Bank of America ATMs Disabled Across the Country

Inspired by similar actions taken against Chase Bank during the 2024 Student Movement, Bank of Americalocations across the country found ATMs disabled in a distributed action in retribution for BofA's role in underwriting $8 billion in war bonds for the state of Israel. This action was organized to coincide with anticapitalist Buy Nothing Day and in conjunction with a national call to action in solidarity with Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen, who are under constant bombardment from Israel using American bombs and funds secured in part by BofA. As Israel and the US Government escalate, we in turn will build upon prior actions and incur greater damages on the perpetrators of genocide and their accomplices. 

Palestine is STILL ALIVE and worth fighting for. Posting a death toll can't accurately quantify the tremendous loss Palestinians face as the destruction of civil and social infrastructure, media blackouts, and full displacement cause the estimated death toll to range from tens to hundreds of thousands. More importantly the mathematical dispassion of posting statistics creates a desensitization from the fact that these are whole generations of families just like ours, whole towns and cities the size of our own towns and cities wiped off the map. Gaza CAN rebuild and Palestinians will always exist, but pathways like the Right of Return need affirmation and support from beyond Gaza's besieged borders.

The conspicuous consumption on what indigenous folks understand to be a national Day of Mourning and Black Friday are steeped in white supremacy, settler colonialism, and corporate consumerism that distracts from real community and connectedness that inspires resistance. While we fight against colonialism every day and support #LandBack efforts, we choose this day to act in concert with our comrades across the so-called United States because of its role in the gleeful erasure of its bloody participation in genocide in both a historical and present context, here and across the global south. We reiterate the calls from prior Black Friday protests in solidarity with Palestine: #StopShoppingBombsAreDropping. Finally, we honor a common tradition of using this time to assert indigenous sovereignty and take inspiration from indigenous led action in the past.

We affirm the rights of Indigenous people on Turtle Island, that Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine, and that Israel is a colonial project replicating the atrocities committed in the founding of our regime. We will continue to hold those who undermine native self-determination accountable in our thoughts, words, and actions.

While many financial institutions sink money into the economy of genocide through business partnerships and investment in defense contractors like Israeli owned Elbit, there are even more direct ways for banks to fund war through ventures such as war bonds.

A war bond is a debt security that a government issues to raise money for military operations during wartime. These bonds can be crowdfunded by private citizens purchasing individually, or in bulk by governments or corporate conglomerates pledging large sums. They existas a way for a belligerent government to fund its war without raising taxes to a point that would make the war less popular domestically. 

Israel opened up selling public war bonds in March 2024 and according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, secured $8 Billion in bonds underwritten by a consortium of banks includingDeutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs to fund the genocide. The US Government bought $1.7 Billion in bonds to start. The role of the underwriter is to secure the loan, agreeing (for a fee or percentage) to front the money pledged in the bonds, collect the pledged bonds, and eat the cost of any purchasers who fail to pay up. Simply put, while many parties around the world have pledged funds, Bank of America and the other institutions involved need to be exposed and taken to task, as they are now securing a portion of Israel and the US's national debt. 

These private institutions can and should be pressured into viewing these partnerships as bad investments to be defrayed and not repeated or renewed because the critical issue with war bonds is that Israel can get as many pledges internationally as it wants, but without an underwriter or a consortium of underwriters large enough to float the cost, it will not be able to secure these commitments. The list of banks large enough to underwrite here is pretty short and some of them have already started to cave on public pressure with regard to their corporate investment portfolios. Earlier this year, Chase Bank divested 70% of its stock in Israeli owned Elbit under public scrutiny. Since banks calculate how much they'll charge based on risk, costing the banks money and PR problems can factor into future underwriting fees even if we aren't able to stop them entirely through the actions we take right now.

Any type of political action or opportunity for political education around these massive capital campaigns compromises future funding for the destruction of lives in Palestine and increasingly throughout the region. We may engage in protest after the fact this time, but if we continue applying escalating pressure on these institutions, we'll have sabotaged Israel's future efforts to raise and secure funding for genocide.