In the weeks following the deadly October 7 attack on Israel, while the US provided billions in military aid to its closest ally in the Middle East, many state and local governments demonstrated their support through a lesser-known financial mechanism: investing in Israeli bonds.

Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague quickly announced an additional state investment of 20 million dollars in bonds, which are sold around the world to finance Israel's government. "The time has come to support Israel," he said in a statement. Joseph Abruzzo, finance director of Palm Beach County in Florida, pledged another 160 million dollars in October alone.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, US states and municipalities have bought more than 1.7 billion dollars in Israeli bonds, with both Democratic and Republican officials promoting the investments as acts of solidarity with Israel. A new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists gives us an unprecedented glimpse inside the sophisticated sales operation of Israel Bonds, the bond seller that has for years cherished many of these same officials, which may raise questions of ethics.

Thousands of pages of emails and other records obtained by ICIJ reveal Israel Bonds' close relationship with institutional investors in the US and how some officials who buy Israeli bonds have gained access to an often luxurious world of gala dinners, cocktail parties and private meetings with top Israeli leaders and senior military officials.

A spokesperson for Israel Bonds told ICIJ that the bonds are safe investments with stable returns and described the group's sales strategy as "like any other business". But ethics experts say these deals aren't always so straightforward.

"These kinds of practices, the mixing of the personal and the official, seem to go far beyond what is considered acceptable," said Richard W. Painter, a law professor who was chief ethics lawyer for the White House during the George W. Bush administration. Read more here(ICIJ)