I invest in Portland. Must I pass a test on Israel?

Ireland recently purchased a €53 million (about $61 million) government aircraft without FalconEye, an Israeli-made enhanced-vision system used in poor visibility. Ireland reportedly omitted it under a policy against purchasing Israeli defense products.

Then reality entered the procurement office. New Irish military helicopters reportedly retained Israeli flight systems because practical substitutes were unavailable.

Ireland had discovered an adaptable moral principle: no Israeli technology, unless the government actually needs it.

Until this week, I did not know the city where I live and invest was contemplating its own experiment in economic purity.

That admission is embarrassing. I had spent months writing about Zohran Mamdani’s democratic-socialist politics in New York and watching similar movements elsewhere. Meanwhile, half of Portland, Oregon’s 12-member City Council had signed a nationally coordinated pledge to investigate the city’s alleged economic and infrastructural “complicity” with Israel. Four belong to the Democratic Socialists of America, whose local organization says its councilors “coordinate like a party” and “frequently vote as a bloc.”

The most unsettling fact in this article may be that I did not know to look.

The pledge contemplates formal or informal investigations into weapons manufacturing and transportation, investments and contracts, port and logistics activity, and diplomatic relationships. One councilor’s official release says the objective is to “leverage municipal power” and prepare for concrete policy.

I am a nonobservant Jew. My Zionism is not an endorsement of every Israeli government. It is my belief that the Jewish people require and are entitled to a homeland. I also invest in commercial real estate, including in Portland.

That combination raises a practical question: How might an investigation of Israeli “complicity” affect people who need to do business with government?

Real estate makes the issue unusually concrete. A code-compliant permit may be an entitlement. Rezoning, tax exemptions, public financing, incentives, public contracts and development partnerships involve political discretion. These decisions often determine whether a project proceeds.

No Portland law currently prevents me from investing because I am a Zionist. No application asks my position on Israel. The city has not proposed an Israel-related certification. Alarm is not evidence, and those distinctions matter.

But an investigation is designed to produce definitions, and definitions can acquire consequences. Zionism may be classified as a political position rather than a religious identity. A government could therefore insist that it protects me as a Jew while treating my belief in Jewish national self-determination as objectionable conduct.

Any eventual test would not be titled “Zionist Loyalty Oath.” Modern government has better stationery than that. It might appear as a responsible-contractor certification, a human-rights disclosure or a noncomplicity statement.

The mechanism already exists on the other side of this political fight. Arkansas requires certain public contractors to certify that they are not boycotting Israel. A divided federal appeals court upheld the requirement as a regulation of commercial conduct rather than political speech. Portland has proposed no reverse certification, but Arkansas demonstrates how Israel-related conduct can become a condition of public business.

Portland is separately developing the relevant policy machinery. In December 2025, its council adopted an investment resolution calling for options for an Ethical Investment Policy, including possible screening for involvement in armed conflict, genocide, war crimes and other human-rights abuses. The resolution had broad support, not merely socialist votes. The resulting policy options are due for public presentation by August 31 of this year.

Governments have a legitimate interest in ethical investment and procurement. Companies are already screened for forced labor, sanctioned regimes, weapons and environmental damage. Investigating the direct use of public assets in unlawful conduct is not inherently illegitimate.

The danger lies in an undefined theory of complicity applied to a country deeply integrated into global technology, finance and commerce.

Where does complicity stop? With a manufacturer knowingly supplying weapons to the Israeli military? Or with Intel because of its Israeli research and manufacturing? Amazon and Google because of cloud services? A bank financing those companies? A pension fund holding their shares? A real estate fund whose lender or investor appears somewhere in the chain?

As a passive limited partner, I am rarely the person seeking a permit. The more plausible risk is indirect. If sponsors, lenders or co-investors expect an Israel-related screen to reach something adjacent to a transaction, they may decide it is cheaper to avoid the question, and perhaps the Zionist investor, altogether. Markets route around political uncertainty long before courts resolve it.

Without standards of causation, materiality, notice and appeal, an investigation does not merely discover complicity. It can manufacture it.

Investigation produces definitions. Definitions produce lists. Lists produce exclusions. Exclusions can produce certifications.

I am not asking Portland’s government to endorse Israel, approve the conduct of the Gaza war or suppress Palestinian advocacy. I am asking it to define its terms before investigation hardens into policy.

What conduct qualifies as complicity? What causal connection is required? Will the inquiry be limited to weapons specifically destined for Israel, or will ordinary commerce count? Who places a company on a list, and how does it appeal? Could eligibility for contracts, financing or development partnerships eventually depend on an Israel-related certification?

The arithmetic could change in November. The pledge bloc holds six of twelve council seats, enough to tie but not to govern. All six seats in Portland’s Districts 3 and 4 are on the ballot this fall, and the DSA has endorsed the reelection of three of its incumbents. One additional seat converts a bloc into a majority.

Portland is the immediate case, but the campaign is nationally coordinated. The question will not remain local.

I intend to remain a Zionist and continue investing in my city. Its government need not share my beliefs. But citizens are entitled to know what their government is contemplating, and investors are entitled to know the rules before politics writes them.