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Mr. Michael K. Wirth
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Chevron Corporation
5001 Executive Parkway, Suite 200 San Ramon, CA 94583, USA
Dear Mr. Mike Wirth,
We write on behalf of a global grassroots movement of thousands of United Methodists in dozens of annual conferences throughout the United Methodist Church, whose goal is to achieve a just peace for all the people of the Holy Land. (www.kairosresponse.org)
United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) advocates that church funds should not be used in support of companies that sustain violations of international law and of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza. We are responding to the urgent call from Palestinian Christians – as expressed in the Kairos Palestine Document – asking churches to take principled actions that can lead to peace, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people.
The United Methodist General Conference has passed numerous resolutions stating our opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. In a resolution adopted in 2012 and readopted in 2024, the United Methodist Church “asks all companies …. to stop any business that contributes to serious violations of international law, promotes systemic discrimination, or otherwise supports ongoing military occupation.”[1]
There are many compelling reasons that United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) has decided to support the Boycott Chevron Campaign.[2]
This growing campaign is supported by many other faith-based and secular organizations. Together with these partners, UMKR plans to issue a call to United Methodists throughout our denomination to avoid purchase of Chevron products until Chevron end all contracts with Israel by which it profits from the military occupation of Palestine, including the siege of Gaza.
If we hear from you that Chevron has ceased its control of natural gas extraction and pipelines off the shore of Palestine/Israel, our support for the boycott will end.
We have watched in horror as Israel bombs hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, residences 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 healthcare to 2.2 million people.
Our request for Chevron to cease operations off the coast of Gaza is not only related to the Israel’s current assault on Gaza, but also on the history of the past 76 years of land theft, ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid by Israel. These are violations of international law and human rights standards, including war crimes, as documented by the United Nations Security Council, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’tselem among others. No company should be associated with such violations of international humanitarian law.
We understand that Chevron Corporation supplies Israel’s war machine with light and power via the operation and co-ownership of major gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land. Both Chevron and Israel enrich themselves from these projects – continuing a pattern of 75 years of extraction and occupation.
Our partners’ shows that Chevron operates and partially owns the largest Israeli natural gas fields, Tamar and Leviathan, located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, west of Haifa. The gas from Tamar is processed in a rig that is located farther south, off the coast of Isdud/Ashdod. Chevron also operates and partially owns the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) Pipeline, which runs from Israel to Egypt, off the shores of the Gaza Strip. Similarly, Chevron is the operator and partial owner of the Dalit gas field, which is yet to be developed, and the Mari B gas field, which has been depleted and inactive since 2013.
As the operator of these gas fields and the pipeline, Chevron is in charge of all operations of these projects, including planning, construction, production, and supply.
Israel’s energy production relies on the supply of natural gas: about 70% of the electricity produced in 2022 used natural gas, and almost all of it was supplied by Chevron. The Tamar gas field alone supplied 98% of the needs of the state-owned Israeli Electric Company (IEC), with a contract continuing until the end of 2030.
The Israeli Electric Company (IEC) supplies electricity to all branches of the Israeli government and to the vast majority of Israeli households. This includes all Israeli military bases, prisons, and police stations, as well as hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank that rely on Chevron-produced electricity.
The supply of electricity across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory is used as a tool of subjugation, collective punishment, annexation, and dispossession. In the occupied West Bank, the IEC took over the Palestinian power grid after the 1967 occupation, making the Palestinian population dependent on its services.
Some Palestinian communities inside Israel and across the Occupied Palestinian Territory are banned from connection to the grid, some are provided subpar services, some are charged
differently than neighboring Jewish-Israelis, and many suffer punitive power cuts as a form of collective punishment. This systemic, decades-long discrimination is an integral part of the apartheid regime that exists throughout the occupied territory.
As part of the military blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel has destroyed civilian energy infrastructure, repeatedly bombed the one remaining power plant, and consistently deprived Gaza of adequate fuel supply. This has made the IEC an indispensable supplier, providing about 30–50% of the electricity to Gaza, paid for by the Palestinian Authority.
The supply of electricity to Gaza has been used as leverage against the population, being frequently reduced or shut off in violation of international law. It was cut off completely after Oct. 7, 2023.
Clearly, Chevron’s work in that region makes it a major partner in Israeli apartheid, the military blockade on Gaza, and the illegal exploitation of Palestinian land and resources.
We condemn Chevron’s role in fueling Israel’s apartheid and the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and we urge you to cease operations in the gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestine.
It is well past time for Chevron to stop conducting business that gravely violates Palestinian human rights and benefits Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime.
We hope that Chevron will agree to correct these wrongs, and we call on the Chevron Corporation to bring to an end such contracts and operations as discussed above. We respectfully invite your response within 60 days.
Sincerely yours,
Lisa Bender
Chair
On behalf of the Steering Committee of United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)
Please address replies to:
Lisa Bender
504 Marcel Dr
Harrisburg PA 17109
lisabenderumkr@gmail.com
[1] Opposition to Israeli Settlements in Palestinian Land, 2016 United Methodist Book of Resolutions #6111 https://www.kairosresponse.org/oppos_to_settlements_resol.html
[2] https://afsc.org/BoycottChevron
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