ST PAUL, Minn. — Pro-Palestinian activists Wednesday urged Minnesota’s top leaders to stop investing state employee retirement funds in the Israeli government and defense contractors who supply arms to that nation.

Members of the Free Palestine Coalition crowded into a hearing room in the Senate Office Building where Gov. Tim Walz, Secretary of State Steve Simon, and State Auditor Julie Blaha were meeting as members of the State Board of Investment. Attorney General Keith Ellison, the only Muslim member of the board, missed the meeting because of a scheduling conflict.

“I don’t know of a single educator who wants our money invested in weapons companies, and in bombing school buildings in racist wars,” Drake Myers, a member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee who is also active in the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, told the panel.

Max Vash, who has a Palestinian son, spoke out against the state’s holdings in Elbit Systems, an international defense and aerospace contractor based in Israel.

“You have the power and the responsibility to ensure that neither my son, nor any other Palestinian person experiences these horrors,” Vash said.

Lucia Wilkes Smith, a longtime member of Mothers Against Military Madness, said the BDS movement — Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions — shouldn’t be written off as antisemitic.

Mike McDonald of Veterans for Peace didn’t address Israel directly but said the Board of Investment shouldn’t have money in defense contractors that are arming nations across the planet. He asserted the state has $800 million in holdings in companies that make weapons of warfare.

It’s not the first time the investment board has heard from people calling for divestment from Israel. In 2015, activists unsuccessfully pressed the board to sell off its Israeli government bonds.

This time around, activists look to build support based on outrage over thousands of Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza in the war between Israel and the Hamas militant group. That fighting was sparked by a series of coordinated surprise attacks by Hamas on Israel Oct. 7, in which 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were slain and 250 others were taken hostage.

Since the war began, the Gaza Health Ministry has reported more than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors.

The board members — Walz, Simon, and Blaha — listened and took notes, but didn’t take any action in response to the request.

Before the meeting, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas held a news conference at the State Capitol calling on the investment board to reject the calls for divestment.

Rhona Schwaid, the JCRC Vice President, said that the BDS movement uses antisemitic memes and tropes as part of its rhetoric.

“It would be irresponsible and dangerous for the State of Minnesota to further hostilities and trauma by supporting a movement that is anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish at its core.”

Sen. Ron Latz, a St. Louis Park Democrat, said that Palestinian children are exposed to teaching and television programming that celebrates killing Jews, and that those pushing for divestment want Israel wiped off the map.

“Divesting from Israel would be supporting and motivating a terror group to repeat the October 7 atrocities again,” Sen. Latz said.

He co-authored the law that bars Minnesota government agencies from entering into contracts with companies that have boycotts against Israel.

According to the State Board of Investment staff, the state holds $116.3 million worth of investments in Israel. That includes $21.5 million in Israeli government bonds, $67.5 million in publicly traded investments, and $27.3 million in non-publicly traded investments.

The industries covered include fuels, aerospace, defense, banks, real estate developers, software companies, retail, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

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