“The pursuit of climate justice inherently requires striving for social justice, and therefore it must also be connected to the pursuit of peace and equality for all the inhabitants of this land. Many of us know friends, family members, and loved ones who experienced the horror and devastation of the terrible attack on October 7, or whose lives were destroyed under the atrocities in Gaza. We cannot stand by in the face of the ongoing environmental and humanitarian disaster resulting from the war.”

The position paper was sent in February to Israeli environmental organizations, calling for them to take accountability and make the necessary connection between environmental justice and the immense damage caused by the war, and from this place to call for and act to stop the war in Gaza. The position paper was written by graduates of our course “Agents of Change in the Field of Environmental and Climate Justice,” a course that seeks to explore and study environmental and climate issues from a critical perspective in the local political context and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The letter was sent as early as February, so the data mentioned in it is no longer up-to-date, and we know that as the war continues, the situation only worsens, and the humanitarian, environmental, and moral disaster worsens before our eyes.

Unfortunately, the letter was ignored by the environmental organizations, and we hope to hear that they will change their minds. The School for Peace supports the urgent and immediate call to end the war, also for reasons of environmental and climate justice, as detailed in the letter.

“In recent years, the terms climate and environmental justice have gained widespread use in social and environmental activism. However, in our view, the actual implementation of these principles is still far from essential within the Israeli environmental movement. As we face the ongoing horrors of the war happening before our eyes every day, the necessity for a different civil vision for sustainable living in this land becomes more and more urgent. Only we can bring about change, and as environmental and climate activists, we have a crucial role in this effort.”

For the full letter, click here

Photo by: Alisdare Hickson, flickr, license: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED,

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