Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
On the morning of April 21, a dozen community members with the anti-imperialist campaign Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) entered the Capital One corporate offices in Midtown, Manhattan, unfurling two banners that read: “Capital One Pays For Genocide” and “Eject Elbit Systems.” The group quickly installed a “soft blockade” with the banners, partially obstructing two hallways to bring attention to workers. One protester walked across the building lobby, showering the floor in faux cash stained with red paint.
A New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer and two private security guards stationed inside grabbed the banner, shoving protesters and reporters toward the exit. Before forcing DBNY outside — where the protest continued — an NYPD officer shouted at this author: “No freedom of press on private property!”
This action comes days before the expiration of a $545 million loan from a consortium of six banks — including $90 million from Capital One — to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. As part of a global week of action called by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to “intensify the BDS campaign against Elbit,” organizers planned actions in New York City, Boston, and the Washington, D.C. area targeting Capital One under the moniker “Eject Elbit.”
“This week, Capital One’s $90 million loan to Elbit Systems is set to either renew or expire, and we came out in multiple cities to let them know that we’re not giving up,” said one Eject Elbit organizer in D.C. who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons. “They’ve heard from us for months, and they will continue to hear until they drop this violent funding.”
According to a Bloomberg financial markets database, the $545 million loan was signed on May 21, 2021, and is set to mature on April 24, 2026. The BDS Global Week of Action overlaps with a pivotal moment of escalation — pressuring Capital One to not extend additional credit to Elbit Systems.
Elbit Systems is one of most complicit actors in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, supplying the Israeli military with weapons such as MPR 500 bombs, which are specifically designed for “densely populated urban warfare.” Elbit also developed border surveillance systems crucial to the maintenance of Israeli apartheid, and repressive immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Elbit with $23.9 million to install surveillance towers in 2023.
In addition to organizing against two companies operating on city-owned property at the Brooklyn Navy Yard — Easy Aerial and Crye Precision, both with ties to the Israeli military and DHS — DBNY joined the national Eject Elbit campaign last fall.
“Easy Aerial supplies Elbit Systems; they’re collaborators,” said Iman Bowman, a DBNY spokesperson, referencing contracts to retrofit Elbit Systems ground vehicles with Easy Aerial autonomous drones.
DBNY recently celebrated its first victory after successfully pressuring the Brooklyn Navy Yard not to renew Easy Aerial’s lease in February. Now the campaign continues fighting local nodes of the global weapons supply chain to Israel, including Elbit’s financiers.
“Once you isolate and remove all the insurers, landlords, contractors, and investors, then Elbit starts to feel the economic pressure.”
“There are no Elbit factories in New York City and it can be challenging to protest a weapons factory directly because you can’t change the conscience of fascists,” said Bowman. “But we can go after secondary targets. Once you isolate and remove all the insurers, landlords, contractors, and investors, then Elbit starts to feel the economic pressure.”
This strategy has a proven track record. In 2014, Brazilian social movements and unionists convinced the state government of Rio Grande do Sul to cancel a research collaboration between local universities and Elbit Systems. Similarly, BDS Boston organized a year-long campaign against a partnership between MIT and Elbit Systems, leading MIT to cut ties with the weapons manufacturer. Palestine Action, which has protested Elbit Systems and its collaborators for over a decade, recently targeted Allianz — an insurance company that provides coverage to Elbit insurers — by climbing and occupying its headquarters. These actions pressured Allianz to drop Elbit as a client in September 2025. More recently, a sustained campaign against an Elbit subsidiary in Raleigh made business so untenable that it vacated its North Carolina offices.
The Eject Elbit campaign against Capital One follows a similar formula — pushing to sever a single link of a global supply chain. Within the past year, an action in McLean, Virginia, blocked incoming staff traffic at Capital One’s headquarters; protesters disrupted Capital One’s “Jingle Ball” concert at the Capital One hockey arena in D.C.; activists nationwide participated in digital phone-blast and card-cutting actions; BDS Boston and DBNY organized pickets at Capital One Cafes.
Different tactics serve different functions. Outreach sessions and protests at Capital One Cafes focus on cardholders who might not be aware of their bank’s relationship with Elbit Systems. DBNY has planned several outreach sessions at Capital One Cafes in Union Square, SoHo, Columbus Circle, the Bronx, and the Upper East Side, where organizers said they were received positively by customers, some of whom cancelled their cards on the spot. “People don’t want to bank with a company that is complicit in genocide,” said Bowman. Eject Elbit asks Capital One customers to switch banks, offering a digital guide with alternative options.
Meanwhile, corporate office actions, such as the one on April 21, are more disruptive — organizers hope to instigate questions for workers, while tarnishing the company’s brand image. Eject Elbit has recruited current and former Capital One workers to the campaign. During an action in D.C., one employee shared: “So many people at Capital One have been really frustrated by our leadership’s inability to take accountability.” Prism reported that Capital One workers circulated an open letter to their employer, stating, “We believe our relationship with Elbit Systems represents an unacceptable compromise … and that continuing our relationship poses a severe reputational risk to Capital One.”
DBNY members said that their actions intentionally overlap with the time workers arrive at the office. “We want them to see our banners and be aware of the role of Capital One in genocide and deportations,” said Bowman. In another action in March at the same corporate office, protesters managed to stay inside the building lobby for 15 minutes, sharing speeches and passing out flyers.
But on April 21, DBNY’s disruptive tactics elicited immediate hostility. After relocating outside the Capital One office in Midtown, protesters chanted “Capital one you can’t hide / You are funding genocide” as a drummer kept the group in time. A man in a tan jacket, baseball cap, and sunglasses shoved two banner-holders and unsuccessfully tried to knock the snare drum from the drummer’s hands, jeering at the crowd as the NYPD watched him walk away. A woman screamed “Go Israel” from the back of a Tesla. Several passersby muttered under their breath. A few approached DBNY for more information.
During a quiet moment, two protesters chalked the sidewalk with phrases such as “Elbit murders kids” and “Capital One kills,” initiating a game of cat and mouse — security brought out mops to remove the chalk, which DBNY immediately replaced with more chalk messages. The optics of washing away expressions of Capital One’s complicity was not lost on the organizers, one of whom couldn’t contain his laughter at the irony.
“They care so much about their image, and their logo is right on the center of this building,” said Bowman. “We have to let them know that we are not going anywhere.”
Media that fights fascism
Truthout is funded almost entirely by readers — that’s why we can speak truth to power and cut against the mainstream narrative. But independent journalists at Truthout face mounting political repression under Trump.
We rely on your support to survive McCarthyist censorship. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation.