On May 15, one of the hottest days of the year in Florida, dozens of organizers and community members gathered outside the Palm Beach courthouse to file an unprecedented lawsuit against the county. The group is suing Palm Beach County over its substantial financial ties to Israel, targeting the county’s investment portfolio, which includes a staggering $700 million in Israeli bonds.
The decision to take legal action comes amid Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where it has killed more than 35,200 since October. The U.S.-backed siege and bombing has sparked outrage from historians, Holocaust researchers, foreign policy experts and local residents, who have labelled it a “textbook case of genocide.”
Palm Beach County invests 22 times more in Israeli bonds than any other county in Israel. This unprecedented level of investment has drawn harsh criticism from Palm Beach residents who believe that spending so much public money on foreign debt is reckless and morally questionable.
“I stand before you not only as a resident of Palm Beach County, but also as a Jewish woman. I am deeply concerned about what we are supporting by holding Israeli bonds, and I am not willing to buy more. We’re looking at increasing the number,” Alice Ujciak, a Jewish Palm Beach County resident, said at a news conference. “As Israel enters its eighth month of retaliation against Gaza, we see Israel brutally killing Palestinians and destroying their lands, homes, universities, hospitals, and infrastructure. We have to think about what we are supporting.”
The Palm Beach resident presented expert testimony, including insights from a local finance professor who highlighted the extreme concentration of risk associated with such investment strategies. The county’s decision to allocate 15% of its investment portfolio solely to Israeli bonds has raised concerns among area residents and financial experts. A corporate bond is a loan paid to the issuer with the expectation of repayment.
“[Palm Beach County Comptroller and Clerk of the Circuit Court Joseph Abruzzo] “He not only failed us morally, but he also violated two state laws in the process,” said David Piña, the attorney who filed the lawsuit. “He put 15 percent of Palm Beach County’s investments into one of the riskiest events happening in the world right now.”
Palm Beach County’s investment in Israel bonds comes at a time when the county is grappling with domestic challenges, including the affordable housing crisis. Last October, activists were arrested for simply feeding homeless local residents. Even though the county allocated $200 million in debt financing for the housing development last October, many residents say the county’s decision to invest more than three times that amount in foreign bonds is a mistake. Advocates are asking the county to reinvest the funds into the city’s more pressing needs.
Organizers say the Abruzzo region has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit and will have to wait and see which side it accepts.
