Summary: New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli should heed the calls that he divest the state’s Common Retirement Fund from Israel Bonds.

Author’s Note: The Daily News and Times Union both passed on earlier versions, and I never heard from Truthout, so I went ahead and self-published on the Imby platform.

Tom DiNapoli is seeking re-election as New York State Comptroller with $332.5 million of the state’s Common Retirement Fund (CRF) tied up in Israel Bonds in fiscal year 2024-2025. The Comptroller’s website states that the CRF strives for “the highest standards for ethics and investment management.” Yet, DiNapoli has responded to calls for divestment from Israel Bonds by minimizing the significance of the issue and talking about his fiduciary duty. He is failing New Yorkers on both counts.

Through DiNapoli’s investments of New Yorkers’ money in Israel Bonds, New York State is loaning the Israeli government funds that Israel then uses to commit grave human rights violations against Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. And Israel’s military has extended its attacks to civilians in Lebanon and Iran.

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, among others, have identified Israel’s actions in Gaza as meeting the threshold for genocide.

In addition, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, among others, have found that Israel maintains a racially discriminatory system against Palestinians that amounts to apartheid.

On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory to be unlawful.

On January 30, 2026 Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) sent a cease and desist letter sent to Tom DiNapoli and other New York State and City officials, declaring that investments in Israel Bonds amount to a breach of the fiduciary duties owed by public officials with attendant litigation liability.

All of this is happening at a time when Americans, particularly Democrats and Independents, increasingly view Israel negatively. An October 2025 poll found that 76% of Democratic voters support a ban on extending credit to Israel through the purchase of Israel Bonds and 75% oppose renewing annual U.S. weapons funding to Israel. Both challengers for the June 23 Democratic primary, Raj Goyle and Drew Warshaw, have called for divestment. In our community, the Hudson Common Council passed a resolution last Fall calling on Comptroller DiNapoli to stop buying Israel Bonds, the first city in New York to pass such a unique divestment resolution.

On September 25, 2025, I testified at a public hearing of the New York State Commission on Public Ethics and Lobbying in Government alleging that Comptroller DiNapoli has violated sections 3(c), 3(f) and 3(h) of the Public Officers Law §74 (Code of Ethics). The testimony was made on behalf of Break the Bonds New York State (BTBNYS), a grassroots coalition of New Yorkers calling on DiNapoli to divest from Israel Bonds.

Specifically, BTBNYS argued that the Comptroller has selectively disclosed information about investments in Israel Bonds to the Development Corporation of Israel, the U.S. underwriter of such bonds, information that his office claimed was confidential in response to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. Second, the Comptroller has created the impression of being susceptible to outside influence, making a February 2024 trip to Israel that was organized and paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York which receives institutional donations from Israel Bonds (an issue covered by The Intercept on June 1, 2026). Finally, the Comptroller has violated the public trust by investing in opaque, high-risk securities, that are traded through private placements and for which there is no secondary market. This, at a time when Israel’s credit rating has been downgraded by the Big Three credit rating agencies: twice by Moody’s and S&P, and once by Fitch. According to Moody’s, Israel’s credit rating now sits at Baa1, the lowest in its history, putting Israel Bonds just three notches above junk bonds.

An analysis of the Comptroller’s public financial disclosures by BTBNYS’s Research Working group found that, in fiscal year 2024-25, 76% of all foreign sovereign bonds held in the CRF were issued by Israel, with Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Jordan making up the balance. Such a heavy concentration in Israel Bonds is not an effective strategy for diversification, especially when many other advanced economies have higher credit ratings than Israel.

In response to calls for divestment from Israel Bonds in May 2025, DiNapoli argued that New York’s investments go back decades and are less than one percent of the CRF. DiNapoli noted the “devastating situation in the Middle East and loss of innocent life on both sides” but said his “fiduciary duty is to manage the Fund in the best interests of our pensioners, present and future, not based on the politics of the moment.”

Certainly, the “politics of the moment” were all over the Comptroller’s press release of October 13, 2023 announcing the purchase of $20 million in Israel Bonds to “help support one of our nation’s strongest allies.”

Lest it be forgotten, following his fifth trip to Israel in 2015, Tom DiNapoli condemned the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, citing it as his motivator for making the trip, saying BDS doesn’t make sense from a moral or investor perspective.

On the April 30, 2026 edition of Inside City Hall, Tom DiNapoli was asked about a call to divest from Israel Bonds. His response was that Israel Bonds have been part of the portfolio for 40 years and they have performed well. “We’re not doing anything very different from other public pension funds,” said DiNapoli. He added that most government bond holdings in the fund are U.S. Treasuries. “We’re not endorsing the Israeli government. When we buy U.S. securities, I’m certainly not endorsing Donald Trump or his policies.”

Is DiNapoli unaware that there have been several successful Israel Bonds divestment campaigns across the country in Maryland, North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota? Eight counties in Ohio and Portland, Maine have pledged to divest their holdings in Israel Bonds in response to local campaigns, as part of broader divestment efforts.

Clearly, from the downgrades of Israel’s credit rating, Israel Bonds are not risk free. Nor are they as liquid as U.S. Treasuries. It’s also evident that Tom DiNapoli has continued to invest in them for political reasons, notwithstanding his claims that the decisions were solely for financial reasons.

Interestingly, DiNapoli’s response on Inside City Hall came immediately after he had responded to a question about divesting from Palantir for helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DiNapoli defended the investments in companies like Palantir that have government contracts with ICE as part of a broad strategy of passive investments in index funds. He said: “I do not support the tactics of ICE at all…What we saw in Minneapolis is completely unacceptable.” He also said he had written to Palantir saying “we’re very concerned about human rights violations,” asking them to reconsider whether they should continue to have contracts with ICE. Is Mr. DiNapoli willing to express a similar degree of outrage by writing a letter to the Development Corporation of Israel about the human rights violations that the Israeli government commits on a daily basis with impunity?

Now is the time for Tom DiNapoli to walk the talk: follow ethical standards and responsibly manage the CRF by divesting from Israel Bonds.

Jim McCabe is a founding member of Columbia County for Palestine, a coalition member of BTBNYS.