About 200 pro-Palestine protesters packed the Minnesota State Board of Investment meeting on Wednesday, hoping to pressure Governor Tim Walz — now the Democratic nominee for vice president — to divest the state’s assets from Israel and weapons manufacturers.
Many protesters wore red shirts that read “Minnesota divest from genocide!” and keffiyehs. During the meeting, they held up signs with the faces, names, and ages of children, labeled “Killed by Israel” or “Injured by Israel.”
Walz, the chair of the four-member State Board of Investment, did not attend the meeting. He had campaign stops scheduled Wednesday in Colorado and Massachusetts. State Auditor Julie Blaha chaired the meeting in his absence.
During the public comment period, 16 of 18 speakers spoke in support of divestment. Many were public employees who said they did not want their pensions invested in these funds.
Stacey Gurian-Sherman, a 67-year-old Minneapolis resident and former public employee who described herself as an “unapologetic anti-Zionist Jew,” said it was painful to see the violence in Gaza happening in her name. She described United Nations reports detailing torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
“We must not condone in Israel what we vehemently condemn in other countries,” she said. “To know this is going on and not use your authority to stop it is weird.”
The Minnesota State Board of Investment has four members: the governor, who serves as chair; the state auditor, Blaha; the secretary of state, Steve Simon; and the attorney general, Keith Ellison. The board is responsible for managing $146 billion in state assets, including pensions for the three state retirement systems.
Of that amount, the Anti-War Committee, a Minneapolis-based group organizing against various wars since 1998, has identified $119 million that they say is invested in Israeli companies and government bonds, as well as an additional $4 billion in companies “that are complicit in or profiting from Israel’s apartheid and genocide,” said Meredith Aby, a committee spokesperson.
Blaha, the state auditor, has emphasized her role on the board as a fiduciary, responsible for stewarding pensions, not making political statements.
But the board has chosen to divest in the past, including a 1985 divestment from South Africa and Namibia, and a 1998 vote to divest from companies that obtain more than 15% of their profits from consumer tobacco products. On other occasions, the board has divested from foreign countries based on directives from the Legislature, including Sudan, Iran, Russia, and Belarus. Those legislative directives all included clauses that allow the president of the United States to overrule the law if he or she deems it to conflict with U.S. foreign policy.
During Wednesday’s meeting, protesters unfurled banners with messages like “Walz: want support? Stop genocide.” They asked the state leaders to stand for a moment of silence for Palestinians who had lost their lives. When Blaha, Ellison, and Simon did not stand, protesters condemned them.
“Shame that you stayed seated!” one of the protesters shouted. “You work for us!”
Ethan Roberts, deputy executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, described Wednesday’s meeting as “particularly brutal,” noting that one protester had shouted, “[Expletive] Israel,” and others had appeared to target Simon, who is Jewish.
“The Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement is premised on Israel’s destruction,” Roberts said. “It’s a form of economic warfare which will not succeed.”
As the meeting took place, Israel was bracing for a possible retaliatory attack from Iran, he noted. Iran has threatened to respond to the killing of a senior Hamas official in Tehran on July 31.
“The only way Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze Israelis are going to survive that, are the very weapons systems that these activists are targeting,” he said.
Though Walz’s national profile is recent, the divestment campaign against the State Board of Investment is not. The Anti-War Committee has been organizing protests demanding divestment from Israel since 2019. Efforts have ramped up since the militant group Hamas attacked Israel last October 7, killing more than 1,100 Israelis and capturing 240 hostages. Since then, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has resulted in nearly 40,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
As part of the divestment campaign, organizers said they had asked Walz to meet with Gazan families. The meeting was scheduled for July 9. But it was abruptly canceled when the governor’s staff learned that they hoped to discuss state divestment, they said.
Staff explained that Walz was prepared to hear stories, but not to discuss divestment or other policy demands, said Sana Wazwaz, a Palestinian organizer.
“It was a slap in the face,” said Wazwaz. “It was a clear sign of disrespect, and it was a signal from Governor Walz that he does not view the Palestinian community as legitimate partners in effecting policy change.”
Walz’s office did not respond to a Sahan Journal request to confirm the scheduling of this meeting or clarify why it was canceled.
Wazwaz said she wanted to see Walz calling for divestment, an arms embargo of Israel, and a permanent and immediate ceasefire.
In a press conference after the investment board meeting, Palestinian activist Taher Herzallah, who is running for Anoka County Commissioner, condemned Walz.
“You have a man like Governor Walz who’s being portrayed as the nice Midwest dad, the one who’s going to give everyone bear hugs in America, refusing to move, not a foot, but not even a single inch, towards correcting the injustice committed against the Palestinian people — something that he has control over here,” Herzallah said.
Building bridges?
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Walz, have enjoyed a surge in the polls since they abruptly emerged at the top of the ticket this summer. But cracks in her support have started to show. Last week in Michigan, leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement said they approached Kamala Harris before a rally and requested a meeting to discuss an arms embargo of Israel. Then, pro-Palestinian protesters unaffiliated with the Uncommitted movement interrupted her speech later that night.
Harris, whose presidential campaign is less than a month old, has yet to release a detailed policy platform on Israel or other issues. She has taken a different tone from President Joe Biden verbally, expressing empathy over Palestinian suffering. She has urged a cease-fire and the release of the remaining hostages. After an Israeli airstrike in Gaza over the weekend, she said that once again, “far too many” civilians had been killed. But after the Michigan rally, her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, tweeted that Harris did not support an arms embargo of Israel.
Asma Mohammed, the lead organizer of Uncommitted Minnesota, said she expected Harris to unveil her platform next week during the Democratic National Convention. Though Mohammed does not expect Harris’ platform to include an arms embargo, she hopes it will include a cease-fire plan. She also said that Harris had agreed to meet with her colleagues in Michigan, who are waiting for a date. The Harris campaign has not publicly confirmed whether the vice president committed to a meeting with the organizers in Michigan.
When Harris named Walz as her running mate, the pick garnered praise both from Minnesota’s Jewish leaders and the Uncommitted Movement. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas released a statement praising Walz’s “stalwart friendship with Israel” and noted he had “spoken forcefully in support of Israel and against antisemitism.”
Activists from the Uncommitted Movement, too, spoke in support of Harris’ choice, pointing to Walz’s comments in March when 19% of the voters in Minnesota’s Democratic presidential primary marked their ballots “uncommitted” instead of voting for Biden, in protest of his support of Israel.
“We start bringing these folks back in, we listen to what they’re saying,” he said on CNN about Minnesota’s uncommitted voters. “Their message is clear that they think this is an intolerable situation and that we can do more.”
Mohammed, who has worked with Walz on policy bills and served on state committees, said that she’d seen indications from Harris and Walz that they were more open to listening than Biden. And she noted she had seen Walz evolve on other issues in the past.
“I think he is willing to change on issues that are winnable,” she said. “But do I think that has been the case with Israel and Palestine? No.”
She pointed to her appointment, and subsequent removal from, a working group to identify educational resources and provide model lesson plans on the Holocaust and other genocides. She hoped to represent Muslim voices in the working group, to speak not only for Palestine but for Bosnia, the Uyghurs in China, and forcible displacement of Muslims in India. But after naming her to the group, the Minnesota Department of Education removed her, declining to specify who had made the decision. The agency then paused next steps on the working group after pushback to Mohammed’s removal.
No matter the result of the presidential election, Walz will remain Minnesota’s governor for at least a few more months. In his capacity as governor, Mohammed said she would like to see Walz support efforts to divest Minnesota from Israel and make sure the Palestinian community has a say on the genocide education working group.
But she also said she’d like to see him play a role on the national stage, inviting in voices of voters in the pro-Palestine Uncommitted Movement. Harris’ promise of a meeting gave Muslim voters hope, Mohammed said. Walz could do something similar. Without a policy shift on Gaza, she said, it would be difficult to motivate Muslim voters to turn out for Democrats.
“I hope that Governor Walz takes this opportunity to be a bridge between uncommitted voters in Minnesota and the Harris-Walz campaign, because right now, I think we’re still feeling really disconnected,” she said.
She noted that in many ways, voters in the Uncommitted movement want the same outcome as Walz.
“We are all trying to defeat the fascists in November,” she said. “We need to be on this together.”
