In March 2023, the Sierra Club sponsored a “nature outing” to Israel that willfully ignored ongoing Israeli settler colonialism, Israel’s illegal military occupation, and its brutal siege on Gaza.
Although the Sierra Club canceled a similar trip last year after meeting with a coalition of Palestinians, Indigenous leaders from Turtle Island, and Jewish and Black allies, it failed to come through on its commitment to cancel future trips.
These trips support Israeli apartheid and Israel’s abuses of the Palestinian people. They are part of Israel’s greenwashing strategy to cover up settler colonialism and environmental destruction.
The reality is:
Israel commits water apartheid, where settlers use three to eight times as much water as the Palestinian people whose lands they occupy in the West Bank, redirecting water to prioritize Israeli settlers.
Only 11% of trees in Israeli forests are indigenous species. The rest are non-native species replanted by Israel to quickly take over land where lies the ruins of at least 182 destroyed Palestinian villages.
The Israeli state has designated much of Palestinian land stolen in 1948 as protected nature parks and reserves, similar to U.S. conservationists’ establishment of national parks on plundered native land. Colonization and erasure of Indigenous people is never green—it’s deadly greenwashing.
Sierra Club claims that it is promoting environmental justice by attempting to repair past harm toward Black and Indigenous communities. However, it cannot make this claim if it excludes Palestinians who are still being ethnically cleansed by the state of Israel.
Click to learn more about greenwashing in Palestine
Download: Environmental Justice Includes Palestine
TAKE ACTION
► Email Sierra Club board members at board.liaison@sierraclub.org and ask “Please cancel Sierra Club sponsored trips to Israel until Israel ends its: apartheid laws that discriminate against Palestinians and violations of Palestinian human rights.”
► Ask the Sacramento Chapter of the Sierra Club to discuss this issue. To date, they have refused, claiming it is a national issue only. Email: SacramentoSierraClub@gmail.com
Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights 