To stop Israel's crimes, we must cut off its fuel supply. How?
Pars Today - Before the recent massacre, Palestinian fishermen were being targeted with live bullets and then arrested by Israeli naval vessels that illegally patrol near the Gaza coast to "protect" Chevron's pipelines and platforms.
In 2020, the US defense contracts provided $3 billion worth of jet fuel to the Israeli army, equivalent to 1 billion liters of JP-8 jet fuel.
A recent report by DataDesk revealed that three American tankers have been sent to Israel since October 2023, carrying JP-8 jet fuel. The supplier of this fuel is Valero Energy Corporation in Corpus Christi, Texas. As we write this, another shipment, Overseas Sun Coast, is en route to Israel in the Mediterranean Sea.
Cutting off this fuel supply and its transportation route is crucial to stop Israel's war machine.
Activists can play a key role by blocking ports, requesting dockworkers not to process the ships, and urging trade unions to prevent the docking of these vessels, which can help stop the violent attacks.
Additionally, cutting off investments in Israel's energy projects will hinder the development of this regime.
In the past decade, Israel has been seeking to become a major producer and exporter of gas from stolen Palestinian waters.
These projects, heavily lobbied by the US, aim to establish Israel as a strategic hub for global energy security and generate significant export revenues for its economy, which are then channeled into its annual military budget of $23.4 billion.
Cutting off energy investments in the Zionist regime
The existing gas infrastructure is directly involved in the violent occupation and colonialism.
The investment cut-off should include the 12 companies that received exploration licenses in October 2023 for Gaza's offshore gas fields, which are considered Palestinian waters under international law.
Companies like BP, Eni, and Dana Petroleum not only invest heavily in Israel's colonial economy but also directly participate in violating international law, putting billions of dollars of Palestinian natural resources at risk.
Therefore, cutting off investments that expose this corporate complicity is crucial and can have a significant impact.
Groups like UK Energy Embargo for Palestine (targeting BP) or Chevron Out of Palestine are already doing this work at the public level. They increase the political costs of cooperating with Israel and its energy companies.
They raise public awareness about the hidden and structural relationship between oil, gas, and colonial occupation.
In this regard, it is necessary for popular and student movements to launch similar campaigns against state-owned companies like Italy's Eni, TotalEnergies, and Greece's Energean, which have contracts with the notorious Elbit systems to supply their gas platforms in stolen Palestinian waters.
Activists should also target the European Union, which has purchased significant amounts of Israeli gas and received shipments during this massacre.
Blocking ships
Israeli gas-carrying ships regularly dock in Belgium, Wales, Marseille, and Tuscany. If European activists increase the cost of receiving gas from Israel and block these ships, they can impose an energy embargo “from below" and create an economic cost for supporting Israel's war machine.
These groups can create new calls for arms embargoes and demand their extension to oil products and revenues that fuel and power weapons, thereby cutting off the supply chain of Israel's war machine.
Boycotting investments in Israel, particularly in the fuel sector, can be a crucial door to ending the massacre and dismantling the colonial occupation.
One of the active groups in this field is Disrupt Power, an anti-Israeli crime group that investigates and disrupts the global energy sources that supply Israel's war machine and occupation of Palestine.
Also, Disrupt Power is a member of the "Global Energy Embargo for Palestine" coalition, which is building a global front to impose an energy embargo from below.
Source:
Rose, Charlotte. 2024. To stop the Israeli war machine we must cut off its fuel. Here's how and why. The New Arab
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Key phrases: How to fight Israel, ways to prevent genocide, Israel's war in Gaza, bombing Gaza, the danger of Israel.
