Earth Day includes discussing environmental racism. #EndApartheid
On this #EarthDay (or Earth Month, rather) and every single one moving forward, please think of how Black and indigenous people are disproportionately harmed by #climatechange and #environmentalracism.
The very first Earth Day back in 1970 was the largest civic demonstration in history, when 20 million people across the US demanded action to protect the environment. Environmental racism acknowledges climate change and pollution can have disproportionately harmful social, economic, and public health impacts on marginalized populations (Earthday.org, 2024).
History tells us that the inaugural Earth Day was inspired by the anti-war protests that preceded it.
Palestine has always been an environmental justice issue. The escalation of genocide in Gaza… and the apartheid that robs Palestinians all over the occupied territories of their rights — both are harmful to people and planet.
Environmental apartheid refers to Israel’s systematic exploitation of the environment in Palestine/Israel and the discriminatory system by which Palestinians are dispossessed of their land, water, and other natural resources while being disproportionately impacted by ecological damage caused by Israel. Israel’s environmental apartheid is harmful to the climate and violates the human rights of Palestinians, and is part of Israel’s broader system of apartheid against Palestinians, both inside Israel’s internationally recognized borders and in the territories it has militarily occupied since 1967 (the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza). To detract attention from its abuses of Palestinian human rights, Israel engages in “greenwashing,” promoting itself as an eco-friendly country even as its policies and actions cause tremendous harm to the environment and to Palestinians. (IMEU, 2022)
In the words of Céline Semaan, founder of SLOW FACTORY, “Palestine is one of the most egregious examples of human rights and environmental injustices, perpetuated by the most powerful global forces of militarisation & wars for resources and extraction.”
Under international law, as the occupying entity, the occupation of Palestinian land, water, and other natural resources is illegal.
Ethnic Cleansing and the Stealing of Natural Resources
Israel’s failure to ensure Palestinian residents have a sufficient supply of clean, safe water for drinking and other domestic uses constitutes a violation of its obligations to respect and fulfill the right to water (Amnesty International, 2019).
Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian human rights NGO based in Ramallah, submitted a report to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2021. The report, Climate Oppression: A Major Tool to Establish and Maintain Israel’s Apartheid Regime over the Palestinian People and Their Lands, captures a lot of the evidence and examples of environmental apartheid. See below for some excerpts.
- Over the past few decades, the only source of freshwater in Gaza is the coastal aquifer that underwent heavy over-extraction, wastewater pollution and seawater intrusion due to rising sea levels. Some 95% of Gaza water has been deemed undrinkable as of 2020. The low quality of water consumed by the local communities aggravates the occurrence of gastro-intestinal diseases. Israel’s water exploitation, with its induced consequences on the availability of water in both quality and quantity, impinges upon the right to water and sanitation recognized by the UN General Assembly Resolution 64/292, but also on the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, protected under Article 12(1) of the ICESCR.
- While neighboring settlements take advantage of unhindered access to electricity, the Israel, the Occupying Power makes the most of its full civilian and military control over zoning and planning to systematically deny Palestinians more than 98.5% of building permits, including of solar panels.
- The Jewish National Fund-led afforestation projects are branded by Israel as “a major tool to combat climate change.” However, the JNF, a semi-State body, is a key agent in implementing Israel’s expanding colonization of Palestinian lands. From 15 to 19 August 2021, severe and extensive wildfires destroyed 2,000 hectares of European pine tree forests planted in the outskirts of Jerusalem. As the blaze abated, the landscape rigged with burnt trees revealed the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed and ethnically cleansed during the Nakba, and their adjacent 400- year-old agricultural terraces that used to be planted with native tree species, including fig and olive trees and vines.
- Climate change-provoked agricultural hardships strongly impact female employment in the Gaza Strip, amounting to 14.6% of the total workforce, often to carry out traditional male tasks due to Israel’s occupation. As such, Israel infringes on its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), especially their right to “enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply […],” as per Article 14(h).
- Israel’s denial of access to Palestinians and along with its pillage of natural resources has accelerated climate oppression. For example, in the occupied Gaza Strip, 20% of arable land is limited from use within the Israeli-imposed buffer zone near the apartheid fence, which leading to a deterioration in food insecurity. Overexploitation of Palestinian natural resources in the occupied Palestinian territory contributes to the exhaustion of non-renewable resources and the exacerbation of climate change-related endangerment of fragile ecosystems.
7 examples of the ecological apartheid are described in this 90 second video by @imperfectHippie on Instagram:
More from IMEU’s report, “Israel’s Environmental Apartheid in Palestine”
- Israel’s theft of Palestinian water causes severe environmental damage. Since 1967, Israel has consolidated complete control over all Palestinian water sources in the occupied territories. Israel’s over-extraction of Palestinian water sources has caused a drop in the water table and a distortion in the natural flow of groundwater, increasing vulnerability to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, which damage Palestinian agricultural and residential areas. Over time, Israel has also degraded the water quality of the single largest source of freshwater, the Sea of Galilee, by clearcutting 25,000 acres of native wetlands and draining Lake Hula to make room for farming settlements.
- In the occupied territories, the Israeli government and its settlers target Palestinian olive groves as a way to force Palestinians off their land. Since 1967, Israel has uprooted at least 2.5 million trees in the occupied territories, including nearly one million olive trees, which are a primary source of food and income for many Palestinians. Israeli settlers backed by the army frequently attack Palestinian farmers and their supporters during the olive harvest; between August 2020 and August 2021, Israeli soldiers and settlers destroyed more than 9,000 Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank. The widespread destruction of olive trees is a key strategy in Israel’s efforts to push Palestinians off their land and expand illegal settlements, and has led to habitat fragmentation, desertification, land degradation, rapid urbanization, and soil erosion.
Military Occupation & Settler colonialism perpetuate both genocide and ecocide
Per @jewishvoiceforpeace, 2 weeks ago:
“The Israeli military has relentlessly bombed farmland in Gaza and killed Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers. This is intentional. This is ecocide. This is creating conditions of long-term famine.
The Israeli military is targeting Palestinians during peak planting season crops that are meant to feed Palestinians for the coming year. This constitutes “ecocide” — the deliberate environmental damage resulting from an excessive attack that causes long-term and severe harm to the natural environment.
The Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC) estimates that the Israeli military completely destroyed nearly a quarter of northern Gaza’s farms at the beginning of its attacks last fall. Airstrikes deliberately razed crucial farming infrastructure, including greenhouses. They also destroyed 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleets, ruining another food source for Palestinians in Gaza.
PARC’s Director of Operations, Hani Al Ramlawi, told @oxfaminternational: “These next two months should be the golden time of production. However, if farms haven’t already been destroyed, then they have been made impossible to access, because any farmer trying to do so will be directly targeted by Israeli forces. And without water, and without electricity farmland means nothing.” @forensicarchitecture proves that the Israeli government’s aerial herbicide spraying in Gaza systematically destroys nearby farms.
As the Israeli government restricts humanitarian aid to Gaza, the absence of local agricultural production exacerbates malnutrition and hunger, increasing the risk of starvation for all people trapped in northern Gaza.
@UNEP is also reporting how Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza are contaminating soil and water with hazardous materials like asbestos and industrial chemicals, endangering ecosystems for years to come.”
Israel’s military is fueling a massive environmental and health crisis that will devastate the land and people of Gaza for years to come. This content was made by @environment.
“In the first 60 days after Oct. 7, an estimated 281,000 metric tons of carbon were generated.
Israel deployed over 25,000 tons of bombs- the equivalent of 2 nuclear bombs- on Gaza by November, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
These bombings have killed thousands of Palestinians and heavily polluted the air. These airstrikes have also destroyed and polluted much of the farmland in Gaza, which will cause problems for decades.”
To learn more about how the military’s pollution of water, air, and land has further killed Palestinians in Gaza, visit the link above for the original post.
On October 9, 2023, Movement Generation shared this statement: Israel’s 75-year illegal occupation and apartheid regime must end.
The US government must cut off its billions of dollars of military funding to Israel. We support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel.
Israel has robbed the 2 million people living in Gaza — half of whom are children — of their energy and water sovereignty, and today they have cut off these resources to the city.
Movement Generation honors, unconditionally, Palestinians’ right to decolonization and self-determination. Ecological justice can only be realized when we restore Indigenous sovereignty and Black liberation worldwide.
When Palestine is free, we will all be free. From the river to the sea, Palestine WILL be free.
💧🍊🫒🌳🍉🍓🌿💧🍊🫒🍉🍓🌿 TAKE ACTION! 💧🍊🫒🍉🍓🌿💧🍊🫒🌳🍉🍓🌿
Call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and an end to the brutal military occupation.
> US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ toolkit with various actions you can take such as e-mailing your legislators and tweeting the US agencies that can stop the genocide. www.uscpr.org/StopGazaGenocide
> Get involved with Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN): https://linktr.ee/apnorg
Sources:
- IMEU. Israel’s Environmental Apartheid in Palestine. 2022. https://imeu.org/article/environmental-apartheid-in-palestine
- Amnesty International. “Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law.” 2019.
- Al-Haq. Climate Oppression: A Major Tool to Establish and Maintain Israel’s Apartheid Regime over the Palestinian People. 2021
- Al-Haq, “Water Scarcity” in the OPT: A Man-Made Disaster in Need of a Rights-Based Solution,” March 2012, www.alhaq.org/advocacy/6907.html
- UNGA, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), 16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3, Article 12(1), https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx
- Visualizing Palestine. Between a Rising Tide and Apartheid. (Infographic). 2022. https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/between-rising-tide-and-apartheid/
- Science for the People Magazine. https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol23-1/an-environmental-nakba-the-palestinian-environment-under-israeli-colonization/
- Shut it Down NYU. “Environmental Apartheid in Palestine.” www.instagram.com/p/C2Sgh5URymW/
- Shut it Down NYU. “Water Apartheid in Palestine.” www.instagram.com/p/C2tAdK4Jh_x
- Slow Factory. “Climate Justice is a Geopolitical issue.” www.instagram.com/p/C52uf1fO-9d/
- Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). “Ravaging the land.” April 2024. www.instagram.com/p/C5VyfhUACze
- @Herban.Cura. Resisting Israel’s Ecological Apartheid. www.instagram.com/p/C4tOz2qSZnf/
- @environment. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4IwzCguLzl/
- Metras Global. “Breathing the Genocide: Israeli Destruction of Gazan Environment.”