Open Letter to the Sierra Club in light of Israel Trips
August 19, 2022
To the Sierra Club:
I am very sad to learn that the Sierra Club has decided to sponsor trips to Israel. Recently, the tragic history of racism within the Sierra Club has been brought to light, discussed, and I thought, rejected. Among other revelations, the club’s early board of directors included eugenicist David Jordan and white supremacist Joseph LeConte. It is in this tradition of racism that the initiative to embrace the apartheid settler-state of Israel by sponsoring trips there must be viewed.
In an era when equality of all people is a given, Palestinians inside Israel are denied full “democratic citizenship,” and they have even fewer rights inside the occupied territories. Even the most ardent Zionist would have to acknowledge this sad facet of Israeli law and deed.
I have been a member of the Sierra Club for more than 30 years and have participated in service trips in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, the Anza-Borrego desert, Bryce Canyon Utah, Big Sur, and Cambria California. If the club’s unfortunate decision to greenwash Israel is permitted by its members and board to stand, I would have no choice but to resign my membership and call upon others to do the same.
George Katsiaficas
Oakland, California