Feb 22 Letter to Sierra Club
February 22, 2022
Dear Dan Chu and Sierra Club Board Members,
We write as strong supporters of The Sierra Club’s vital mission of protecting the environment, in order to express grave concern about three planned Sierra Club “outings” to Israel. By promoting a false image of Israel as environmentally-friendly, these trips erase both the existence of the Palestinian people and Israel’s systemic racism and discrimination against them, and greenwash Israel’s system of apartheid and its illegal colonization of occupied Palestinian and Syrian lands.
We call on the Sierra Club to recognize that Palestine is an environmental justice issue, and cancel these trips because they contradict the Sierra Club’s stated commitment to environmental justice, and undermine the struggle of Indigenous Palestinians for freedom.
The Sierra Club trips in question are Natural and Historic Highlights of Israel, March 15-28; Wings over Israel: Spring Migration, Nature, and Culture, March 29 - April 10; and Wings Over Israel: Birding, Nature, and Culture, no dates listed.
The trip itineraries include visits to occupied East Jerusalem and to Israel’s Qumran National Park, both in the occupied Palestinian territory. Tours of East Jerusalem will be held even as Israel escalates its violent campaign there, particularly in neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, to forcibly expel Palestinians from their homes for takeover by Israeli settlers.The itineraries also include stops in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and other areas, such as Al-Naqab (Negev desert) and Jaffa, where Israel is actively colonizing and ethnically cleansing Indigenous Palestinians. Yet the 7600-word descriptions of the three outings never mention Israel’s occupation, apartheid or settler-colonialism, and only make two glancing references to the Palestinian people, though Palestinians comprise over half the population in the area the trips will visit.
The Sierra Club’s failure to acknowledge Israel’s systematic violence and repression in any way is especially notable given that this month Amnesty International solidified a growing global consensus by joining Palestinians, South Africans, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem in confirming that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
In contrast with the global human rights community, The Sierra Club is instead reinforcing racist Israeli myths that European Zionsts established a state on “A land without a people” and “made the desert bloom.” The trip descriptions tout Israel’s success “in preserving significant spaces for nature reserves, forests, and national parks”, noting that, “Today Israel has 190 nature preserves and 66 national parks, covering an area of approximately 20% of Israel’s land mass.”
But Israel’s apartheid and colonization are not green. As Visualizing Palestine notes, Israel uses parks, nature reserves and forests to conceal the ruins of depopulated Palestinian villages, appropriate land and curtail Palestinian access and development. 182 Palestinian villages that were depopulated by Israel are concealed in Israeli parks and forests, preventing refugees from returning
Only 11% of trees in Israeli forests are indigenous species due to Zionist groups planting of vast areas with non-native species. On top of this, Israel has uprooted over 800,000 native olive trees owned by Palestinians as part of its settler-colonial project.
Today in Al-Naqab (Negev), a region the Sierra Club will visit, Israel is using tree planting under the guise of environmental protection and climate change mitigation as the justification for seizing the land and bulldozing the homes of Indigenous Bedouin Palestinians in villages like Al-Atrash, and Al-Araqib, despite large-scale protests. Israel has now demolished Al Araqib over 190 times.
The Sierra Club states that “limited water supply has been a very major and controversial issue for the country,” but overlooks the devastating issue of water apartheid whereby the Israeli state purposely redirects water sources away from Palestinian communities and makes them available for the use of Israeli settlers. Reports indicate that “settlers in the Jordan Valley consume 81 times more water per capita than Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.” Additionally, in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, less than 4% of the water is drinkable and the UN has declared that the water crisis caused by a brutal Israeli blockade and siege of the territory has made Gaza uninhabitable for its 2 million residents.
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) is featured in the descriptions of the trips, and is described as the “outfitter” and recipient of proceeds for one trip. In 2008, an Israeli environmental journalist criticized SPNI’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, writing, “The combination of almost total disregard for environmental issues beyond the Green Line and of providing educational support for the settlement enterprise through field school activities is turning SPNI into an active partner in the occupation.” SPNI continues to promote its “field school” in Israel’s illegal settlement of Ofra, built on Palestinian land deep inside the West Bank in violation of international law. SPNI also does not recognize Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
By organizing trips that erase Palestinians’ very existence, visit Israeli-occupied territory, and promote Israel’s greenwashing, the Sierra Club is violating Palestinian civil society’s call “on all international visitors … to do no harm to our nonviolent struggle for our rights under international law.”
The trips also make a mockery of The Sierra Club’s stated commitment to “foster the growth of the environmental justice movement so that oppressed communities will find justice and everyone can experience the benefits of a healthy and sustainable future.”
The Sierra Club must therefore cancel these and any similar, future planned trips.
For people who want to learn more by visiting, Eyewitness Palestine organizes delegations, including “Land & the Environment: From Confiscation to Self-Determination”, that do not greenwash Israel’s repression, and that comply with the Palestinian call for ethical tourism. The Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network- Friends of Earth Palestine is also an excellent resource on these issues.
We would be happy to respond to any questions that you may have about these concerns, and look forward to your response by Monday, February 28th.
Organizational signers:
Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel
Jewish Voice for Peace
NDN Collective
Palestinian Youth Movement-NYC
