Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard Supports Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine
Climate Justice is Inseparable from Liberation For All
Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard is proud to support the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) campaign in calling on Harvard to divest its $40 billion endowment from companies perpetuating human rights abuses in Palestine. We firmly believe that our fight for climate justice is inseparable from struggles for justice around the world. When our institutions perpetuate global injustice, we as students have a responsibility to use our voices to demand change. We stand in solidarity with HOOP as it calls on Harvard to take action against the inexcusable human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.
The human rights abuses and violations of international law perpetuated in Palestine are well-documented by numerous observers. To remain silent in the face of this injustice is complicity. And the crisis in Palestine is inseparable from the crisis of environmental injustice: scholars have documented deliberate bulldozing of historic groves and orchards to make way for settlements, “herbicidal warfare” to destroy Palestinian agricultural self-sufficiency, withholding of water rights to cement dependency, and more. This ecological oppression is a harrowing preview of the kind of politics that could become commonplace in a world devastated by global warming, if we do not take radical and transformative climate action now.
Like FFDH, HOOP believes that our universities can and must be part of the solution. Divestment has been effective historically in ending human rights abuses in South Africa, combating the big tobacco industry, and now, increasingly, eroding the fossil fuel and prison industries. What’s more, divestment is a moral imperative: continued investment in companies involved in human rights abuses in occupied Palestine provides both direct financial support for their practices and, perhaps even more damaging, tacit legitimization and acceptance of the occupation. This investment in oppression must end. We stand with HOOP in demanding that Harvard disclose the scope of its investments in companies engaged in human rights abuses in Palestine, divest its endowment from these companies, and reinvest in Palestinian culture and heritage.
We believe that climate justice is bound up in the liberation of all people. As a result, we cannot truly take on Islamophobia and settler-colonialism if we do not also fight anti-Semitism wherever it appears. The resurgence of anti-Semitic hatred and violence is a real and pressing crisis, in an era when hate of all kinds is on the rise. At the same time, legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’s actions, when the standards used are the same as for other countries, should not be conflated with anti-Semitism. Open dialogue on this conflict is critical to achieving a just resolution, and is an essential part of combatting ignorance and hate. FFDH stands firmly against anti-Semitism and against hateful ideologies of all kinds.
Real climate action will require a broad popular front, with solidarity across all groups and identities. For these reasons, we’re proud to stand with HOOP in their struggle to end Palestinian suffering, and with all students and movements around the world fighting for justice and for peace.
