U.S. Activists Protest Against Capital One Over Loan to Israeli Arms Manufacturer Elbit Systems

Date: 30 July 2025 - 21:35

News ID: ۱۴۲۰۰۳

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Every weekend for the past three weeks, demonstrators have banged pots and pans outside Capital One’s Cafe in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The protestors are targeting Capital One, one of the ten largest banks in the U.S., which operates five “cafes” in Boston, because it is part of a consortium of six banks that have loaned $545m to Elbit Systems, the Zionist regime’s largest arms contractor.
The cafes are designed to attract young consumers through a mix of cafe spaces, customer perks, and banking services.
The picketers are led by Boycott, Divestment Sanctions Boston (BDS Boston), a local pro-Palestine group that has been campaigning against Elbit Systems for years.
According to S, a member of BDS Boston who asked only to be identified by their first initial, the pickets “have a very strong emphasis on disruption”.
“Our pickets are extremely loud, and we do our best to be in the face of the customers and the workers so that they cannot ignore us, neither visually, nor in terms of sounds, so that the cafe was effectively uninhabitable for any normal person,” he continued.
Elbit Systems has become a frequent target of pro-Palestine activists because it provides about 85 percent of the Zionist regime’s drones and land-based military equipment.
Several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, say Israel’s war on Gaza qualifies as genocide.
Earlier this month, a report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine, said that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems… the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture”.
One customer, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that they would not return to Capital One Cafes after being informed about their loan to Elbit Systems.
S also noted BDS Boston’s past successful campaigns against Elbit Systems.
In August 2024, Elbit abandoned its innovation center in Cambridge after over a year of campaigning by pro-Palestine activists.
In April 2025, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s industrial liaisons program cut ties with Elbit Systems after seven months of campaigning by BDS Boston.
Activists hope that Capital One will follow in the footsteps of British banking giant HSBC, which divested from Elbit Systems in 2018 after a sustained campaign from pro-Palestine activists.
Capital One did not respond to a request for comment.