Noura Erakat Arrested After Speaking Against Palm Beach County’s $1 Billion Israel Bonds

Bond protest turns tense

A Palm Beach County budget hearing turned tense as Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Noura Erakat was arrested after speaking against the county’s $1 billion investment in Israel bonds, with residents also forced to leave the hearing. Al Jazeera reported that Erakat was arrested after speaking against the “billion-dollar investment in Israel Bonds during a public budget hearing,” and that “at least 100 residents protesting the investment were also forced to leave the hearing.”

The Sun Sentinel said the meeting grew tense as Sheriff’s deputies removed several attendees, including a woman arrested on a trespassing charge, and it identified Erakat as being charged with trespassing after she was accused of refusing to leave the county’s governmental center in West Palm Beach. In the same episode, WPEC described the confrontation beginning when a man wearing an Air Force uniform opposed extending the Israeli Bond investment, and it said County Mayor Sara Baxter warned that the bonds were not part of Tuesday night’s budget discussion.

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Arrest, removals, and quotes

During the meeting, County Mayor Sara Baxter limited public comments to county residents and reduced speaker time from three minutes per speaker to one minute per speaker because she said they had more than 15 public comment cards, according to the Sun Sentinel.

The Sun Sentinel also quoted Erakat writing that “Cops swarmed the room and demanded anyone who came to speak on the bonds leave. I refused,” and it said the remark drew a crowd response after Commissioner Joel Flores told a man in military garb he was “embarrassing that uniform.”

The Guardian said Erakat told reporters 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.

WPEC added that Commissioner Joel Flores told the veteran, “You’re embarrassing that uniform, sir,” and it said Erakat was charged only with misdemeanor trespassing while deputies removed residents from the chambers.

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Legal and political fallout

The Guardian reported that a Florida group of residents sued Palm Beach County last year over the investment, saying it violated local laws including requirements that foreign investments meet certain ratings and prohibitions around investing for political reasons, and it said the case was dismissed in August for lack of standing but plaintiffs are appealing. In the same dispute, the Guardian quoted Lydia Ghuman of the Internationalist Law Center saying, “These millions of dollars should be going to local needs,” and it also quoted Dawn director Michael Omer-Man saying, “It’s becoming harder and harder to argue that these investments are being made purely for fiduciary or financially sound reasons.”

The New Arab said US rights advocates condemned Erakat’s arrest and quoted Wilfredo Amr Ruiz of CAIR’s Florida chapter calling for Palm Beach County commissioners to “immediately stop using more than a billion dollars in public taxpayer funds to bankroll death, enable war crimes, and finance the slaughter of innocent children.” WPEC reported that Palm Beach County announced in January that an additional $350 million purchase brought its Israel Bond holdings to $1 billion, making it the world’s largest municipal investor in the bonds, and it described the meeting as a budget hearing where officials said commissioners were not setting investment policy.

Reporting for this sectionThe GuardianThe New Arab