A company with labs in Cambridge’s Central Square was removed from a City Council policy order last week decrying killings and human-rights violations in the Philippines.
The order in support of the Philippine Human Rights Act in the U.S. House of Representatives – and urging a matching U.S. Senate version – passed 7-0-2, meaning no councillor voted against, but two voted “present” to avoid specific support.
When introduced June 26, the order called out Elbit Systems Ltd. as “a Cambridge-based weapons company” that has sold weapons to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has continued a “war on drugs” begun by former leader Rodrigo Duterte that has killed more than 30,000 people since 2016.
An amendment when the order returned Aug. 7 deleted Elbit in Central Square as being uninvolved. The weapons are coming from Elbit in Israel, said the author of the amendment, councillor Patty Nolan.
“Elbit Systems of America, to be very clear, is separately incorporated and has a completely separate board from Elbit Systems in Israel,” Nolan said. “That doesn’t mean that the company as a whole is not a weapons company – but it does mean that their particular office right now in Cambridge is intended to be primarily medical, which the staff is now.”
The labs, called the Cambridge Innovation Center, supports a medical instruments division called KMC Systems in New Hampshire, a spokeswoman for Elbit in America said.
Nolan said Aug. 7: “If you had a PCR test during Covid, chances are it was processed using a device designed, developed and produced by Elbit Systems of America. About half of the PCR test devices were made by Elbit.”
Around 15 people spoke during public comment Aug. 7 about Elbit, most condemning the company and asking councillors to reject Nolan’s amendment to show “that we will not accept the presence of a weapons company that’s been complicit in human-rights abuses right here in our backyard,” but not engaging directly with the distinction Nolan was drawing.
Owen Elrifi, who contributed to a July 28 letter rallying support for the order, said Nolan’s was not a distinction that mattered to him. “Even if it’s all just administrative logistics, they are still supporting this massive corporation selling insane numbers of arms to support extrajudicial killings,” he said Monday.
Elrifi acknowledged that because Elbit Systems of America is the tenant of a private landlord, the council vote was “just a condemnation. If there are tangible ways to remove Elbit – to make them genuinely unwelcome – I don’t know what the mechanism would be,” he said. But he considered a condemnation the “minimum” a Cambridge city councillor could do.
“Foreign policy”
Nolan’s amendment passed 6-2-1, with the “no” votes coming from Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and councillor Quinton Zondervan, the original order’s author. Councillor Burhan Azeem voted “present,” saying he is “not particularly excited about voting on foreign policy in City Council, mainly because I just don’t feel like it makes a difference.” When the amended order came up, he voted “present” again and was joined by councillor E. Denise Simmons, who agreed “at some point, the council should have a fuller conversation about where we wade into what you might call foreign policy issues and what real impact it’s going to have.”
The same question has been brought up numerous times in past years, as orders about issues outside of councillors’ direct purview are a recurring theme in Cambridge politics. Azeem is a first-term councillor, but Simmons has encountered the issue many times as the council’s longest-serving member. She was first elected in 2001 and is seeking her 12th term in office.
Israel as an issue
This was also the second time this term Israel has come up as a political flashpoint; the first, a question about municipal vendors, wound up drawing 7.5 hours of public comment at a meeting in May 2021. This time, Nolan said her amendment was a way to avoid what she deemed a side issue.
“Raytheon has branches in Cambridge and is directly supplying and working with the Philippine government and military – why aren’t they named? Once again, there was only one company which appears to have a direct tie to Israel, which is the only one named, which makes one wonder,” Nolan said. “If there’s a separate policy at some point to talk about the range of companies and nonprofits based in Cambridge that are involved in the war machine, that is a totally appropriate thing to do.”
Elrifi said he’d seen some response that was suggesting the naming of Elbit was “some kind Israel-Palestine issue,” but that was not the case for him. “The P.O. includes absolutely no language relating to Israel or Palestine,” he said Aug. 7. “Elbit is by far the highest-volume weapons provider to the oppressive regime and needs to be singled out for their uniquely horrible role in these atrocities. Excluding Elbit on the basis that it is an Israeli company is a cheap cop-out.”
There was a Central Square protest against Elbit in April that included members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation holding signs calling on the United States to end all “aid to Israel.” Elrifi is associated with a different group, the Cambridge Democratic Socialists of America.
This post was updated Aug. 15, 2023, to correct the identity of a “no“ vote among the City Council.
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The Cambridge Democratic Socialists of America?
What a bunch of splitters!
We’re the American Socialist Democrats of Cambridge!
Saying Elbit Systems of America is separately incorporated from its parent company, in an attempt to protect Elbit from accountability for arming the Duterte and Marcos Jr. regimes with tanks, artillery systems, drones, and other advanced weaponry is pretty sickening. In addition to sharing the exact same logo as its parent company, Elbit Systems of America’s profits and success in Cambridge will help its parent company expand sales of its murderous weapons to right wing governments worldwide. Same with Nolan’s argument that Elbit helped design PCR tests—so we’re gonna let Elbit get away with arming Duterte/Marcos and countless other right wing governments with weapons used used to slaughter people on a daily basis, because Elbit also has medical tech division?
Also worth noting that Elbit Systems of America—the “separately incorporated” company Nolan wants us to focus on—states on *its* own website “Nextgenborder.com” that Elbit Systems of America has supplied US Customs and Border Protection with 55 surveillance towers along with drones that Border patrol is using to surveil immigrants along 200 miles of the US-Mexico border—making it possible for CBP to detain and deport immigrants en mass, separating families and in some cases killing immigrant children through medical neglect. In Elbit’s own words: “Elbit Systems of America creates a single operating picture for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents. We handle the data, so agents can virtually be anywhere along the U.S. borders.”) Look it up yourself: Nextgenborder.com
How 6 out of 9 councilors saw it fit to erase reference to this company from the P.O. against the expressed wishes of local Filipino community members who gave comment is beyond me…
“Around 15 people spoke during public comment Aug. 7 about Elbit, most condemning the company and asking councillors to reject Nolan’s amendment […] but not engaging directly with the distinction Nolan was drawing.”
This part of the article is misleading. Public comment in City Council meetings occurs before debate in the council. People giving comment spoke before Councilor Nolan made the argument that Elbit and Elbit America should be treated as distinct. As written, the article implies that people giving comment chose not to engage the distinction Nolan drew, when in reality they had no opportunity engage this distinction, because she had not drawn it yet when public comment occurred.
unusually porous coverage from Cambridge Day. Phillip is correct that commenters couldn’t possibly have engaged with a counterpoint that wasn’t raised until the last second before the vote. Regardless, I agree with Robin that the distinction is irrelevant. It is unfortunate that Councillor Nolan chose to distract us all from the purpose of the resolution, which was to call attention to US complicity in human rights atrocities in the Philippines. Most of the people who spoke on this resolution were members of the Filipino community through Mayala Movement Massachusetts, the group behind this work that the article does not mention by name a single time. Nobody but Patty was bringing up Israel or Palestine. Let’s not finely slice reality to feel better about condoning evil in our world – instead, let’s recognize our privilege and use it to call attention to the fact that Elbit’s presence in our community means that our local economy fuels the US war machine around the world. As a resident of Bishop Allen Drive where Elbit is physically located, I’m not comfortable sitting back and conjuring up creative excuses for why that isn’t a problem. Elbit Systems is not welcome in our neighborhood and I will proudly continue to protest their presence.
Elbit Systems is engaged in human rights violations around the world. Patty Nolan, in her ongoing effort to shield Israel from any criticism whatsoever, took it upon herself to eliminate Elbit, from the resolution. This was done despite the fact that the resolution and the speakers made no reference to Israel and Palestine even though Elbit Systems supports apartheid in Palestine. Unfortunately Nolan continues to equate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism. This false narrative causes her to defend Elbit even though Elbit arms right wing dictators in the Philippines. I have lived off Central Square for more than 45 years and Elbit is not welcome here!
We need to drive Elbit out of Cambridge! Doesn’t matter whether it’s Elbit Systems or Elbit Systems of America. Doesn’t matter whether Elbit is making some covid tests to supplement their drones, tanks, and surveillance towers along the border. Elbit must be made to feel unwelcome in our community. We must shut them down!
Folks in the UK are showing that it can be done:
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/11/elbit-systems-arms-factory-in-oldham-shut-down-following-fierce-campaign/
https://www.palestineaction.org/london-hq-shut/
While it is not antisemitic to criticize Israel or Israeli companies, it is antisemitic when they are the only ones who draw our scrutiny. It’s curious and troubling when Councillors and candidates are upset about Elbit yet silent about much bigger fish such as Raytheon, MIT, and other leaders of the military-industrial complex
“Israeli war criminals must be defended against being unfairly singled out” No it is anti-semitic to hold jews to a standard that leaves war crimes committed by jews as something beyond criticism because they are Jews.
Yawn. It’s not antisemitic. It’s the City Dunce-l pilling on to a pre-existing U.S. House resolution because they’ve run out of virtue signals of their own apparently.