The world has watched in horror in as Israel increasingly inflicts death and destruction in Palestine, Lebanon and across the Middle East. These atrocities would not be militarily nor politically feasible without massive U.S. support. Much of the media focus has rightly been on national policies, most notably American arms transfers to Israel. However, state-level policies also play an important role. New York State’s Common Retirement Fund holds over $367 million in Israel Bonds as of March 31, 2025. These bonds function as loans to the Israeli government, providing financial support for Israel’s ongoing brutality against the Palestinian people. Retirement savings from participating public employees are paying for these bonds, and therefore, helping fund these atrocities.
Despite this complicity, New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has staunchly supported Israel Bonds. After the October 7 attacks, he stated Israel Bonds provided a “steady return” for pension members. A number of other countries including Singapore, Denmark and Sweden, have a significantly higher credit rating than Israel. DiNapoli further stated “Israel bonds help support one of our nation’s strongest allies. I am heartened that so many other public funds have stepped forward to purchase bonds and support Israel, the only democratic government in the region, during these tragic and challenging days.” After October 7, 2023, Israel significantly escalated its campaign against the Palestinian people.
DiNapoli opposes the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which demands Israel end its occupation, ensure equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and respect the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties. DiNapoli has made multiple trips to Israel. After a 2015 visit, he condemned the BDS movement, claiming that “it doesn’t make sense from a moral perspective. It ignores the history and importance of the Jewish state.” During Israel’s genocide in Gaza, DiNapoli, appears to be maintaining his stance, as evidenced by his solidarity trip to Israel in February of 2024.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its violence against the Palestinians – killing more than 70,000 people in Gaza since October of 2023, including at least 20,000 children. In Gaza alone, Israel killed over 200 journalists and media workers. At the end of 2024, UNICEF reported that 534, or 94.7% of schools in Gaza, sustained damage. A litany of international organizations have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide. They include Amnesty International, International Association of Genocide Scholars, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, B’Tselem – The Israeli information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, among others.
Boycotts and divestment have played an important role for movements advocating for human rights, including labor rights, civil rights, environmental justice and an end to South African Apartheid. The struggle for justice in Palestine is very much a part of this history. In 2025, Denmark’s Akademiker, an almost $25 billion teacher and academic pension fund, divested from Israeli state assets over Israel’s human rights violations. In August of 2025, Norway’s $2 trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund announced it had divested from five Israeli banking institutions over their involvement in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Fund also divested from Caterpillar, a company which has constructed bulldozers that Israel uses to destroy Palestinian property. In the United States, divestment campaigns have notched important victories in North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota. As a result, these three states collectively divested $27 million in Israel Bonds and sovereign debt bonds, the latter of which are issued directly by the Israeli government. In May of 2026, the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System cut its investments in Israel Bonds by over $62 million .
Calls for New York State to divest from Israel Bonds continue to grow as U.S. public opinion shifts in support of Palestinian human rights. In October 2025, approximately 150 New Yorkers with Break the Bonds NYS delivered over 3,400 petition signatures to DiNapoli demanding that he end investment in Israel Bonds from the state’s pension fund. That same month, Hudson NY’s Common Council unanimously voted to urge DiNapoli to stop purchasing Israel Bonds.
As American Jews, we feel a deep commitment to collective liberation and the Palestinian cause. Zionism has manipulated Jewish trauma and suffering to justify the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people from their indigenous homeland. This ideology presents Jews a choice of acting either as ruler or ruled. We reject this false binary through solidarity with the Palestinian people and other oppressed peoples. Israel’s atrocities fan the flames of antisemitism while justifying the genocide of the Palestinian people, not to mention the horrific attacks in Lebanon and Iran. The history of the Jewish people as victims of genocide means that we must say “Never again for anyone.” We urge Comptroller DiNapoli to stand on the right side of history by ending investment in Israel Bonds.
