The human rights lawyer Noura Erakat was arrested on Tuesday at a Palm Beach county, Florida, budget hearing about the county’s more than $۱bn investments in Israeli bonds.
Erakat, a prominent Palestinian-American activist, legal scholar and Guardian contributor, was one of several people in attendance at the public commission hearing who were forcibly removed by local law enforcement. The removal happened when the group attempted to speak out against the county’s investment in the bonds – the largest by a municipal government.
Representatives for Palm Beach county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a video of Erakat’s arrest posted by Al Jazeera, two law enforcement officers are seen taking her away as she speaks about wanting to exercise “basic free speech”.
Erakat told the Guardian that she and other critics of the county’s investment in Israeli bonds had planned to make statements at the hearing but that when they arrived there, the county’s mayor, Sara Baxter, told those present they could only speak for one minute as opposed to the slotted three.
She later said only residents would be allowed to speak and that people who applauded would be removed. Erakat also recalled that Baxter said that speakers could not address the Israeli bonds issue because they were a policy matter and not a budget one.
When people spoke about the matter anyway, they were removed from the room. During a recess, police officers entered the room and “handpicked” people to remove, she added.
“I insisted that I had a right to stay, they didn’t know what I was going to talk about, they were racially profiling me,” said Erakat.
Investments in the Israeli bonds have become a controversial issue as US public opinion of Israel has plunged. In Florida, a group of residents sued Palm Beach county last year over the investment, which the group says was carried out in violation of local laws, including requirements that foreign investments meet certain ratings and prohibitions around investing for political reasons. The case was dismissed in August for lack of standing, but the plaintiffs are appealing the decision.
“These millions of dollars should be going to local needs,” Lydia Ghuman, executive director of the Internationalist Law Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in that case, told the Guardian earlier this year. “The fact that they are being invested in bonds that are not beating the rate of inflation and propping up the economy of a foreign government is a sign of the special interests gripping local politics.”
Nationwide, a coalition of groups has launched a “Break the Bonds” campaign encouraging advocacy for divestment at the local level, as well as targeting state and union pension funds and universities’ investments in Israel. Several candidates in recent primaries races have pledged to end public investments in Israeli bonds.
“It’s becoming harder and harder to argue that these investments are being made purely for fiduciary or financially sound reasons,” said Michael Omer-Man, director of Israel-Palestine at the US-based human rights group Dawn, told the Guardian. The group argued in a memo to elected officials earlier this year that investment of public funds in Iraeli bonds violates both international law and fiduciary duties and may expose officials and beneficiaries alike to “substantial legal, ethical and financial risks”.
Erakat said she was “rough handled” and held, tightly cuffed, in the back of a police car for two hours before being shackled and transferred to a local jail, where she was released on bail. She was charged with a trespass misdemeanor.
“It’s absolutely absurd that this is the reaction to a public hearing and that I would be charged for trespassing at a public hearing,” she told the Guardian.
“They were about to shut down the whole process and make it impossible to deal with the Israel bonds issue as a public matter. We talk about fascism but to see it play out so vividly was what compelled me to stay in the room honestly.”
Charles Blaha, a former state department official and Dawn adviser who was also ejected from the room, wrote in a statement that the county commission had abruptly canceled the scheduled discussion.
“The County knows the very problematic nature of the investment and the depth of public opposition, and is unable to defend the investment publicly,” he said. “Instead, the County suppressed legitimate free speech and public debate.”
