SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 3: As Israeli attacks on Lebanon intensify, investors with Jewish roots as well as other Americans sympathetic to the Jewish state have started buying bonds issued by the government of Israel in a show of solidarity.

The government of Israel, which sets the amount of money to be raised through the bonds, has charged the Development Corp for Israel with raising $1 billion in 2006.The group has sold more than $25 billion in bonds since its inception in 1951.

Israel also has a loan guarantee program with the United States, under which it can obtain loans of up to $9 billion from bankers — often at lower rates and longer repayment periods because of the guarantees by the U.S. Treasury.

American Muslim groups have criticised investments from U.S. state and local governments in these bonds send the wrong message to Arab-Americans, Muslims and the Middle East in general. They said that bond investors, which include state, county and municipal governments, run the risk of looking like they’re taking sides in the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This issue is cropping up all over the country,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.

“Any time a particular government is engaged in violent attacks on its neighbours, I think it’s inappropriate and it creates the impression that government officials are taking sides in a political conflict.”

Last week, Arab-Americans in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, protested the county treasurer’s decision to purchase $5 million in Israeli bonds.