On the first day of COP28 on 30 November 2023, the activist collective OccupyCOP27 sent a letter entitled “What does Gaza have to do with the Climate Crisis?” to the following climate movements in Germany:
Ende Gelände, Fridays for Future Germany, Extinction Rebellion Germany, Die Letzte Generation, Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (ABL), Junge-ABL, Psychologists for Future, End Fossil Occupy & Sand im Getriebe.
In addition, the message was also shared on internal climate mailing lists. OccupyCOP27 did not receive a single response or even an acknowledgement of receipt of the letter.
In the meantime, the situation in Gaza has worsened and it is more urgent than ever for the climate movement to take a stand against the destruction.
The Israeli military is now preparing for a full scale military operation in Rafah, a city with a usual population of 280,000, which now hosts 1,9 million, after the Israeli military ordered civilians to flee there in light of their relentless bombing elsewhere.
The army is now giving the directives for everyone to leave the area. They have also ordered them not to try and return to their homes, or what remains of their homes. Meanwhile, the Egyptian army controlling the border south of Rafah has built an extra wall behind the existing wall and barbed wire to prevent anyone from crossing. 1,9 million people have nowhere to hide from the oncoming Israeli ground invasion.
Unless political leaders act now, the world will witness the Israeli military carry out an unprecedented slaughter of humans.
What lies at the heart of this military onslaught has been made clear in statements by multiple Israeli politicians in the past months, statements which the government of South Africa brought to the International Court of Justice, which in its emergency ruling recognized the likelihood of an intent of genocide by the Israeli government against Palestinians in Gaza. Since the court’s emergency ruling, Israel’s Prime Minister has only confirmed his plans of ethnic cleansing by calling for “all land from the Jordan River to the Sea to be controlled by Israel.”
Furthermore, since OccupyCOP27 sent its initial letter, the toll that the Israeli onslaught is having on the environmental habitat has far surpassed that moment.
– Since then, the Israeli military has proceeded to pump tunnels full of seawater, which its own scientists have warned would have devastating long-term consequences on the soil.
– The Israeli military has continued the use of globally banned white phosphorus, as witnessed by doctors countless times. This gas not only has devastating effects on the human body, but on the Earth, causing acid rain, and long-term destruction of soil and sea.
– Initial research has shown that the environmental catastrophe caused by the military operation has had extreme consequences on the environment. Just the first 60 days of Israel’s military response was equivalent to burning at least 150,000 Megatons of coal according to the report’s authors, is a very low estimate of the harm caused.
– Finally, there is the issue of Israel’s planned annexation of territory, which includes the gas fields off Gaza’s shores.
On 1 February, Ende Gelände, a civil disobedience movement occupying coal mines in Germany to raise awareness for climate justice, released the following message:
“Good news in the battle for gas: the US is stopping five LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas, n.d.R) projects for now, four of them with connections to Germany, which has a direct impact on the big fossil players like RWE, EnBW and Uniper. This is a great success for the local communities, who have been raising their voices against the export and profit from LNG for years! After all, the exploitation of LNG destroys their homes through fracking, their health and only fuels the climate crisis! In addition, there is of course always great joy when the big fossil players are hindered in selling their dirty lies with a green coat of paint. In addition to the neo-colonial patterns of exploitation, energy production through LNG has a more negative impact on the climate than coal. Now it is important to ensure that not another cent is put into the expansion of further LNG infrastructure!
No LNG worldwide!” (Translated by OccupyCOP27)
This is one of the primary issues we raised in our letter. Here a critical movement like Ende Gelände,a position it shares with all the movements listed above, has shown a deep hypocrisy by loudly calling “No LNG worldwide,” but saying nothing to the clear intent of Israel to take over the Gaza Strip with all its resources, including of course natural gas off its shores.
We urge Germany’s environmental movement not to exclude Israel as a perpetrator of environmental catastrophe from its “worldwide” campaign.
We call for you to step up, and call out your politicians, for the unprecedented destruction of the Earth for unmeasurable years to come, alongside the slaughter of the innocent population of the Gaza Strip.
As a critical climate movement you have the responsibility to join your voices in protest against this belligerent act of destruction of human life and natural habitat.
What follows is the letter OccupyCOP27 sent Germany’s climate movement in November which UntoldMag is publishing in full.
“What does Gaza have to do with the Climate Crisis?”
An open letter to the climate movement in Germany from OccupyCOP27
We are in the first days of COP28, a UN climate summit hosted by the UAE, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exploiters, and presided over by the head of a national oil company. As this dubious endeavor gets underway, the region is overshadowed by the catastrophe taking place in Gaza.
On 20 October one climate activist who, like no-one else this century, has shifted the world’s moral compass, held up a sign that read: “Stand With Gaza.” While many welcomed Greta Thunberg’s stance, many others in the climate movement disagreed with her message. The loudest condemnation came from here—Germany.
Green party co-leader Ricarda Lang condemned Greta for “misusing the absolutely necessary concern of climate protection”, while Fridays For Future Germany announced they were cutting all ties with the larger movement. Following this radical break, they wrote, “At Fridays for Future Germany we have made a clear decision: as a movement, we stand clearly against all antisemitism. We don’t make any compromises. We stand up for the protection of Jewish life – here and everywhere.” On 2 November, Ende Gelände responded similarly, writing, “A liberated society can only exist when we make no space for Antisemitism.”
For those of you reading this, we want to affirm that your movements’ commitment to opposing racism against Jews is vital, and highly admirable. And yet, these responses to Thunberg have dangerously echoed a widespread pattern of equating criticism of the politics of Israel with antisemitism.
German-American Jewish writer Deborah Feldman recently took to TV to affirm the legitimacy of speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza, telling Green vice chancellor Robert Habeck that Germany was guilty of repressing Jewish voices who challenged the state’s pro-Israel stance. “In this country you protect Jews selectively,” she accused him.
Writing later in the Guardian, Feldman reflected on Habeck’s reaction: “[He] tried his best, responding that while he understood that my perspective was one of admirable moral clarity, he felt that it was not his place as a politician in Germany, in the country that committed the Holocaust, to adopt that position. And so, at that moment, we arrived at a point in German discourse where we now openly acknowledge that the Holocaust is being used as justification for the abandonment of moral clarity.”
Read that last sentence twice. Let it sink in.
In the meantime, Greta Thunberg continues to be accused of “supporting terror,” for example because she is calling for a strike in solidarity with Gaza. A common question found in the comments on her post is, “what does Gaza have to do with the climate crisis?” Luisa Neubauer of the Fridays for Future German chapter echoed this sentiment in an interview, saying, “I don’t think it makes sense for a climate movement to place itself at the center of crises that take place beyond climate issues.”
This is not a letter about Fridays For Future, nor about Greta Thunberg, but about exactly this critical question: What does Gaza have to do with the climate crisis?
***
There are countless articles, videos and posts about the violent attacks of Palestinian militants on Israelis on October 7th, and the violence that the Israeli military have since carried out on the Palestinians of Gaza. Less known is an event that happened two days after Hamas’ attacks, when Israel, citing security concerns, ordered Chevron, the US operator of its Tamar gas field, to suspend production. This meant cutting the tap of gas flowing from Israel to Egypt, who in turn suspended exports of LNG to the EU, where gas prices soared. Although German politicians make much of their moral duty toward Israel, it is clear that Germany’s own energy needs play no less a role in the country’s unwavering support for the state.
Further to the North lies Israel’s Leviathan field, a “carbon bomb” that is expected to produce an estimated 1.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide over the course of its life cycle. While the Israeli military were dropping bombs on Gaza, the Israeli energy ministry made the time to sell new exploration licenses, and BP confirmed its bid for a 45% stake in the Leviathan field, made jointly with Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company, run by COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
You have regularly and powerfully protested the current German government’s construction of disastrous LNG terminals. As you know, the emissions of LNG have been shown to be “24% worse than those caused by digging up and burning an equivalent amount of coal” across the entire life cycle. But as is the case for all fossil fuel exploiters, the exploitation is never enough.
The intent of Israel’s officials to annex Gaza is no secret. Following a leaked intelligence report at the end of October that Israel plans to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population, government officials made statements about “voluntary migration” into neighboring Sinai, and their plan to “eliminate everything” in Gaza. This, Israel has been doing by “creating facts on the ground”, making the impossible demand of 1.1 million inhabitants of Northern Gaza evacuating their homes, 50% of which have since been destroyed, dropping at least 25,000 tonnes of bombs across the entire Gaza Strip, killing over 15,000 people, with many thousands are still unaccounted for, targeting churches, mosques, schools and hospitals. In Israel’s arsenal are bombs with white phosphorus, which ignite on contact with oxygen and burn with extreme heat. As in previous bombings on the Palestinians of Gaza (2008/09, 2014), the globally banned white phosphorus burns the body, as well as the Earth. The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has made a fact sheet that warns that the substance can contaminate soil, bodies of water, and even animals, including fish.
Israel is effectively wiping out the possibility for life in the Gaza Strip, with the colonial intent of taking more land, no matter the cost to human and natural life. The enlargement of their territory would also mean de facto taking of the Gaza gas fields off its coast, with estimated reserves of over 1 trillion cubic feet. This after all is what Israel has done over and over again with natural resources like land and water across the occupied Palestinian land since 1948.
***
During her TV appearance Deborah Feldman pointed out to Robert Habeck, “You are going to have to decide between Israel and Jews.” As climate movements, you face the same decision. But unlike most politicians, you are led by a moral compass. You must ask yourselves how your silence on Israel’s crimes, against both Palestinians and the environment, affects the moral compass that guides the rest of your work.
In considering this, you could look to clear-sighted movements like Jewish Voices for Peace in the Middle East and the Jewish Bund, who speak out tirelessly about atrocities committed by the state of Israel against Palestinians, while pointing to rising right-wing sentiment amongst the population and the police, as a real, dangerous antisemitic threat in Germany. Their very existence undermines the faulty logic of equating critique of Israel with antisemitism.
OccupyCOP27 is a coalition founded by Egyptian activists living in Egypt and Berlin in the runup to last year’s climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. We take huge risks for what we do. We know any one of us could be imprisoned or disappeared by the fascist authorities of Egypt just for attending a protest or giving a talk that criticizes the Egyptian regime, whether in Egypt or abroad. This is the state of affairs for most climate activists in the Global South. We understand that what we are asking you to do, also means asking you to take risks.
We know, you understand that our fight to save the planet we live on is international and intersectional. Making the connections between Gaza and the climate crisis, and speaking out against Israel’s colonial climate crimes is vital if we are to live up to a politics, so clearly captured by Ende Gelände’s action consensus: “We oppose all antisemitism and all forms of exploitation and oppression.”
Your movements have been built up over years, with so much sacrifice and energy. As comrades in the fight for climate justice, we want to warn you: considering Israel above critique can only lead—to borrow Deborah Feldman’s powerful words—to an abandonment of moral clarity.
You have raised your voices beautifully, “Fight back, resist the natural gas in this country.” We ask you to raise the same song towards Israel—as you do to other climate polluters—which not only exploits gas within its own borders, but has made clear its intentions to annex more land in Gaza, which would mean the extraction of yet more fossil fuel in newly colonized territory.
“La deuda es con los pueblos y con la naturaleza!” Our debt to the people and nature can exclude no one and nowhere.
