Despite criticism from human rights groups and Palestine advocates, the Sierra Club has scheduled an educational trip to Israel for next spring.
“This active adventure includes hiking in a variety of nature and wildlife reserves, as well as walking tours of places like the Old City of Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Jaffa. Expect to walk or hike three to five miles a day,” the organization’s website explains. “We utilize experienced local guides. We will stay in very comfortable hotels, including several nights in a kibbutz with beautiful outdoor areas for relaxation.”
The trip includes stops on Palestinian and Syrian land, but its description does not acknowledge that these areas are illegally occupied by Israel.
Earlier this year the Sierra Club briefly canceled the trips in response to activist pressure. Part of that pressure included a letter to the environmental organization from nine social justice groups–Adalah Justice Project, Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace, NDN Collective, Palestinian Youth Movement-NYC, The Movement for Black Lives, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Visualizing Palestine.
“The trip descriptions tout Israel’s success ‘in preserving significant spaces for nature reserves, forests, and national parks’. But Israel’s apartheid and colonization are not green,” read the letter. “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.”
Activists began celebrating a win after Sierra Club National Outings team chair Mary Owens sent volunteers an email saying the trips were canceled, but the move was swiftly attacked by Zionist groups and pro-Israel organizations. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called it a “short-sighted and misguided decision” and Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the organization was caving to a “hit squad of anti-Israel propagandists.”
Soon there was a statement from Sierra Club Acting Executive Director Dan Chu affirming the group’s support for the trips, apologizing for their temporary cancelation., and implying that the concerns of activists might constitute antisemitism. “Recently, the Sierra Club hastily made a decision, without consulting a robust set of stakeholders, to postpone two planned outings to Israel,” explained Chu. “The process that led to this was done in ways that created confusion, anger, and frustration. Let me be clear: the Sierra Club’s mission is to enjoy, explore and protect the planet, and we do not take positions on foreign policy matters that are beyond that scope. We do not have a deep understanding or knowledge necessary to do so, nor is it our place to do so. Furthermore, we have and always will continue to loudly condemn anti-semitism and any and all acts of hate. We are committed to working more intentionally, thoroughly and thoughtfully so we can prevent this from happening again.”
The Sierra Club condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine days after Chu’s statement, despite his assertion that the group doesn’t take positions on foreign policy matters.
The new trip has been slightly modified from the original, as it now includes two meetings with Palestinians. The group also published a blog post aiming to justify the trips that references the backlash. “Our community gave us the opportunity to identify where we are not in alignment, leading us to pause and postpone the National Outing to Israel until we could engage with our various partners and address the issues presented in the itinerary,” it reads. “The decision to postpone was met with confusion, disappointment and frustration from many members of our community: our volunteer leaders who had been planning this trip for over a year, the trip participants who had already committed resources and time to the trip, and some of our Jewish community members who perceived our decision as a political statement, leading us to reinstate for March 2023 and commit to a reevaluation of future itineraries.”
These moves and explanations haven’t stopped the criticism from being reignited. “By moving forward with their trips to Israel, Sierra Club is completely ignoring the voices of Indigenous people from Palestine and Turtle Island, who’ve pointed out that such trips will greenwash Israel’s colonial destruction of native Palestinian land,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid told Mondoweiss.
“Environmental justice has no borders. We join our partners in condemning Sierra Club’s greenwashing trips to apartheid Israel.”
“While Israel continues bombing Gaza, pollutes water resources, burns olive trees, and prevents Palestinians from access to their land, there is no gray area,” reads a joint statement, from Adalah Justice Project and the NDN Collective, condemning the outing.
“Clearly, Sierra Club is only interested in buzz words while they continue to harm Indigenous communities,” wrote Adalah Justice Project in a separate Twitter thread. “It is sick that Sierra Club chose to announce this apartheid tour just days after Israel attacked Gaza yet again causing the death of 49 Palestinians, including 17 children.”
Mondoweiss reached out to the Sierra Club for comment but they hadn’t responded at time of publication.
Maybe it’s a small thing (or maybe not), but Palestinians have to take long, roundabout trips to get to and from places that are close together, burning fuel and polluting the atmosphere.
When I was there, we could see the place we were going. If there hadn’t been a checkpoint in the way, we could have walked there. But there was. So we took a twenty-minute trip by taxi.
So much for Israel’s vaunted greenness.
‘without consulting a robust set of stakeholders’
Guaranteed, anytime you see the word “robust” today — the new “rigorous” — you’re being served a plate of shit.
(“Honey! They say it’s going to be a robust contact-tracing system!”
“Okay. Well that should work!”)