Tamar Sarai
Common Dreams / January 13, 2026
Some involved in the Eject Elbit campaign are Capital One employees themselves.
Organizers in cities across the country have launched Eject Elbit, a coordinated campaign against Capital One’s partnership with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Founded in 1966, Elbit Systems supplies 80% of the weapons and equipment for the Israeli military’s land forces and 85% of the combat drones used by the air force, according to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
On Tuesday, three activists locked themselves to ladders and a wheelchair outside the Capital One headquarters in McLean, Virginia, chanting and blocking the office entrances, according to social media posts by the Eject Elbit campaign.
Capital One is within a consortium of six banks collectively extending a $545 million line of credit to Elbit that is set to expire in late March, according to a source familiar with the deal. Activists are demanding that the American bank cancel its share of the loan and commit to not renewing it.
Elbit has also helped serve as the architect of the apartheid wall surrounding the West Bank. Its involvement in such architecture mirrors its role in building similar surveillance infrastructure outside of Palestine as well.
As previously reported by Prism, Elbit has, through its subsidiary Elbit America, helped craft surveillance infrastructure at the U.S. southern border. In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security requested over $101 million to fund the installation of 307 new surveillance towers across the U.S.-Mexico border within the next decade. Elbit was awarded $23.9 million of those funds.
“We’ve seen a lot of campaigns over the past years, where the goal is really to isolate Israel and Israel’s institutions from American financial aid,” said Gayatri Girirajan, an organizer with the Eject Elbit campaign based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. “This is part of that, like cutting off the heads of the hydra.”
Capital One did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.
Local connections
This is not the first time that supporters of Elbit have been targeted. In October 2024, Palestine Action launched a campaign against Elbit insurers Allianz and Aviva. Organizers engaged in protests as well as physically occupied Allianz’s London offices last March. In November and September, Allianz and Aviva, respectively, terminated their coverage of the arms manufacturer.
Prism recently reported that activists in North Carolina are claiming victory against Elbit subsidiary Logos Technologies, which they say apparently vacated its Raleigh offices after sustained pressure against the surveillance technology maker and its landlord. That comes after BDS Boston forced Elbit out of its Cambridge offices in 2024 after hosting weekly protests and canvassing outside of the building. A year later, the group led a successful campaign demanding that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology end its partnership with Elbit through the university’s “Industrial Liaison Program.”
BDS Boston has now brought that sustained focus to protesting outside of local Capital One Cafes. The persistent action has led to some pushback, but also opportunities for public education.
“Some people don’t want to be bothered, but some people are very curious why we’re making a bunch of noise outside of a seemingly harmless cafe,” said BDS Boston member David Berkinsky. “We’re at a point now the community sees us out there, recognizes us, and they are starting to draw the connection that Capital One is an unethical bank that is profiting off genocide and deportation.”
In addition to spanning across a host of cities, including New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle, Eject Elbit has also utilized an inside-outside strategy, as some campaigners are Capital One employees themselves. The presence of employees has helped provide campaigners with a deeper understanding of how the company presents itself both internally and to consumers. It is also a litmus test on how executive leadership has responded to pushback around its partnership with Elbit.
Ross Burke, a current Capital One employee and member of the Eject Elbit campaign who is using a pseudonym to avoid retaliation at work, said that when news broke about Capital One’s relationship with Elbit and Elbit’s support of the Israeli military, a group of employees collectively drafted and shared an open letter, reviewed by Prism, to Pulse, the company’s internal communications platform and directory.
“As Capital One associates, we cannot in good conscience allow our work to benefit Elbit systems or any other weapons manufacturer who is supplying and profiting off of the ongoing violence in Palestine,” wrote the employees. “We believe our relationship with Elbit Systems represents an unacceptable compromise on Commercial’s policy for Higher Risk Banking Relationships which restricts ‘firearms or ammunition manufacturers or distributors” and that continuing our relationship poses a severe reputational risk to Capital One.”
The letter resulted in a meeting with Capital One’s head of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
“She basically told us, ‘I’m here on behalf of the company to let you know that we see you and we hear you, but we will not be discussing this any further,’” Burke said. “‘We see you and hear you’ is a phrase we’ve been getting a lot internally as they censor and shut down conversation about Palestine.”
Burke said it became clear that while some topics, such as the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 or the killing of George Floyd in 2020, were permitted for discussion on the company’s Slack channels, those openly critiquing genocide were shut down.
“I have been really disillusioned with the ability to convince anybody based on shared humanity or values or morals within the corporate world,” Burke said. “So, where I’ve been particularly motivated to lean in has been with the external organizing and trying to get people to effectively vote with their dollars. BDS works, and I want Capital One to be a BDS target.”
What’s in your wallet ?
Among the host of campaigns against Elbit in recent years, the Capital One campaign perhaps differs the most because of the nature of the target. Not only is the company one of the largest banks in the United States — its 2024 acquisition of Discover added 305 million customers to its base of over 100 million cardholders — but its public image has been crafted in ways that organizers argue stand in stark contrast to its involvement in war and genocide.
Organizers have highlighted the company’s progressive image and marketing strategies designed to attract young consumers. Its celebrity endorsements include Samuel L. Jackson, Taylor Swift, and Jennifer Garner, and the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., has secured the bank’s position in the entertainment space.
The primary public call to action for the Eject Elbit campaign is for those banking with either Capital One or Discover to cancel their card. The campaign has released guidelines for how to identify alternative banks, switch finances over to a new bank and card, and close accounts with Capital One. The campaign site also allows participants to send a letter directly to Capital One notifying them of why they are cancelling their account.
For those who may not be Capital One or Discover members but are still interested in taking action, Burke said there are a host of digital actions that can help work toward the goal of toxifying Capital One’s brand and bring greater awareness to its partnership with Elbit. That includes calling Capital One and flooding its phone lines or posting about its partnership with Elbit online and within the comments section of its social media posts.
“[Capital One] is a national mass media marketing machine,” Burke said. “They had the Vikings commercials, the ‘What’s in your wallet?’ stuff, and now they’re investing big in cafes and lounges. I think what really matters to this company is their brand, and so making their brand toxic and associating them with genocide is a really powerful thing. They want to be everywhere, and so everywhere where they are, their reputation of genocide should follow them.”
Tamar Sarai is a features staff reporter at Prism
