Activists Keep Striking at Scotiabank to Make it Divest from Elbit Systems

Fifty Palestine supporters rallied once again in front of Scotiabank in Victoria to demand its divestment from Elbit Systems, a weapons manufacturer whose ordnances contribute to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Today’s action, organised by the Tzedek Collective, was held in conjunction with dozens of others at branches scattered across the country, and has been the third at this specific branch. Repeated strikes may have contributed to the bank reducing its holdings of Elbit Systems earlier this week.

Since this edition had been announced days in advance, we weren’t surprised to be welcomed by five police officers, two of whom would stand in front of the doors to prevent protesters from taking over the facility. Last time the protesters had briefly occupied the floor of the institution, so this time the branch responded by locking its doors and allowing only one client in at a time, thus subjecting many of them to the indignity of waiting outside surrounded by protesters. I would say this was a poor strategy on its part, which had several clients walking away; it would have been wiser to let them wait indoors.

As usual reception went through the whole spectrum. On the bright side, we had no trouble spending hundreds of leaflets, and many bystanders were indeed receptive to our message. Most were predictably apathetic. And as you imagine, many people were in contrast overtly avoidant or even hostile.

The most blatant hostile incident involved an old man yelling at the crowd: “How many Jews did you kill?” only for one of our own to approach him while claiming to be Jewish himself (like several more in attendance). I was told of a similar exchange across the street by a lady distributing leaflets. There seems to be many out there still under the delusion that protesters are antisemitic, while in fact many protests are organised by Jewish collectives such as IfNotNow; pressing that point might be the best way to reach out to sceptics.

Somewhere in the middle, we had a conversation with a Scotiabank customer who was receptive to our ideas, but resented being humiliated anyway considering his limited options. It turns out he took a mortgage with the bank a while ago, which was the only financial institution that would lend to him—and one doesn’t easily walk away from a mortgage. I have to agree divestment isn’t so simple to many as closing a savings account at a bank and opening another at a nearby credit union, and may actually require solving seemingly unrelated social issues such as the housing crisis and lack of access to financing.