Scotiabank fully divests from Elbit Systems

Scotiabank’s most recent filings reveal that it has fully divested from Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. They currently have zero shares in the company.

In early 2023, work from corporate accountability group Eko and reporting from The Intercept revealed that Scotiabank was Elbit Systems’ largest foreign shareholder, possessing a stake of more than 2.2 million shares. This represented a value of over $500 million. The Canadian BDS Coalition began their work against the bank in response, and by November, nationwide pressure campaigns from multiple groups escalated to branch sit-ins, rallies, and mass cancellations of accounts. At the end of the year, a disruption of the Scotiabank-sponsored 2023 Giller Prize’s live broadcast ensured that the company’s hand in the genocide of Palestinians was burned into public consciousness. The No Arms in the Arts coalition continued that work through Scotiabank’s many arts sponsorships. From disruptions, to counter-programming, to the eventual boycotts of the Giller Prize and Scotiabank Photography Award, artists across disciplines refused to let their work be used to bolster Scotiabank’s brand.

Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons company, and provides weapons and infrastructure to carry out the genocide and occupation of Palestine. But the tide has been turning against Elbit, with the public making it clear they will not tolerate its murderous participation in Israel’s regime. The UK group Palestine Action targeted Elbit factories with direct actions, resulting in their proscription as a “terrorist group.” Thousands of people participated in the successful campaign to challenge Palestine Action’s proscription. The momentum was also felt in the financial sector. In October 2024, Barclays (UK) divested its shares from Elbit, stating they were doing so in accordance with “international human rights principles.” Norway’s largest pension fund also banned investments in Elbit on similar grounds, and Japan’s Itochu Corporation cancelled a contract with the company in 2024 citing the International Court of Justice’s ruling “recognizing potential genocide” in Gaza. Despite all this, Scotiabank held onto its stake — making it clear that it was only sustained pressure across the country, and internationally, that eventually forced them to drop Elbit.

Scotiabank became a strategic and sustained target across multiple sectors, and we chose it for being uniquely overindexed in Elbit Systems compared to Canada’s other “Big 6” banks. Scotiabank’s subsidiary 1832 Asset Management is managed by David Fingold, who by his own admission is disproportionately invested in Israeli funds. Combined with Scotiabank’s sensitivity to its public reputation, this made the company’s investment vulnerable to coordinated pressure campaigns, no matter how much profit it was making from Palestinian death.

This divestment does not exonerate Scotiabank, which maintains investments in arms and extractive capital. Its CEO Scott Thomson has been a loud advocate for the American “Trump doctrine” of foreign military interventions, as well as the “Global Defense Bank,” a proposed hub for military financing. In this context, the campaigns against Scotiabank set a critical precedent for what is deemed a permissible investment by supposedly “neutral” investors. Nationwide organizing in Canada ensured that Scotiabank’s Elbit stake became a liability.

As our government exploits the façade of a ceasefire to normalize Israel’s siege on Gaza, this divestment is a reminder of what becomes possible when we collectively refuse complicity. But while Scotiabank may have fully divested from Elbit Systems, Canada’s financial, state and charitable institutions remain invested in the genocide. Since the “ceasefire” was declared, Israel has killed over 600 Palestinians and violated the agreement over 1,620 times. We must not relent, and instead stay focused on dismantling financial and political support for Israel. The lessons from the past three years will inform the battles ahead for a free Palestine.

Breaking: Artists have forced the Azrieli Foundation out of the Toronto Arts Foundation!

The end of the funding relationship between the Toronto Arts Foundation and the Azrieli Foundation marks a definitive victory. After 2 years of organizing and protest, artists and cultural workers successfully wielded our collective power to emphatically refuse opportunities and accolades linked to death and destruction in Palestine and beyond.

The Azrieli Foundation’s mission is to “build bridges between Canada and Israel.” Israel relies on these partnerships to expand its illegal settler colonial project and kill Palestinians with impunity. The Azrieli Foundation is deeply embedded in the Canadian arts landscape while also funding Zionist, white supremacist lobby groups including HonestReporting Canada which dehumanize Palestinians in Canadian media. The Azrieli Foundation is also the charitable branch of the Azrieli Group, Israel’s largest real estate company, with significant assets in illegal settlement infrastructure. Founded by David J. Azrieli, who participated in the Nakba - the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 - the Azrieli Foundation’s inception and ongoing activities are an affront on Palestinian life, and a betrayal of the work of conscientious arts workers.

Toronto’s artists, cultural workers, arts organizations, and community members called on the Toronto Arts Foundation to cut ties with the Azrieli Foundation beginning in March 2024. This included refusing to participate in Toronto Arts Foundation opportunities, canvassing at events, writing to leadership, exerting public pressure and advocating through internal meetings. Over 450 Toronto artists and cultural workers signed an open letter calling on Toronto Arts Foundation to cut ties with the Azrieli Foundation.

In response, artists were met with displays of bad faith from the Toronto Arts Foundation. Statements by the Toronto Arts Foundation, circulated both internally and publicly, claimed that the Azrieli Foundation is politically neutral despite financial records clearly revealing otherwise. The Azrieli Foundation donated over $23 million to Israel in 2024 alone. Advocates were framed as a fringe group, despite the fact that hundreds of artists showed up repeatedly to make their concerns known, and despite the fact that a majority of Canadians do not want to participate in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, across Palestine, and now encroaching into Lebanon and Iran. The Toronto Arts Foundation’s parroting of the Azrieli Foundation’s misinformation came at the cost of community trust, especially among marginalized, racialized, and emerging artists.

Numerous arts organizations such as CanadianStage, Luminato and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra continue to receive sponsorship from the Azrieli Foundation. But arts organizations can no longer ignore calls for accountability from those they are obligated to serve and represent. A small group of politically motivated patrons and donors can no longer artwash genocide through philanthropy. Arts workers are the ones that make the cultural life of our cities thrive, and we have the power to determine how our work is funded and circulated, and what it represents in the face of rising austerity, censorship, and political repression.

To Toronto’s arts community: This landmark shift took the courage of showing up to pickets, turning down contracts, refusing to participate in awards, disrupting events, making banners, and calling and writing to stakeholders. It is only together, that we will continue to successfully confront Zionism in the arts and build toward a free Palestine.

To the Toronto Arts Foundation: We’re still watching, we will not accept restored ties with the Azrieli Foundation and we continue to demand more scrutiny when it comes to your funding partnerships. Send an email to TAF leadership.