Climate movement splinters as activists target Israel

Ever since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack and Israel’s counteroffensive, prominent climate activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Fridays for Future have led anti-Israel protests, attempting to align the Palestinian cause with the global climate cause. But this messaging is deeply flawed, and as a 24-year-old Jewish climate commentator, I fear it could seriously divide and impede the climate movement.

My heart breaks for the thousands of innocent Gazans and Israelis who have been killed and the hundreds of Israeli hostages still in captivity. I believe both sides’ governments stoked tensions, failed their constituents, and need new peace-oriented leadership. I also believe Israel is our native homeland as Jews, has the right to exist, and is the most special place on Earth. And when Greta Thunberg leads “crush Zionism” chants at climate rallies, and protesters disrupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade shouting “liberation for Palestine and planet,” I worry the climate movement now blindly opposes Israel, and anyone like me who has a more nuanced perspective.

Climate activists have every right to support other causes. But many have taken it a step further, using skewed facts to infect the mainstream climate cause with an anti-Israel bent. This phenomenon weakens the movement’s credibility, gets in the way of its mission to mitigate climate change, and discourages those of us with differing views on Israel-Hamas from supporting it.

Anti-Israel climate activists have attempted to connect the two issues by suggesting that Israeli attacks in Gaza are actually about stealing Palestinian fossil fuels, citing news that Israel awarded 12 offshore gas exploration licenses on Oct. 29. This accusation grossly minimizes Israel’s true goal of bringing hostages home, and can be disproven by one glance at a map. The exploration leases are located about 80 miles west of Haifa in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea — nowhere near any Palestinian territory. One would have to believe Palestinians own everything from the river to 80 miles beyond the sea to call these resources Palestinian. If activists believe all resources in Israel belong to Palestinians, that’s their prerogative, but claiming “Israel is stealing Palestinian gas” without context misleads readers into believing these leases are in Gaza or the West Bank. This is deliberately deceptive, and erodes trust in the broader climate movement.

Climate activists have also argued that Palestinians are “forbidden from gathering rainwater” by Israeli military orders. This is partly true. Israel treats all water as public property, and has permitting laws for all water projects. Though the majority of the West Bank’s population is under Palestinian Authority control, Israeli officials have discriminately denied Palestinian infrastructure permits and even demolished unpermitted cisterns in the West Bank areas they administer — a practice rightly condemned as unlawful and inhumane. This issue does not apply to Gaza which Israel does not administer. Rather, illegal wells and over pumping by the Palestinian Water Authority in the late 1990s led saline water to contaminate the Gaza Coastal Aquifer. Since then, Hamas has stolen aid intended for water and sewage management for terrorism, and even pulled sewer pipes out of the ground to turn into rockets.

It is important to criticize Israeli officials who unjustly enforce permitting laws, especially as warmer temperatures and massive population growth rates increase water scarcity in the West Bank. But climate activists lose integrity when they mischaracterize the actual issue and fail to additionally call out negligence from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Contrary to climate activists’ framing, the world could learn a lot from Israel’s indigenous environmental stewardship. Despite efforts across millennia to conquer us, Jews have maintained a presence in Israel since the kingdoms of David and Solomon. Upon achieving self-determination, Israelis sprung to action. Facing water scarcity, Israeli engineers developed desalination which now contributes 85 percent of the nation’s drinking water, and 70 percent of wastewater gets recycled for agricultural irrigation. Experiencing warming at a rate nearly twice as fast as the global average, Israeli entrepreneurs have launched over 850 climate solutions companies, earning Israel a ranking of No. 6 on the 2017 Global CleanTech Innovation Index. And since 1901, the Jewish National Fund has planted over 250 million trees through Israel, making Israel the only country on Earth with more trees in 2000 than in 1900.

Typically, climate advocates ally themselves with Indigenous communities — they know how to manage their land best. But when Zionism, the movement for Jewish self-determination in our indigenous homeland, led to hundreds of solutions that transformed Israel and could benefit the entire world, climate leaders not only refused to listen, but actively rooted for its demise.

Prior to Oct. 7, 100+ Israeli companies and 1,000+ Israeli individuals were slated to attend the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai last month, many planning to present their groundbreaking climate solutions at the forum. Due to the war, only 28 Israelis could attend, operating under tight security as delegates, demonstrators, and world leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa used the climate conference as a platform to bash Israel.

Nothing offers more opportunity for inclusion than environmentalism, even among adversaries. Everyone needs clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. It’s why an Israeli company and an Emirati company could launch a clean water partnership in 2020, the United States and China could agree on methane and plastic in 2023, and last month, all 195 countries signed onto a “transition away from fossil fuels.” And for Israelis and Palestinians living in one of the fastest warming regions of the world, opportunity for common ground on climate rings doubly true. For example, if Israel supported Palestinians in building solar panels and water infrastructure, Israel would no longer have to supply these resources, Palestinians could get jobs and meet their needs, and perhaps hostility would decrease.

If climate activists advocated for mutually beneficial solutions like these, they could grow support and actually help people. But lambasting Israel will only divide the movement further, worsening a downward spiral as the share of Americans identifying as “environmentalists” tanked from 78 percent in 1991 to 41 percent in 2021.

I am devastated by the tragedies in Gaza and Israel, and I respect climate leaders using their platforms to shed light on them. But with anti-Israel climate activists spreading lies and gatekeeping the cause from anyone who disagrees, I’m left squaring my desire for a sustainable future with a movement trying to kick me and my people to the curb.

Ethan Brown is a Writer and Commentator for Young Voices with a B.A. in Environmental Analysis & Policy from Boston University. He is the creator and host of The Sweaty Penguin, an award-winning comedy climate program. Follow him on Twitter @ethanbrown5151.