Political Audit: JPMorgan Chase

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

In the days following October 7, 2023, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and the bank’s executive committee circulated company-wide memos stating “This past weekend’s attack on Israel and its people and the resulting war and bloodshed are a terrible tragedy” and “We stand with our employees, their families and the people of Israel during this time of great suffering and loss,” with a separate memo adding “Terrorism and hatred have no place in the civilized world” ¹²³⁴. On the same day, in Q3 2023 earnings commentary, Dimon called the moment “the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades,” linking the Israel-Hamas war to the war in Ukraine as compounding geopolitical risk ¹². No public evidence identified of any JPMorgan statement referencing Palestinian civilian casualties, Gaza humanitarian conditions, or a ceasefire in the corporate communications reviewed.

By comparison, Dimon has taken more explicit moral-political positions on other conflicts: on Ukraine he stated that “staying on the sidelines during battles of autocracy and democracy, between dictatorship and freedom, is simply not an option for America today. Ukraine is the front line of democracy,” and described Russia, Iran and North Korea as an “evil axis” ⁵. During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Dimon stated “We are watching, listening and want every single one of you to know we are committed to fighting against racism and discrimination wherever and however it exists,” and was photographed taking a knee with employees ⁶. No comparably explicit moral framing of this kind has been identified for the Israel-Gaza war; JPMorgan’s public commentary on Israel instead alternates between solidarity messaging and macroeconomic risk analysis, including warnings that “investors should pay more attention” to Israel’s budgetary risks, that judicial-overhaul plans posed a growing investment risk, and that Israel’s economic outlook during the 2026 Iran war would hinge on the conflict’s duration ⁷⁸⁹. JPMorgan’s Israel-market messaging is also framed commercially, emphasizing that the bank has been “committed to serving clients in Israel since the 1960s” and expanding its tech-sector banking presence ¹⁰¹¹. In 2025, JPMorganChase’s newly launched Center for Geopolitics published a Middle East report describing October 7 and the Gaza war as having “stalled” but not ended Israeli-Saudi normalization momentum, framing Saudi-Israel normalization contingent on “a credible path to Palestinian statehood” as the region’s “ultimate prize” ¹².

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

No public evidence identified of JPMorgan branches, dealerships, or subsidiary operations physically located within Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights; the bank’s reported Israel presence - a Tel Aviv office and a Herzliya technology center employing roughly 170–240 staff - sits within Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries ¹⁰¹¹¹³. A review of secondary reporting on the UN OHCHR settlement-business database found no naming of JPMorgan Chase among the enterprises listed under Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25 ¹⁴. On July 3, 2024, thirty UN Special Rapporteurs and working-group experts called on financial institutions and arms manufacturers - explicitly naming JPMorgan Chase alongside Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Vanguard, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman - to halt arms-related transfers and investments linked to Israel, warning of risk of “complicity in potential international crimes, including genocide”; JPMorgan Chase did not respond to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s invitation to comment ¹⁵¹⁶. JPMorgan Chase was named among institutional investors in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private weapons manufacturer, that UN experts identified as potentially exposed to complicity risk ¹⁶.

JPMorgan’s equity stake in Elbit Systems and its financing relationships with Israel-based university expansion projects have made it a recurring target of civil-society campaigns. SEC 13F filings show JPMorgan’s Elbit Systems holdings fell roughly 70% from about $54 million (253,678 shares) in Q4 2023 to about $16 million (76,567 shares) in Q1 2024, before rebounding to about $26 million (152,089 shares) in Q2 2024 and rising further to 193,561 shares by a subsequent quarter reported in a November 2025 filing alert; campaigners characterized the Q1 2024 decline as a partial, temporary effect of pressure that was later reversed ¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹. In June 2024, Palestine Action and allied European groups conducted a coordinated series of direct actions against JPMorgan offices, including smashed windows and red paint at its Edinburgh office over the Elbit investment ²⁰, a UK “week of action” covering Glasgow, Brighton, Manchester and Leeds ²¹, a broader report of vandalism at JPMorgan and Barclays UK buildings ²², and red paint and smashed windows at JPMorgan’s Lisbon headquarters under the slogan “JPMorgan finances genocide” ²³. On November 20, 2023, roughly 50 students and faculty from Columbia, NYU and CUNY staged a sit-in at JPMorgan’s Madison Avenue offices protesting the bank’s financing of Israel-based university expansion projects and alleging complicity via weapons-manufacturer investment ²⁴²⁵. No public evidence identified of JPMorgan issuing a direct public statement in response to the BDS/Elbit divestment campaign; the bank did not respond to media requests for comment in at least two of the investigative reports reviewed ²⁶¹⁸.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

On June 20, 2024, a JPMorgan private-equity employee was filmed removing a poster of Israeli hostages in New York City; JPMorgan placed her on leave pending investigation, stating “We do not tolerate violence, hate, divisiveness or discrimination… we initiate an investigation immediately,” while the advocacy group StopAntisemitism described the incident as “not the first instance of antisemitism from a JP Morgan employee” without providing further detail ²⁷. In 2024, more than 250 senior US financial-sector managers and executives - reported to include senior managers at JP Morgan - signed a pledge stating “We will not hire supporters of hate who participate in anti-Zionist activities on campuses and in the streets” and that “Supporters of hate will have no place in our organization,” though no specific JPMorgan-affiliated signatory was named in the sources reviewed ²⁸. No public evidence identified of a JPMorgan employee being disciplined or terminated specifically for pro-Palestinian speech or symbols, as distinct from the hostage-poster removal incident, which JPMorgan characterized as a Code of Conduct matter.

CAIR asked the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate JPMorgan Chase over closures of bank accounts held by U.S. Arab and Muslim customers, and CAIR-NY separately petitioned the New York City Banking Commission to exclude JPMorgan Chase (and Citibank) as city depository banks over allegedly “discriminatory banking and lending” ²⁹. On May 13, 2025, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander cast a formal protest vote against JPMorgan Chase’s city banking designation after “receiving troubling testimony about Muslim and Arab New Yorkers’ experiences of discrimination,” citing debanking that “disproportionately affects Muslim and immigrant communities”; the Banking Commission nonetheless approved the designation ³⁰. No public evidence identified of an algorithmic-moderation, editorial-stance, or platform content policy specific to Israel-Palestine content, as JPMorgan Chase is a financial institution rather than a media or platform company. No public evidence identified of settlement-origin product labeling or sourcing controversies applicable to JPMorgan, as the bank has no consumer product supply chain of the kind relevant to this sub-category.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

No public evidence identified of JPMorgan invoking Israeli military heritage or defense-sector ties in its own commercial branding; the bank’s Israel-market positioning instead emphasizes a technology and “innovation economy” partnership, citing its presence “since the 1960s,” an Athena trading platform, and a dedicated Innovation Economy banking team serving Israeli tech and venture-capital clients ¹⁰¹¹. In December 2019, Israel’s Finance Ministry announced JPMorgan as a primary dealer for Israeli government bonds, a formal state-financial-market designation that continued through the bank’s participation in underwriting Israeli sovereign “war bond” issuances between October 2023 and January 2025 ³¹³²²⁶. Jamie Dimon has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss expanding JPMorgan’s involvement in the country ¹¹. On March 23, 2011, Jeffrey Epstein arranged a meeting between JPMorgan investment-bank leadership and Netanyahu coinciding with a Knesset Finance Committee vote on gas taxation, and separately advised on the Leviathan gas-field financing in which JPMorgan (with HSBC) provided a $1.75 billion loan in November 2016 and underwrote a $2 billion Delek bond offering in April 2014 ³³. No public evidence identified of JPMorgan sponsoring “Brand Israel”-style cultural or public-relations campaigns, hosting Israeli government officials at JPMorgan facilities as a formal branded event, or accepting state honors from Israel.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

JPMorgan Chase maintains a corporate political action committee tracked by OpenSecrets, though the review did not surface Israel- or Middle East-specific lobbying disclosures distinct from its general lobbying activity ³⁴. In December 2022, As You Sow filed a shareholder resolution seeking “Disclosure of Incongruent Lobbying Activity” covering JPMorgan’s lobbying on LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive healthcare, climate and voting-rights issues, which received 32.1% shareholder support in 2023 ³⁵; a renewed lobbying-alignment disclosure proposal at the bank’s 2026 annual meeting received only 13.2% support ³⁶. A JPMorgan vice president, Shira Mazor, is listed as a 2018 “Convener” for the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based pro-two-state-solution advocacy organization ³⁷.

Tax records reviewed covering 2001–2016 show the JPMorgan Chase Foundation was among six corporate foundations - alongside Verizon, Pfizer, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and American Express - whose collective giving included over $15,000 to the One Israel Fund, which provides cash to West Bank settlements; over $6,300 to the Central Fund of Israel, which channels funds including to West Bank settlements; nearly $1,000 to American Friends of Elon Moreh, which supports the Elon Moreh settlement; and over $48,000 to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, which funds IDF “enrichment” activities including on army bases; JPMorgan-specific dollar amounts were not disaggregated, and the company did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment ¹⁸. In October 2023, JPMorgan committed an initial $1.5 million philanthropic contribution plus dollar-for-dollar employee-donation matching directed to Matan (Israel), American Friends of Magen David Adom (Israel), Doctors Without Borders USA, Mercy Corps, and UNICEF, the last three being Gaza-focused humanitarian channels ³⁸³⁹.

JPMorgan is named among seven banks - with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Barclays - that underwrote Israeli sovereign “war bonds” totaling $19.4 billion issued between October 7, 2023 and January 2025, though JPMorgan’s specific individual share was not disaggregated in the underlying research ³²²⁶. This underwriting role builds on JPMorgan’s Israeli-government primary-dealer status held continuously since December 2019 ³¹³². JPMorgan Chase’s 13F-reported Elbit Systems equity position fluctuated between roughly $16 million and $54 million across 2023–2024, with continued and increased holdings reported into late 2025 ¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹. As of a March 2026 report, the Trump administration and JPMorgan Chase were reportedly in negotiations for the bank to host a private banking account for the Gaza-reconstruction “Board of Peace” governance structure, with the Carnegie Endowment raising unresolved conflict-of-interest concerns tied to Donald Trump’s pending lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon and the absence of published oversight or auditing rules in the Board of Peace Charter ⁴⁰.

By comparison, in February 2023 JPMorgan signed a memorandum of understanding to advise Ukraine on post-war economic rebuilding, discussing a fund potentially seeded with $20–30 billion in private capital ⁴¹; JPMorgan, alongside BlackRock and McKinsey, has since worked on launching a Ukraine Reconstruction Bank with $500 million in committed capital toward a $1 billion catalytic-capital target, led a $20 billion Ukraine debt restructuring, and “committed millions of dollars in support for its refugees,” with Dimon stating the bank is “proud of our long-standing support of Ukraine” ⁴¹⁴². No public evidence identified of a comparably explicit, named, large-scale reconstruction-financing commitment or public solidarity statement by JPMorgan directed at Gaza; its documented Gaza-adjacent role is limited to prospective custodial banking services for the Board of Peace mechanism.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

No public evidence identified of a state “golden share,” sovereign ownership stake, or charter provision tying JPMorgan Chase’s corporate mission to the geopolitical goals of Israel or any other state. No public evidence identified of a founding mandate connecting JPMorgan’s mission to Israeli state infrastructure or defense objectives, beyond the general commercial banking, underwriting and primary-dealer relationships documented elsewhere in this audit.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

No public evidence identified of personal (as distinct from corporate-foundation) donations by Jamie Dimon or other named JPMorgan executives to FIDF, JNF/KKL, or settlement-linked organizations. Dimon’s Israel-Gaza commentary is documented through the October 2023 company memos ¹³, his October 2023 “Davos in the Desert” remarks in Riyadh urging Saudi Arabia to continue normalization efforts with Israel despite the war ⁴³, and his January 2024 Davos remarks referencing “terrorist activity in Israel” among top global risks while ranking Ukraine as a higher stated priority ⁴⁴. No public evidence identified of an op-ed or signed letter by Dimon specifically addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict, distinct from earnings-call and press remarks.

Phebe N. Novakovic, a JPMorgan Chase board member since 2020 and Chairman/CEO of General Dynamics, a major U.S. defense contractor with arms-export relationships, is separately identified in corporate-enablers analysis in both roles, though no direct evidence was found of Novakovic holding a board seat at an Israeli defense company or advocacy organization ⁴⁵⁴⁶. Shira Mazor, described as a JPMorgan vice president, is listed as a 2018 convener for the Israel Policy Forum, a mid-level employee affiliation not shown to extend to board or C-suite level ³⁷. No public evidence identified of any JPMorgan Chase board member or C-suite executive holding a board seat, advisory role, or leadership position in AIPAC, Christians United for Israel, FIDF, JNF/KKL, or explicitly anti-BDS advocacy organizations.

End Notes