We are an autonomous group of scientists, engineers, educators, zoologists, conservationists, naturalists, stewards, science administrators, and museum workers uniting to call attention to the damaging effects of settler colonialism and modern warfare on our Earth and all its life. At present, we are compelled to raise our collective voice about the ongoing occupation of Palestine over the last 75 years because we have witnessed the impact of our complicity in genocide and ecocide through our governing policies, tax dollars, and institutional silence. As museum and cultural workers, we condemn the heightened cases of both Islamophobia and antisemitism that have resulted as direct collateral of Israel’s crimes in Gaza and Hamas’s massacre on Oct. 7. We register the urgent material need for a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid and call for our colleagues of conscience to join us in community solidarity with Palestine. 

The ongoing siege on Palestine is not only an urgent human rights issue, but also a vital environmental one. According to the Social Science Research Network, Israel’s bombardments across Palestine generated approximately 281,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in just the first two months of war— producing “more planet-warming gasses [than] 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations produce in a year” (Neimark, Bigger, Otu-Larbi & Large, 2024). Gaza Municipality reported in January that “Israel’s military removed 70% of Gaza’s trees and bulldozed thousands of acres of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip.” The military use of white phosphorus munitions have not only caused immediate destruction to infrastructure but have also introduced long-lasting environmental consequences, such as the contamination of soil, water sources, and air, posing significant health risks to Palestinian kin– including people, plants, animals, and all life. The cumulative impact of extensive bombing campaigns not only exacerbates the region's climate vulnerabilities but also threatens our collective ecological integrity. These crises underscore the urgent need for a permanent ceasefire, followed by comprehensive humanitarian and environmental responses to address and heal what the people and land of Palestine have undergone for over 75 years of occupation.

In the absence of a clear statement from any large science museum in the United States, this letter began amongst staff at the California Academy of Sciences—an institution that has been spending significant material and personnel resources to reckon with the institution’s direct history and contributions to colonial science, parachute science, and scientific racism. With this history and our current institutional commitments to Indigenous solidarity and partnerships, we feel it is our responsibility to speak up against the apartheid affecting the Palestinian people, especially as an institution that has a mission to “regenerate the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration.” 

As an institution that prides itself on our vision to produce a “healthier, more resilient, and wilder” natural world “within a generation,” our silence on both the genocide and ecocide in Gaza is as loud as it is hypocritical. We, as workers who have dedicated our careers to the Academy’s mission and vision of regenerating the natural world, feel deep disappointment and dissonance with the complicity of our publicly-trusted institution and its leadership, who have failed to use their power, positionality, and privilege to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

The writers of this letter are unable to speak on behalf of the entire staff and leadership at our museum; however, we unite across departments in hopes of building solidarity at the Academy and beyond– across organizations and institutions– to disrupt the normalization of colonization, ethnic cleansing, the destruction of all educational centers like schools, museums, libraries, zoos, as well as the devastating environmental waste created by militarization. We join other cultural institutions like The MOMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, releasing this statement to support the effort to rally our colleagues. And we call upon our colleagues of conscience to attend and organize actions that contribute to the liberation of all Indigenous nations currently facing humanitarian crises and environmental degradation due to colonization, both far, like Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Philippines, and near, like Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, and across Turtle Island (today called the U.S.). 

Like our colleagues at The MOMA, we feel “it is imperative our collective statement clearly outlines that Zionism is neither synonymous with nor representative of Judaism, therefore a critique of the violence enacted in the name of Zionist rhetoric is in no way a suggestion of antisemitism.”

While war and the mission of a science museum may seem like disparate subjects, we find clear connections to the ongoing occupation in Palestine. We extend an invitation to everyone within our community, encompassing present and former team members, speakers, researchers, and collaborators, as well as visitors, members, donors, and neighbors, to add their signatures to this letter and unite with us. By signing this letter, you acknowledge the devastating effects of colonization from here to Palestine and you commit to:

• support the liberation of Palestine
• join in actions and urge your institutional leaders to start divesting from partnerships that bring environmental and humanitarian damage to our shared world, starting with those that contribute to such destruction in Palestine
• support transparency at your institution regarding your labor and your rights to protest, advocate, and provide feedback without retaliation