United Methodists are responding to Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth ,a statement of faith and urgent call to action from Christians in Palestine. UMKR seeks, through nonviolent means and in partnership with Palestinian Christians, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
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JOIN UMKR's STATEMENT TO CHEVRON!
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2022 Call from the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
– Excerpts
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian coalition that leads the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calls on supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to join climate justice movements in holding the US fossil fuel multinational Chevron and the German conglomerate Siemens accountable for helping to fuel environmental destruction and Israeli apartheid.
Chevron has been the main international actor extracting gas claimed by Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean since it acquired Noble Energy in 2020. With its extracting activities, Chevron is implicated in Israel's policy and practice of depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron is potentially complicit in Israel’s pillage of Palestinian gas reserves off the shores of the occupied Gaza Strip, a war crime under international law.
Chevron is also complicit in Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza that prevents Palestinians from accessing the sea. This includes Israel’s illegal transfer of extracted fossil gas to Egypt through a submarine pipeline crossing the Palestinian EEZ in Gaza, owing Palestinians millions in transit fees. Moreover, the sea blockade, which Israel imposes by brutal and deadly violence, has particularly impacted thousands of Palestinian families who depend on fishing for their livelihoods.
Chevron brings Israel billions of dollars in revenues, helping to strengthen its war chest and its regime of apartheid, settler colonialism and military occupation.
The fossil gas reserves claimed by Israel are small in comparison with those of many Middle Eastern and North African countries. They are also located in the Eastern Mediterranean where disputes over maritime borders between Israel, the State of Palestine under Israel’s occupation, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey entail a high risk of armed conflict. Nevertheless, thanks to Chevron’s complicity, apartheid Israel has been eager to establish itself as an energy exporter – a tiny one at that – to Europe, hoping that integration into Europe’s energy market would not only result in economic benefit but also help it evade accountability for its apartheid system and its illegal annexation, colonization and exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources.
Palestinian civil society, represented in the BNC, calls upon supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to build and strengthen intersectional partnerships with the climate justice movement and the many communities and Indigenous peoples around the world who are exposing and resisting the colonial violence of Chevron’s extractivism, environmental destruction and grave human rights violations.
[...]
In light of the above, we call for:
[...]
• Divestment from Chevron and other fossil fuel corporations fueling the climate emergency and Israeli apartheid.
• Support of campaigns for environmental justice that target fossil energy giants such as Chevron, which are among the most responsible for the climate emergency we all live in.
SEE IT HERE:
https://bdsmovement.net/Call-to-Boycott-Chevron-Siemens
BNC Call for Consumer Boycott of Chevron-branded gas stations
– January 2024
Chevron has been the main international actor extracting fossil gas claimed by Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean since it acquired Noble Energy in 2020. With its extracting activities, Chevron is implicated in Israel's policy and practice of depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron’s extraction activities generate billions of dollars in revenue for apartheid Israel and its war chest, helping to fund the ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, as well as its regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and military occupation. Chevron fuels apartheid and environmental devastation.
The BDS Movement issued a call to boycott both Siemens and Chevron in 2022, with campaigning around Chevron previously focused on divestment. Now, we are calling on supporters of Palestinian rights and climate justice to escalate pressure on Chevron by boycotting Chevron gas stations and gas stations owned by Chevron, including Texaco and Caltex. There are thousands of Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex gas and petrol stations worldwide.
During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, a movement to boycott Shell oil for its complicity in apartheid gained worldwide momentum, with supporters taking part in gas/petrol station pickets and major divestment campaigns from the fossil fuel company. Inspired by the South African liberation struggle, the Palestinian-led BDS movement aims to build pressure on Chevron until it no longer conducts business that gravely violates our human rights and benefits Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime.
We reiterate our call upon supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to build and strengthen intersectional #BoycottChevron partnerships with the climate justice movement and the many communities and Indigenous peoples around the world who are exposing and resisting the colonial violence of Chevron’s extractivism, environmental destruction and grave human rights violations.
United Methodists have watched in horror as Israel bombs hospitals, homes, and nurseries in Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and burying countless more under the rubble. The survivors are left to die slowly, as Israel cuts off access to food, clean water, and gas to 2.2 million people.
See the statement on Gaza from the UMC Council of Bishops, March 2024
Big Oil is profiting from this genocide.
The Chevron corporation supplies Israel’s war machine with light and power via the operation and co-ownership of the major gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land. Both Chevron and Israel enrich themselves from these projects – continuing a pattern of ongoing occupation and apartheid.
United Methodists in UMKR, together with many justice partners in faith communities and civil society, are demanding that Chevron divest from its projects in Israel and end its support of the genocide and apartheid in Palestine.
See UMKR's letter to the CEO of Chevron
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) has called for a boycott of fossil fuel giant Chevron for their role in developing gas fields off the coast of occupied Gaza and for fueling the ongoing apartheid and genocide by Israel.
See their call for action, on the right. ►►►
They are asking us to engage in a consumer boycott of Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex gas/petrol stations and products around the world.
The Chevron corporation supplies Israel’s war machine with light and power via the operation and co-ownership of the major gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land. Both Chevron and Israel enrich themselves from these projects – continuing a pattern of ongoing occupation and apartheid, while depriving Palestinians of their own energy independence.
We echo the call from the Palestinian Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to build pressure on Chevron until it no longer conducts business that gravely violates Palestinian human rights and benefits Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime.
UMKR has written to the CEO of Chevron, announcing our intention to join the boycott and build support for it in the United Methodist Church.
See UMKR's letter
See AFSC'S Fact Sheet:
"Chevron Fuels Israeli Apartheid and War Crimes"
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Greta Thunberg joins the Palestinian Call to Boycott Chevron
Video statement by global leader in climate action:
"In Palestine and all over the world, the fight against colonialism and corporations' destruction of the planet are intrinsically linked. Look at Chevron. Everyone knows that Chevron is one of the world's biggest climate criminals. But the oil giant is also fueling Israel's genocide in Israel. As Israel bombs hospitals, homes, and schools in Gaza, Chevron supplies them with energy through two Israeli-claimed gas fields in the Mediterranean, making millions in the process. Ending Israel's genocide in Gaza and Israeli apartheid is a climate justice issue. Israel is destroying Palestinian lives, but also destroying Palestinian lands and resources through its warfare and industries that pollute and destroy the environment.
We cannot stand by and do nothing. I am joining Palestinian global calls to boycott Chevron. Together we are calling for Chevron to withdraw from its projects with Israel. Join the movement to defend human rights and protect the planet by pledging to boycott Chevron now."
Chevron Boycott
► Sign the UMKR Statement
Join us in sending a message to Chevron
See and sign UMKR's statement here
See also the global boycott campaign pledge and sign
► Organize an action at a gas station
Activist Guide for action at gas stations
The guide includes links and text for:
- Map of Chevron-affiliated stations in the U.S.
- Suggestions for what to ask gas station owners
- Letter asking owners to disaffiliate from Chevron
- Sign that supportive station owners can display
- Letter to Chevron that station owners can sign
- For non-Chevron stations that could switch to Chevron:
a pledge to boycott Chevron
- Flyer for public actions at stations
Talking Points, chants (amended version)
Boycott banners and signs
Small flyer (1/4 page size, 4 per letter-size page)
► UMKR Flyer for the Chevron Boycott:
Bring it to your church or annual conference committee or event or any community gathering to build awareness and support for the boycott.
Encourage your congregation to sign the UMKR statement for organizations
Download the UMKR flyer - Color
Download the MKR flyer - B&W
► Chevron Boycott Stickers
From campaign organizers: Can you help amplify the #BoycottChevron campaign and distribute stickers in your community? Use these stickers in highly visible places, where they'll have the biggest impact on Chevron and build awareness of this campaign. Share them with your friends and cover your town. You can order stickers here:
https://form.jotform.com/241195067248157
Or you can download the graphics below and print your own stickers. This artwork is also useful for making signs and banners:
► Graphics for Social Media
These graphics made for Instagram could have many uses.
Download them in Google drive
Chevron runs natural gas extraction and pipelines off the shore of Palestine/Israel, making it a major partner in Israeli energy apartheid, the military blockade on Gaza, and the illegal exploitation of Palestinian land and resources.
Join Palestinian civil society and a growing international coalition calling on Chevron to end its support of genocide and apartheid in Palestine.
See Palestinians' call for action, on the right. ►►►
On this page:
• Introduction to the boycott
• Print and graphic resources for action,
• News & Commentary, including videos featuring Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein
The Case for BDS - Mehdi Hasan and Naomi Klein
Zeteo • 23 September 2024
In the newest episode of ‘Unshocked,’ Mehdi and Naomi debunk the myths around the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement – a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement that works to pressure Israel into complying with international law using some of the tactics of the South African ‘Anti-Apartheid Movement’.
“When a call like that is made – especially when the call is to comply with international humanitarian law, the rules that we have all supposedly already agreed to – I think there's a moral responsibility to rise to that call,” Naomi tells Mehdi.
As a part of Climate Week, the BDS Movement is focusing their energy on a target environmental activists like Naomi have been calling out for years: Chevron. The company is Israel’s largest supplier of energy, which not only includes power to the Israeli government, but also to Israeli military bases.
“[Chevron] is entangled with Israel's military machinery. It operates and partially owns Israel's largest gas fields offshore. It's gotten very rich off of these fields... but the Israeli government takes a big piece of that, so gets hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue directly from Chevron,” Naomi explains.
Mehdi and Naomi also get into why the BDS Movement gets so much backlash in the United States; why Israel “gets a special pass” despite the US having a long history of sanctions; and they address the charges of anti-Semitism against BDS. They also discuss recent gains
See the video (38 min)
Israel’s Crude and Fuel Supply Chains
Data Desk and Oil Change International • 8 March 2024
A background supply chain analysis
Beneath Troubled Waters: Noble Energy’s exploitation of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea
Dutch research center, SOMO • May 2017
Natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean have brought conflicting maritime territorial claims by Israel and Lebanon to the fore, exacerbating tensions between the two countries, which are officially still at war. These discoveries have also raised concerns regarding Israel’s naval blockade imposed off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the denial through military force of Palestinians’ access to their natural gas reserves and fishing waters, and raised questions regarding the (il)legality of extractive operations in the vicinity of Palestinian gas reserves. Within this context, Noble Energy, an oil and gas exploration and production company based in Houston, Texas, is extensively involved in the development and exploration of Israeli licensed offshore gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean sea.
See more
Annexing Energy: Exploiting and Preventing the Development Of Oil and Gas in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Palestinian human rights organization, Al Haq • August 2015
Israel has forced a naval closure of the Gaza Strip as part of its energy security policy. The El-Arish pipeline and Mari-B gas platform are key Israeli strategic assets for its entire gas distribution network requiring stringent security measures. The Mari-B platform is located only 13 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast and the El-Arish pipeline runs across the entire Palestinian coast at 13 nautical miles connecting Ashkelon in Israel to El-Arish in Egypt. Since 2000, the year that Mari-B was first discovered, Israel has forced the closure of the Gaza Maritime Zone preventing Palestinian fishing and recreational use beyond distances of 6 nautical miles.
During this time American and Israeli gas companies have illegally exploited Palestine’s contiguous gas resources. Under customary international law joint cooperation is required for the development of joint geological resources. However, in 2012 United States corporation Noble Energy and Israeli corporation Delek Drilling, with approval from the State of Israel, rapidly exploited the Noa field from the Israeli side violating customary international law. The accelerated rate of gas production from the Noa well means that the entire resource is more than likely damaged beyond use. Commenting on the report, Shawan Jabarin, General Director of Al-Haq warned, “the exploitation and destruction of Palestinian gas resources represents a manifest violation of international law and may amount to the war crime of pillage. While the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity may amount to a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.”
See the report
Chevron’s Environmental Crimes: 13 Years of Evasion and Escalation
On the 13th anniversary of the historic $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron, Ecuador's current government could betray its own people in favor of big oil interests
Amazon Watch • 14 February 2024
[...] The landmark case was first filed in 1993, and it was one of the first times ever that affected communities took on an oil company and won a court judgment of this type. Chevron was found guilty in the court of its choosing and based largely on its own evidence for having deliberately discharged over 16 billion gallons of cancer-causing toxic waste into the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, leaving almost 1,000 pools of waste adding up to an area the size of the island of Manhattan. Some 30,000 Ecuadorians were affected (many more since then), and it is widely regarded as one of the worst oil-related environmental disasters in history.
While today is a historic day because of that unprecedented victory, the issue itself is not “history.” First, because the waste remains there to this day, continuously poisoning the waterways and drinking and bathing water of everyone who lives there. And secondly, because Chevron has never paid a single penny towards the clean-up and remains “on the run” and under pursuit of a growing global movement demanding justice for Ecuador.
See more
Chevron’s Global Destruction: Ecocide, Genocide, and Corruption
Amazon Watch • 13 October 2021
[...] In response to lawsuits brought by national governments, indigenous communities, and other plaintiffs against Chevron oil company, one Chevron lobbyist told Newsweek, “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this (Newsweek, 2008).” When indigenous communities in Ecuador attempted to hold Chevron responsible for one of
the most massive oil spills in history, the company threatened the victims with “a lifetime of litigation (Chevron, 2007).”
Chevron has used vast financial resources, political muscle, bribes, and retaliatory litigations to squash lawsuits and incident reports from communities and countries affected by their oil and gas extraction. Chevron appears to be among the most destructive oil companies in the world, destroying land and ocean ecosystems, poisoning rivers and streams, eliminating livelihoods, ravaging communities, and financing paramilitary violence, while filing frivolous and punitive litigations against anyone who dares to hold the company responsible for its crimes.
See more
Want to Support Palestinian Liberation? Boycott Chevron.
Truthout • 18 August 2024
[...] Not every company that is complicit in Israeli apartheid is an official BDS target, because, as the BNC explains on its site, “that would make it impossible to achieve concrete results.” For a company to be added to the BDS list, the BNC looks at a set of criteria, including measuring the potential target’s “level of complicity” and “the potential for forming a broad, cross-movement coalition against the target.” As the BNC explains, they’re looking to target companies where they will have a higher likelihood of success.
The result is a tightly curated list of companies whose ties are woven deep into Israel’s apartheid regime. This is why, for instance, Starbucks and McDonald’s are not on the official BDS list, though they are currently wildly popular targets of consumer boycotts. The BNC has nevertheless expressed its support for the organic grassroots movements against them.
But Chevron is a different beast. As a major economic partner of the state, it is directly implicated in Israeli genocide and apartheid. Chevron-operated pipelines and Chevron- extracted natural gas fuel the Israeli Electric Company (IEC), which supplies power to Israeli military bases, prisons and police stations. After Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, the IEC took over the Palestinian power grid, supplying electricity to illegal settlements while denying power to some Palestinian communities.
See more
Behind the Barrel: New Insights into the Countries and Companies Behind Israel’s Fuel Supply
Oil Change International • 19 August 2024
This updated analysis highlights the ongoing complicity of multiple countries and companies in fueling Israel’s war machine. As more and more Palestinians are killed in bombings and pressure intensifies on global leaders, including US presidential candidates, to end the genocide, these suppliers continue to enable the violence.
See more
Chevron and Israel: Profits Above Human Rights
Oil Change International • 19 August 2024
Israel’s government relies on Chevron to extract the rich supply of gas off its coast, making money for a government actively perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. And Chevron relies on Israel – Israel will be Chevron’s third largest source of gas globally over the next twenty years.
See more
Chevron Confronted for Complicity in Gaza Genocide and Planetary Destruction
California DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) • 18 August 2024
On August 11, a coalition of organizations in Los Angeles, dedicated to Palestinian human rights and addressing the global climate crisis, converged at the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo, just south of the L.A. airport.
The coalition included Black Lives Matter LA, Code Pink LA, Extinction Rebellion LA, Veterans for Peace LA, WhitePeople4BlackLives, Queers4PalestineLA, Community Solidarity Projects, Youth Climate Strike LA, SJP Santa Monica, SJP Irvine Valley College, SoCal 350 Climate Action, Unmute Humanity, and ProPalestineLA. The action was also advertised and supported by the Los Angeles DSA chapter, with DSA-LA members participating.
Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn
Exclusive: research tracks dozens of oil and fuel shipments that could have aided Israel’s war on Gaza
The Guardian • 20 August 2024
[...] Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.
[...] Just six major international fossil-fuel companies – BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – could be linked to 35% of the crude oil supplied to Israel since October, the OCI analysis suggests. This is based on direct stakes in oilfields supplying Israeli and/or the companies’ shares in production nationally.
“Given the well-documented ongoing war crimes and warnings of a genocide, these oil corporations have the responsibility to identify and prevent any contribution to violations by the Israeli army,” said Lydia de Leeuw, researcher and co-author of Fuelling the Flames in Gaza at the Dutch non-profit Somo.
Shell and Total declined to comment. BP and Exxon did not respond.
A spokesperson for Chevron, which owns stakes in oil production in Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the Congo, said the company was focused on reliably providing energy the world needs: “Chevron operates in compliance with all applicable laws.”
See more
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