On June 4, Ohio State Attorney General David Yost directed a threat at one of the state’s largest counties: “Ohio stands with Israel, Cuyahoga County should do the same.” Yost’s threat, issued in a letter to the county executive, came after the introduction of a county resolution to urge the county’s investment advisory committee to end investments in all foreign nations, including the State of Israel. This resolution was introduced after extensive organizing and pressure by Palestinian activists in Cleveland, the county’s most populous city.
The Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community channeled momentum from a long struggle to pass a ceasefire resolution in City Hall into a campaign to demand the county government cease funding a genocidal apartheid state, and that any proceeds from non-investment be used to support initiatives that support the citizens of the county. Importantly, Cleveland is one of the most impoverished major metropolitan areas in the country, with a poverty rate 2.5 times the national average. CPAC’s success in pressuring county councilmembers to propose the resolution, and the proposal’s resonance in the community, led Yost to intimidate the county into shelving the resolution.
In Ohio, more than $330 million dollars are currently invested in Israel, $80 million of which comes from county governments. The State of Ohio and the Development Corporation for Israel have had a close relationship for decades, but in recent years the State of Ohio, led by Yost and State Treasurer Robert Sprague, has intensified its financial support and codified their relationship in law. According to state treasury reports, Sprague has invested $95 million in Israel Bonds since Oct. 7, 2023. This drastic increase in funding aligns with the pro-Israel agenda of the Republican-dominated Statehouse. All of this investment is part of the deep connections between Ohio’s public and private bourgeois institutions and the Zionist project, a relationship that has been carefully cultivated by Ohio’s pro-Zionist billionaires and business interests.
In coordination with Sprague’s increasing investments, Yost encouraged universities across Ohio to weaponize an old anti-KKK law against student protesters during the solidarity encampments. He also joined forces with dozens of other attorney generals to intimidate Rhode Island’s Brown University out of voting for divestment. Despite Yost’s repeated attempts to intervene in local politics, several Ohio counties — such as Lucas and Summit — have responded to community demands to divest.
Ohio’s sweeping anti-BDS legislation
A high point in the effort to silence Palestinian voices in Ohio politics was the passage of the anti-BDS law, Ohio House Bill 476, which went into effect in March 2017, and prohibits state agencies from entering into contracts with entities that engage in boycotts of Israel. The law defines a boycott as, “engaging in refusals to deal, terminating business activities, or other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with persons or entities in a discriminatory manner.” It goes on to specifically exclude, “decisions based on business or economic reasons,” as well as boycotts which are applied “in a non-discriminatory manner.”
The bill was primarily sponsored by then Ohio Representative Kirk Schuring, and was co-sponsored by 13 other officials. At least nine of the 14 sponsors enjoyed all-expenses paid trips to Israel through the Negev Foundation prior to the introduction of the bill. The Negev Foundation is a Cleveland-based non-profit which, according to its website, believes in the, “visionary foresight of David Ben Gurion.” The founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, Ben Gurion was openly genocidal, saying, “We must do everything to insure [the Palestinians] never do return,” and, “We aim to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria.”
Yost has weaponized this anti-BDS law in an attempt to deter Ohio counties from formally ceasing investments in the State of Israel. In his letter to Cuyahoga County, Yost asserts that, “the State of Ohio has expressly prohibited government actors from boycotting, directly or indirectly, any jurisdiction with whom the state can enjoy open trade. This includes the Nation of Israel.”
However, the resolution was deliberately written broadly so as not to risk violating HB 476. The resolution introduced by Cuyahoga County Council members would have prevented investment in any foreign entity on the grounds of financial prudence. This does not meet the standards of the definition above for a “boycott,” and additionally includes the reasoning of purely financial considerations — after all, Israel’s bond rating by credit agencies is rapidly deteriorating into “junk” status.
Nonetheless, the Democrats on Cuyahoga County Council capitulated to Yost without question. This deeply flawed interpretation of the law has also led officials in other Ohio counties to claim they cannot divest.
Bourgeois parties unite to support Israel
These quick surrenders of Democrat counties to the Republican statehouse demonstrate the unity of the bourgeois political class, and the complicity of their two wings in the Palestinian genocide. CPAC organizers raised a legal and reasonable proposal: that tax payers in one of the poorest metropolitan areas in America not be forced to pay for a genocide. But the bourgeois state has responded with legal threats and outright police violence.
Still, organizers show up at the County Council meeting week after week. A variety of tactics have been employed to pressure the County to re-evaluate the shelving of the resolution: packing public comment, civil disobedience (such as noise demonstrations both inside and outside council chambers), and even a rally outside County Executive Chris Ronayne’s home. CPAC has also collected thousands of signatures, and done regular phone banking to encourage supporters to show up to county meetings.
This is only one hurdle in the larger fight for divestment from Israel across the country. Organizers across the state of Ohio are continuing the struggle against funding the apartheid state in their schools, cities, and counties. Lucas and Summit County councils have both verbally pledged to a strategy of non-investment in their county meetings. Several other divestment campaigns in Ohio have kicked off at universities and in local governments. While the struggle is large and will take time, the indefatigable resilience of the Palestinian resistance and exceptional brilliance found in working-class unity keeps organizers sharp and prepared to cut out U.S. financiers’ backing of genocide and apartheid.
Feature photo: Protesters marched from Case Western Reserve University to the main campus of Cleveland Clinic to protest those institutions’ investment in the genocidal apartheid regime on Oct. 18, following the massacre at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza. Liberation photo
