meet them there and we will shut them down.

What were the most significant roadblocks BDS Boston encountered, and how did your organization adapt to them to continue building the movement?

One significant roadblock we encountered was that we felt it necessary to disrupt Elbit’s operations during business hours, but many of our members and supporters could not attend actions during business hours due to work and school. As a result, our numbers during weekday protests tended to be quite a bit smaller than your typical Boston-area Palestine protest. However, we quickly found that even a small group of folks, if well-organized, loud, creative, and consistent, can cause a remarkable amount of damage to a target in an urban area! Twenty people yelling at the top of their lungs and approaching everyone coming into and out of a building, week after week after week, can really wear down your opponent. Imagine being an Elbit employee or an employee of one of Elbit’s co-tenants. What must it have done to employees’ morale to have to walk through police, barricades, and rowdy community members week after week? What must it have been like to bring job candidates into the building for interviews under such conditions?

Elbit seems to deny that its move is related to your continued protests against it, saying that it “regularly makes real estate decisions that best serve our company and our employees.” What is the campaign doing to make it known that Elbit’s departure from Cambridge is a tangible win towards total divestment?

If we may both answer your question and also push back a bit on the question’s framing: Firstly, this statement from Elbit Systems is par for the course. Elbit made a similar claim after they were forced to sell off a facility in Oldham in the UK, following the successful campaign there by the direct action group Palestine Action. Put yourself in Elbit’s shoes for a moment: If you have been forced to abandon one of your facilities, it is in your interest to try to reassure investors that doing so was your decision, not something you were compelled to do by local community. Were Elbit to acknowledge they abandoned 130 Bishop Allen Drive because community pressure made their continued tenancy in the building untenable, investors might lose confidence and stock prices might fall. If you are in Elbit’s position, it is simply not in your interest to acknowledge the role community pressure played in such a decision.

To push back a bit on the framing of the question: We hesitate to declare Elbit’s departure from 130 Bishop Allen Drive a “win.” We consider Elbit’s departure a testament to our collective power, evidence that everyday people can bring a multi-billion dollar company to its knees. But what is a “win” when our Palestinian comrades continue to endure mass death, sickness, surgeries without anesthesia, starvation, loved ones trapped under rubble, and so many other unspeakable individual and collective traumas? We will claim victory when and only when what we have done in Cambridge has been successfully replicated everywhere. When Elbit Systems has been completely dismantled. When Palestinians are finally free.

There is a cynical perspective that says that Elbit Systems remains as profitable as before and has the resources to just pick up now and move wherever they want, to become a drain on some other community. How do you respond to this argument?

In 2021, when Elbit Systems opened their facility in Cambridge, the company stated: “The Cambridge Innovation Center will base up to 60 software, mechanical, and electrical engineers with stand-up lab space and a virtual reality collaboration area. The center’s location is in close proximity to both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, and is within the region’s vibrant Life Sciences Corridor.” Elbit Systems chose to open this facility at 130 Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge for a reason. They said so themselves. They wanted to hire 60 engineers to work in close proximity to Harvard, MIT, and Cambridge’s expansive tech and biotech sectors. We have prevented them from achieving this objective.

It is certainly possible that Elbit will attempt to reopen a comparable facility in another location. However, any such facility will not be in the strategic geographic location Elbit desired for its “Cambridge Innovation Center.” If Elbit attempts to reopen a comparable facility in the Massachusetts suburbs, for example, not only will Elbit be sacrificing the proximity to Harvard, MIT, and local tech/biotech they desired, they will also have a tougher time recruiting and retaining engineers for whom living and working in the Boston area is of higher appeal than living and working far from the city. And of course, it is our hope that our stubborn and creative campaign has demonstrated to Elbit that attempting to re-open a comparable facility in another location is a dangerous investment — because what we did in Cambridge could be replicated elsewhere.

To exert further pressure upon Elbit Systems until its model of profiting off Palestinian death collapses, BDS Boston will continue to identify and disrupt Elbit’s every attempt to maintain a presence in our city. Through our example and by sharing strategic insights from our campaign against Elbit to date (thank you to the Crimeson for giving us this platform to do so!), we hope to support people in other places to carry out successful campaigns to drive Elbit Systems out of their communities as well.

What has BDS Boston learned from this campaign about organizing the Cambridge community in solidarity with Palestine? What advice can you offer student organizers here at Harvard as we continue to pressure our university to divest from Israel?

Through this campaign, we have learned that there are many Cambridge community members who are passionate about the Palestinian and other anti-racist struggles and who are ready to take action when given the chance. We have also learned that decades of displacement has driven countless Black and Brown community members out of Cambridge, community members replaced by largely white, more wealthy, and white-collar gentrifiers who tend to either oppose the Palestinian and other anti-racist struggles or who simply don’t care about these struggles very much one way or the other.

That said, one critical lesson BDS Boston learned from our campaign is that in addition to activating those who support our goals, we can also activate people who oppose or don’t care about our goals, when we apply the right tactics. While we did not win over Elbit’s co-tenants to support the Palestinian or other anti-racist struggles, we made it in their interest to get Elbit out of their building, in order to protect their ability to conduct business. While we did not win over Intercontinental CEO Peter Palandjian to support the Palestinian or other anti-racist causes, by showing up at Palandjian’s private home in North Cambridge we made it in his interest to evict Elbit from his building in order to prevent further incursions upon his family’s privacy. (Fun fact: Peter Palandjian’s spouse is the actress Eliza Dushku! As a public figure, Dushku was likely particularly sensitive to the prospect of further protests at her private residence.)

So to student organizers at Harvard University and beyond: We encourage you to build and deepen connections with people who support or can be won to support your goals. And as for those who oppose or don’t care about your goals, you can find ways to activate them too. You can make it in their interest to do what you want, even if they detest everything you stand for. Indeed, it might be argued that you all at Harvard have done this already. Because your relentless and principled advocacy has won a significant portion of the campus community to your side, some right-wing Zionists have self-selected to sever their harmful ties with Harvard University!