Above photo: Protest against Elbit having offices in Cambridge take their message July 3 to Harvard Square from Central Square. Matthew Sage.
Weekly protests wear on over actions by Israel.
The Cambridge office of KMC Systems, a subsidiary of Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems, is virtually empty because “99.9 percent” of employees work from home, police say, and there are other signs that the company is leaving the city.
The building at 130 Bishop Allen Drive near Central Square that houses KMC has been targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrations for months. Despite workers going remote, protesters show up every Wednesday, Cambridge Police superintendent of operations Pauline Wells said Tuesday.
They are scheduling further weekly actions at the site. “We will continue organizing until Elbit Systems leaves Cambridge. Should Elbit leave their current offices at 130 Bishop Allen Drive, we advise other local real estate companies that Elbit is a difficult tenant. Where Elbit goes, disruptive community protests follow, as Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. has learned over the past year,” said BDS Boston on Friday.
BDS is short for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions,” a movement to exert political and economic pressure to end Israel actions against Palestinians in the Middle East.
About 25 to 30 demonstrators showed up this week chanting slogans such as “Elbit is not welcome here” and “Palestine will be free.” The protests have taken on a predictable choreography, with demonstrators on the sidewalk across Bishop Allen Drive from the building and standing in the Bishop Allen Drive roadway for most of the event, then walking onto busy Prospect Street. Police have often stopped traffic at neighboring intersections; on the most recent Wednesday they accompanied demonstrators as they walked along Prospect. Police have said their policy is to stop traffic and otherwise protect people engaging in peaceful protest.
Other building occupants – tenants include Reed Hilderbrand landscape architects, HMFH Architects and a coworking space called Workbar – have reportedly told protesters that the Cambridge Elbit space is no longer being used, and that the company is looking for another location.
As a result, how much longer police must put resources into safety during the weekly rallies is unclear. The lease ends in 2025, according to Compstak, a crowdsourced commercial real estate database that has been quoted occasionally in media such as The New York Times and Washington Post.
Current job openings listed on KMC’s website for the region are for Merrimack, New Hampshire. While there are plenty of Elbit jobs listed on the LinkedIn job site, similarly none are for positions in Cambridge.
KMC and the building management company, Intercontinental Real Estate, did not respond to voicemail messages. A guard in the building lobby tried to have police remove a reporter who was asking employees entering the building whether KMC was still there, saying the reporter was harassing employees. All workers who were questioned said they didn’t know whether KMC was still there; one said the floor where it has an office is physically separated from other floors in the building, so people would ordinarily have no contact with Elbit employees.
Protest aftermath
KMC makes and designs equipment used in biomedical research and production. After Elbit acquired the company, it opened its Cambridge office in December 2021, with then-Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui welcoming the firm. A KMC official has suggested that there are “synergies” between KMC’s medical technology work and parent Elbit Systems’ work.
Meanwhile, seven of the nine demonstrators arrested at the Cambridge building Oct. 30 after a protest turned violent reached agreements with prosecutors to have charges dismissed if they stay away from Elbit Systems offices and don’t commit another crime for six months. Police, who were outnumbered and surprised at the protest, said demonstrators struck them with eggs and paint, deployed smoke bombs, and tried to prevent officers from making arrests. Protesters said police started the violence.
The demonstrators who obtained deals with prosecutors faced a range of charges, including disorderly conduct, assaulting a police officer and vandalism.
The two defendants whose cases remain are Calla Walsh, 19, of Cambridge, facing two vandalism charges stemming from the Oct. 30 protest and an earlier incident; and Sophie Ross, 23, of Housatonic, who was charged with disorderly conduct and vandalism. District Court Judge David Frank ruled earlier that evidence of vandalism by Ross was “insufficient” because the police report of Ross’ arrest didn’t show that an egg she threw actually struck the Elbit building and “caused a scratch or other damage.”