In the waning days of December, a small group of pro-Palestine activists did what many people around the country were also doing—they went to the mall. Brier Creek Commons in Raleigh, North Carolina, is always busy with holiday shoppers close to Christmastime, and this year was no exception. However, the activists—members of Triangle BDS, the international Boycott Divest Sanctions (BDS) movement’s branch in what is known as the Research Triangle in central North Carolina—had another agenda. In a tucked-away portion of the shopping complex, a military technology corporation named Logos Technologies had quietly been churning out surveillance and sensor systems to be used both domestically and abroad—and the activists wanted the company out. 

Logos Technologies was purchased in 2022 by a subsidiary of Elbit Systems of America, the U.S. branch of the Israeli weapons company that manufactures up to 85% of the Israeli military’s land-based equipment and has been a prime target of pro-Palestine activists across the globe since the start of the genocide in Gaza. Raleigh activists also accuse Logos of providing aerial surveillance for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol, the U.S. military, and police departments. The company’s website boasts a laundry list of clients which include in the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the U.S military. 

Initially, the activists’ campaign, which began last spring, had seemed like a long shot. Logos had been operating in Raleigh for more than two decades, and its office— branded online as a center of the company’s research and development—sprawled thousands of square feet. 

However, in October, following outcry and protests from local pro-Palestine organizers, the company removed the Raleigh branch’s listing from its website. Captures of the page on the Internet Archive show the Raleigh location still listed as late as Oct. 10, but the page now only shows Logos’ headquarters and one other office in Fairfax, Virginia. 

When activists went to check out the Raleigh offices shortly before Christmas, the door was open, and they went inside. They said they were met with bare walls, exposed insulation, and no Logos branding that was previously there. A construction crew who told the activists what they had already suspected: Logos was gone. 

“We physically saw with our eyes that the facility that they were previously operating in was totally vacated and totally gutted and under construction,” said Rosemary, a Triangle BDS organizer using a pseudonym due to fear of potential retaliation.

The reasons for Logos Technologies’ apparent departure from its Raleigh location are unclear. Logos did not respond to Prism’s repeated attempts to reach them via email and phone. The site’s landlord, American Asset Corporation, also did not respond to repeated phone calls to its Raleigh offices inquiring about its lease with Logos Technologies.

Indirect pressure tactics

The campaign to target Elbit was launched by Palestine Action activists in the United Kingdom in 2020 and since then, has managed to force the company to vacate a few locations. Activists across the globe also took up the cause in 2023, but success within the U.S. has been rare. One of the only instances of the company moving out of an embattled location occurred in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Elbit left its office following months of protests spearheaded by the BDS movement in the Boston area. Notably, the campaign against Elbit in Cambridge adopted a strategy of targeting not just the company itself, but also the landlord who owned the building Elbit operated out of. According to Rosemary, the movement in Raleigh also decided to indirectly pressure Logos by targeting the American Asset Corporation.  

“Elbit’s not going to suddenly stop being Elbit if we go and yell at them,” Rosemary told Prism. “But this other target, the landlord, is probably more movable and more vulnerable.” 

American Asset Corporation owns the Briar Creek corporate center and commons, a development that expands more than 770,000 square feet and contains hundreds of offices and shops. Organizers from Triangle BDS and its partner groups left flyers on cars throughout the shopping mall every week and organized protests outside of American Asset Corporation’s offices in Raleigh. 

“We know directly from American Asset employees who talked to us that they were very afraid of the flyering,” said Rosemary, recalling one conversation with company employees during a protest. “American Asset Corporation had never been protested before, and all of a sudden you get call-in days, people showing up at their office, people flyering all their properties. [It] really spooked them.” 

Activists also staged outside of the landlord’s headquarters in Charlotte, flyered employee vehicles, and launched a social media offensive that publicized the company’s connections with Logos Technologies and Elbit Systems.  

Samira Haddad, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement in North Carolina, which helped support the Triangle BDS campaign, said that the decision to pressure a “secondary target” rather than the company itself was instrumental to the movement’s success. 

“They don’t really care about who is renting their office space,” Haddad told Prism. “If they see that having this corporation is problematic and is causing them a headache, then that makes them make a decision where they say, ‘Hey, we don’t want you renting here anymore.’” 

International movement to target Elbit

Another potential factor in Logos’ departure is the wider campaign of protest, sabotage, and disruption that has targeted Elbit and its subsidiaries across the world. Rosemary believes that direct action from the wider Elbit campaign may have played a role in Logos Technologies’ exit from the property. 

“I think that one of the reasons the campaign won is because Logos knows how militant and how well-organized the movement against Elbit is,” he told Prism. “That’s one of the reasons they might have folded. 

Activists in the U.K. and New Hampshire have carried out actions that include destroying equipment inside Elbit locations and spraying its buildings with red paint. In the U.K., four Palestine Action activists started a hunger strike two months ago after being imprisoned for alleged break-ins at a subsidiary of Elbit Systems and a Royal Air Force base. Last year, the U.K. government proscribed Palestine Action, classifying it as a “terrorist” group and arresting more than 2,000 people on terror charges for actions as simple as holding up signs in support of the activist movement.

Elbit Systems employs more than 20,000 people and generated a revenue of nearly $7 billion in 2024. Executives at Sparton, the Elbit subsidiary that purchased Logos, said in a 2022 statement announcing the deal that Logos’ engineering offices in North Carolina’s Research Triangle offered “new geographic markets for [Elbit’s] combined operations,” where the company can “attract and employ top engineering talent.” 

“We are very excited to join the Elbit Systems of America team,” Logos President John Marion said in the statement. “They are a major player in the defense and homeland security industry, and the Sparton purchase gives us access to new resources, connections, and contracts, giving our solutions greater reach.”

Raleigh activists claim victory

A lack of confirmation regarding a corporate lease termination is not unheard of. Following its departure from Cambridge, Elbit never confirmed the exact reason for the move, but did state that the company “regularly makes real estate decisions that best serve our company and our employees.” However, Haddad believes that the lack of clarity from the company and its former leaseholder is designed to avoid encouraging further dissent. 

“They’re not going to say that the reason is due to political pressure or the campaign,” she said.

Even amid uncertainty, activists in North Carolina are claiming victory in their struggle to push Elbit out of the region. 

“Genocidal weapons companies like Elbit prefer to operate in the shadows, hiding behind subsidiaries and shell companies that use unassuming names,” Triangle BDS wrote in a Dec. 22 statement. “This campaign shows that by shedding light on their operations, and directly confronting the corporate partners who enable them, it is possible to shut down Elbit and the other corporations who are arming Israel and providing tech to I.C.E.”

While Logos’ future in North Carolina remains unclear, pro-Palestine activists in the state say they don’t plan on settling down. 

“It’s a very, very critical time for us … to ensure that we continue dismantling the supply and stopping—really wherever we can—the supply chain of weapons,” Haddad said. 

In its statement, Triangle BDS made its future intentions regarding Logos and Elbit clear: “If they dare return to Raleigh, we will take action to shut them down again.”

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