
Fossil Free California campaign launch targeting CalPERS & CalSTRS pension funds on February 13, 2015, Sacramento, CA. (Photo: 350.org/Flickr Images)
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Fossil Free California campaign launch targeting CalPERS & CalSTRS pension funds on February 13, 2015, Sacramento, CA. (Photo: 350.org/Flickr Images)
On February 9, 2022, The California State Teachers' Retirement Systems (CalSTRS) convened a symposium about sustainability and investments, with speakers from CalSTRS, other financial experts, and several groups favoring divestment. This symposium came about from a request last year by State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurman requesting the CalSTRS Board place on the agenda a vote about fossil fuel divestment. At the symposium, the public had a chance to learn about how CalSTRS thinks their engagement with fossil fuel companies can lead to positive impacts for the climate.
Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050.
Our conclusion: CalSTRS is living in a world of magical thinking: they believe naively that by asking nicely, they can change the behavior of companies bent on polluting low-income communities and destroying the planet for profit.
The leaders of CalSTRS investment staff argued that their strategy of engagement is already making progress with the fossil fuel giants, and they claimed that the best way to address the climate crisis is to work collaboratively with those companies.
Discussing progress, Chief Investment Officer Chris Ailman said,
We've gotten fossil fuel companies, we've gotten utilities, to adopt net zero by 2050 pledges, and I know many of you say that's too long, but those companies are reducing their greenhouse gasses today. They are already starting and making a difference.
Discussing how to get change from these companies, Kirsty Jenkinson, the head of sustainability for CalSTRS, argued,
Change happens from the top, and recognizing that there are different strategies to create change and companies, it just has to start at the very top and we were very proud of the role that we and many other investors who supported it took the decision to change the leadership of Exxon Mobil from the top...Major technological innovation at scale to capture carbon and remove carbon is going to be such an important part of the ledger for achieving net zero and it is doable.
Discussing CalSTRS' theory of how to get change to happen, Ailman said,
This transition can't be a fight. It's going to be a huge energy transition off of fossil fuels to something else. And what we need to do is really work with people. The more we make it a fight, the more we're going to see a rebellion on the other side, and then we're going to have a whole problem.
While Ailman cites the net zero 2050 commitments of fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon-Mobil, as a major achievement, that company's net zero commitments ONLY cover the emissions caused by their operations, and not those coming from the burning of their product. In the world of our climate crisis, this pledge is laughable; burning carbon as fuel is the greatest contributor to green-house gas emissions, and Exxon has effectively washed its hands of the problem.
A few years ago the fossil fuel industry stopped promoting outright climate denialism. Their new strategy is to position themselves as part of the solution to the crisis they have caused, and to focus on "net zero by 2050." Much of the "net" in net zero comes from unproven technologies such as carbon capture. Even with commitments of net zero by 2050, the fossil fuel industry continues to fight against climate friendly legislation. They continue to explore for more oil. They continue to build new fossil fuel infrastructure.
While Ailman claimed that divestment doesn't work, at the symposium he told the story of meeting with an Indian fossil fuel company and telling them about the divestment movement.
They told us that they weren't even aware that some of the universities divested because they never spoke to them, and that we were the first people who actually educated them about the divestment movement and that that was a threat to them. And they did open their eyes, and they also want to know, what do we as shareholders want? And they began a dialogue.
In other words, in this case, the threat of divestment was a powerful incentive to action.
An argument could thus be made that smart strategic divestment, with credible threats to divest when benchmarks are not met, might have some impact. Indeed, that is the strategy New York State comptroller Tom DiNapoli took with that state's divestment from fossil fuels.
Jenkinson admitted at the forum that CalSTRS has no clear benchmarks for when it will decide to give up on a company. One clear benchmark would be that the company is no longer lobbying to undermine climate legislation. On that metric the top fossil fuel companies, including Exxon-Mobil, are continuing to fail miserably. Another could include measurable decreases in overall emissions. A third would be marked reductions in capital outlay for new search and drilling operations.
However, even if the fossil fuel industries kept their pledges to reach net zero by 2050, and there is serious doubt that they will, net zero is not enough. We can't slow our move away from emitting greenhouse gasses because we think some future technology may take away some carbon. We need to stop emitting. Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050. We also need whatever sinks we can get.
Unfortunately, we cannot get to the required speed and level of emissions reductions without a fight with the fossil fuel industry. The history of social change shows clearly that when a group benefits from a form of exploitation, they need to be pushed to give up those benefits.
As people were fighting to end slavery in the 19th century there were many abolitionists who believed that moral arguments about the evils of slavery would eventually reach the hearts of the slave owners and the politicians who did their bidding. Opposing that idea, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass uttered his most famous lines,
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Twenty one year old panelist Nalleli Cobo, who has fought against neighborhood fossil fuel companies since she was 9 years old, and who is in remission from stage 2 cancer, spoke of the damaging effects of fuel production on students and teachers in California, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color. She stated,
Over 580,000 Angelenos live within a quarter of a mile or less from an oil or gas well and 93% of the population are people of color....It's so important that we divest from fossil fuels. It's affecting our health, our safety and our environment...I think it's important that the teachers' money doesn't go to killing kids, it doesn't go to damaging their organs or their health.
Other damaging effects of burning fossil fuels happening right now are the recent explosions in the number of wildfires across the West, the increasing number of days when the air quality reaches hazardous levels, and the worst drought in 1200 years.
University of California Chief Investment Officer, Jagdeep Singh Bacheer, ended the symposium by asking CalSTRS to engage with its stakeholders and really listen to their concerns about the fossil fuel industry.
Ailman and Jenkinson appear to be very competent and knowledgeable about investing in general, and about investing in sustainable stocks. But this forum showed that they do not have a deep understanding of how social change happens. It is pure magical thinking to suppose that the fossil fuel companies that right now are undermining climate legislation can be talked into voluntarily adopting changes at the level and speed needed to keep our planet livable for our species.
CalSTRS members, who have voted overwhelmingly through their unions to pass resolutions asking for fossil fuel divestment, have enough of an understanding of how politics works to know that now is the time for CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuel companies. The board can make this choice at their next meeting. And if they don't, we can work for passage of California's SB 1173, which will require them to do so.
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Cynthia Kaufman is a writer and educator. She is the author of five books on social change: Consumerism, Sustainability, and Happiness: How to Build a World Where Everyone Has Enough (Routledge 2023), The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook (PM Press 2021), Challenging Power: Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World (Bloomsbury 2020), Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope (Lexington Books 2012), and Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change (2nd Edition PM Press 2016). She is the director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action at De Anza College. Visit her website.
On February 9, 2022, The California State Teachers' Retirement Systems (CalSTRS) convened a symposium about sustainability and investments, with speakers from CalSTRS, other financial experts, and several groups favoring divestment. This symposium came about from a request last year by State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurman requesting the CalSTRS Board place on the agenda a vote about fossil fuel divestment. At the symposium, the public had a chance to learn about how CalSTRS thinks their engagement with fossil fuel companies can lead to positive impacts for the climate.
Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050.
Our conclusion: CalSTRS is living in a world of magical thinking: they believe naively that by asking nicely, they can change the behavior of companies bent on polluting low-income communities and destroying the planet for profit.
The leaders of CalSTRS investment staff argued that their strategy of engagement is already making progress with the fossil fuel giants, and they claimed that the best way to address the climate crisis is to work collaboratively with those companies.
Discussing progress, Chief Investment Officer Chris Ailman said,
We've gotten fossil fuel companies, we've gotten utilities, to adopt net zero by 2050 pledges, and I know many of you say that's too long, but those companies are reducing their greenhouse gasses today. They are already starting and making a difference.
Discussing how to get change from these companies, Kirsty Jenkinson, the head of sustainability for CalSTRS, argued,
Change happens from the top, and recognizing that there are different strategies to create change and companies, it just has to start at the very top and we were very proud of the role that we and many other investors who supported it took the decision to change the leadership of Exxon Mobil from the top...Major technological innovation at scale to capture carbon and remove carbon is going to be such an important part of the ledger for achieving net zero and it is doable.
Discussing CalSTRS' theory of how to get change to happen, Ailman said,
This transition can't be a fight. It's going to be a huge energy transition off of fossil fuels to something else. And what we need to do is really work with people. The more we make it a fight, the more we're going to see a rebellion on the other side, and then we're going to have a whole problem.
While Ailman cites the net zero 2050 commitments of fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon-Mobil, as a major achievement, that company's net zero commitments ONLY cover the emissions caused by their operations, and not those coming from the burning of their product. In the world of our climate crisis, this pledge is laughable; burning carbon as fuel is the greatest contributor to green-house gas emissions, and Exxon has effectively washed its hands of the problem.
A few years ago the fossil fuel industry stopped promoting outright climate denialism. Their new strategy is to position themselves as part of the solution to the crisis they have caused, and to focus on "net zero by 2050." Much of the "net" in net zero comes from unproven technologies such as carbon capture. Even with commitments of net zero by 2050, the fossil fuel industry continues to fight against climate friendly legislation. They continue to explore for more oil. They continue to build new fossil fuel infrastructure.
While Ailman claimed that divestment doesn't work, at the symposium he told the story of meeting with an Indian fossil fuel company and telling them about the divestment movement.
They told us that they weren't even aware that some of the universities divested because they never spoke to them, and that we were the first people who actually educated them about the divestment movement and that that was a threat to them. And they did open their eyes, and they also want to know, what do we as shareholders want? And they began a dialogue.
In other words, in this case, the threat of divestment was a powerful incentive to action.
An argument could thus be made that smart strategic divestment, with credible threats to divest when benchmarks are not met, might have some impact. Indeed, that is the strategy New York State comptroller Tom DiNapoli took with that state's divestment from fossil fuels.
Jenkinson admitted at the forum that CalSTRS has no clear benchmarks for when it will decide to give up on a company. One clear benchmark would be that the company is no longer lobbying to undermine climate legislation. On that metric the top fossil fuel companies, including Exxon-Mobil, are continuing to fail miserably. Another could include measurable decreases in overall emissions. A third would be marked reductions in capital outlay for new search and drilling operations.
However, even if the fossil fuel industries kept their pledges to reach net zero by 2050, and there is serious doubt that they will, net zero is not enough. We can't slow our move away from emitting greenhouse gasses because we think some future technology may take away some carbon. We need to stop emitting. Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050. We also need whatever sinks we can get.
Unfortunately, we cannot get to the required speed and level of emissions reductions without a fight with the fossil fuel industry. The history of social change shows clearly that when a group benefits from a form of exploitation, they need to be pushed to give up those benefits.
As people were fighting to end slavery in the 19th century there were many abolitionists who believed that moral arguments about the evils of slavery would eventually reach the hearts of the slave owners and the politicians who did their bidding. Opposing that idea, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass uttered his most famous lines,
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Twenty one year old panelist Nalleli Cobo, who has fought against neighborhood fossil fuel companies since she was 9 years old, and who is in remission from stage 2 cancer, spoke of the damaging effects of fuel production on students and teachers in California, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color. She stated,
Over 580,000 Angelenos live within a quarter of a mile or less from an oil or gas well and 93% of the population are people of color....It's so important that we divest from fossil fuels. It's affecting our health, our safety and our environment...I think it's important that the teachers' money doesn't go to killing kids, it doesn't go to damaging their organs or their health.
Other damaging effects of burning fossil fuels happening right now are the recent explosions in the number of wildfires across the West, the increasing number of days when the air quality reaches hazardous levels, and the worst drought in 1200 years.
University of California Chief Investment Officer, Jagdeep Singh Bacheer, ended the symposium by asking CalSTRS to engage with its stakeholders and really listen to their concerns about the fossil fuel industry.
Ailman and Jenkinson appear to be very competent and knowledgeable about investing in general, and about investing in sustainable stocks. But this forum showed that they do not have a deep understanding of how social change happens. It is pure magical thinking to suppose that the fossil fuel companies that right now are undermining climate legislation can be talked into voluntarily adopting changes at the level and speed needed to keep our planet livable for our species.
CalSTRS members, who have voted overwhelmingly through their unions to pass resolutions asking for fossil fuel divestment, have enough of an understanding of how politics works to know that now is the time for CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuel companies. The board can make this choice at their next meeting. And if they don't, we can work for passage of California's SB 1173, which will require them to do so.
Cynthia Kaufman is a writer and educator. She is the author of five books on social change: Consumerism, Sustainability, and Happiness: How to Build a World Where Everyone Has Enough (Routledge 2023), The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook (PM Press 2021), Challenging Power: Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World (Bloomsbury 2020), Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope (Lexington Books 2012), and Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change (2nd Edition PM Press 2016). She is the director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action at De Anza College. Visit her website.
On February 9, 2022, The California State Teachers' Retirement Systems (CalSTRS) convened a symposium about sustainability and investments, with speakers from CalSTRS, other financial experts, and several groups favoring divestment. This symposium came about from a request last year by State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurman requesting the CalSTRS Board place on the agenda a vote about fossil fuel divestment. At the symposium, the public had a chance to learn about how CalSTRS thinks their engagement with fossil fuel companies can lead to positive impacts for the climate.
Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050.
Our conclusion: CalSTRS is living in a world of magical thinking: they believe naively that by asking nicely, they can change the behavior of companies bent on polluting low-income communities and destroying the planet for profit.
The leaders of CalSTRS investment staff argued that their strategy of engagement is already making progress with the fossil fuel giants, and they claimed that the best way to address the climate crisis is to work collaboratively with those companies.
Discussing progress, Chief Investment Officer Chris Ailman said,
We've gotten fossil fuel companies, we've gotten utilities, to adopt net zero by 2050 pledges, and I know many of you say that's too long, but those companies are reducing their greenhouse gasses today. They are already starting and making a difference.
Discussing how to get change from these companies, Kirsty Jenkinson, the head of sustainability for CalSTRS, argued,
Change happens from the top, and recognizing that there are different strategies to create change and companies, it just has to start at the very top and we were very proud of the role that we and many other investors who supported it took the decision to change the leadership of Exxon Mobil from the top...Major technological innovation at scale to capture carbon and remove carbon is going to be such an important part of the ledger for achieving net zero and it is doable.
Discussing CalSTRS' theory of how to get change to happen, Ailman said,
This transition can't be a fight. It's going to be a huge energy transition off of fossil fuels to something else. And what we need to do is really work with people. The more we make it a fight, the more we're going to see a rebellion on the other side, and then we're going to have a whole problem.
While Ailman cites the net zero 2050 commitments of fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon-Mobil, as a major achievement, that company's net zero commitments ONLY cover the emissions caused by their operations, and not those coming from the burning of their product. In the world of our climate crisis, this pledge is laughable; burning carbon as fuel is the greatest contributor to green-house gas emissions, and Exxon has effectively washed its hands of the problem.
A few years ago the fossil fuel industry stopped promoting outright climate denialism. Their new strategy is to position themselves as part of the solution to the crisis they have caused, and to focus on "net zero by 2050." Much of the "net" in net zero comes from unproven technologies such as carbon capture. Even with commitments of net zero by 2050, the fossil fuel industry continues to fight against climate friendly legislation. They continue to explore for more oil. They continue to build new fossil fuel infrastructure.
While Ailman claimed that divestment doesn't work, at the symposium he told the story of meeting with an Indian fossil fuel company and telling them about the divestment movement.
They told us that they weren't even aware that some of the universities divested because they never spoke to them, and that we were the first people who actually educated them about the divestment movement and that that was a threat to them. And they did open their eyes, and they also want to know, what do we as shareholders want? And they began a dialogue.
In other words, in this case, the threat of divestment was a powerful incentive to action.
An argument could thus be made that smart strategic divestment, with credible threats to divest when benchmarks are not met, might have some impact. Indeed, that is the strategy New York State comptroller Tom DiNapoli took with that state's divestment from fossil fuels.
Jenkinson admitted at the forum that CalSTRS has no clear benchmarks for when it will decide to give up on a company. One clear benchmark would be that the company is no longer lobbying to undermine climate legislation. On that metric the top fossil fuel companies, including Exxon-Mobil, are continuing to fail miserably. Another could include measurable decreases in overall emissions. A third would be marked reductions in capital outlay for new search and drilling operations.
However, even if the fossil fuel industries kept their pledges to reach net zero by 2050, and there is serious doubt that they will, net zero is not enough. We can't slow our move away from emitting greenhouse gasses because we think some future technology may take away some carbon. We need to stop emitting. Net zero by 2050 is way too little, way too late. In order for the planet to survive, we need to slash ALL emissions in half by 2030. We need to cut emissions 7% per year every year until 2050. We also need whatever sinks we can get.
Unfortunately, we cannot get to the required speed and level of emissions reductions without a fight with the fossil fuel industry. The history of social change shows clearly that when a group benefits from a form of exploitation, they need to be pushed to give up those benefits.
As people were fighting to end slavery in the 19th century there were many abolitionists who believed that moral arguments about the evils of slavery would eventually reach the hearts of the slave owners and the politicians who did their bidding. Opposing that idea, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass uttered his most famous lines,
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Twenty one year old panelist Nalleli Cobo, who has fought against neighborhood fossil fuel companies since she was 9 years old, and who is in remission from stage 2 cancer, spoke of the damaging effects of fuel production on students and teachers in California, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color. She stated,
Over 580,000 Angelenos live within a quarter of a mile or less from an oil or gas well and 93% of the population are people of color....It's so important that we divest from fossil fuels. It's affecting our health, our safety and our environment...I think it's important that the teachers' money doesn't go to killing kids, it doesn't go to damaging their organs or their health.
Other damaging effects of burning fossil fuels happening right now are the recent explosions in the number of wildfires across the West, the increasing number of days when the air quality reaches hazardous levels, and the worst drought in 1200 years.
University of California Chief Investment Officer, Jagdeep Singh Bacheer, ended the symposium by asking CalSTRS to engage with its stakeholders and really listen to their concerns about the fossil fuel industry.
Ailman and Jenkinson appear to be very competent and knowledgeable about investing in general, and about investing in sustainable stocks. But this forum showed that they do not have a deep understanding of how social change happens. It is pure magical thinking to suppose that the fossil fuel companies that right now are undermining climate legislation can be talked into voluntarily adopting changes at the level and speed needed to keep our planet livable for our species.
CalSTRS members, who have voted overwhelmingly through their unions to pass resolutions asking for fossil fuel divestment, have enough of an understanding of how politics works to know that now is the time for CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuel companies. The board can make this choice at their next meeting. And if they don't, we can work for passage of California's SB 1173, which will require them to do so.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
"What would the reaction would be if an Arab state wrote this about synagogues and Jews?" asked one critic.
Israel faced backlash this week after its Arabic-language account on the social media site X published a message warning Europeans to take action against the proliferation of mosques and "remove" Muslims from their countries.
"In the year 1980, there were only fewer than a hundred mosques in Europe. As for today, there are more than 20,000 mosques. This is the true face of colonization," posted Israel, a settler-colonial state whose nearly 2 million Muslim citizens face widespread discrimination, and where Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories live under an apartheid regime.
"This is what is happening while Europe is oblivious and does not care about the danger," the post continues. "And the danger does not lie in the existence of mosques in and of themselves, for freedom of worship is one of the basic human rights, and every person has the right to believe and worship his Lord."
"The problem lies in the contents that are taught in some of these mosques, and they are not limited to piety and good deeds, but rather focus on encouraging escalating violence in the streets of Europe, and spreading hatred for the other and even for those who host them in their countries, and inciting against them instead of teaching love, harmony, and peace," Israel added. "Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column."
Referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Berlin-based journalist James Jackson replied on X that "even the AfD don't tweet, 'Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column' over a map of mosques."
Other social media users called Israel's post "racist" and "Islamophobic," while some highlighted the stark contrast between the way Palestinians and Israelis treat Christian people and institutions.
Others noted that some of the map's fearmongering figures misleadingly showing a large number of mosques indicate countries whose populations are predominantly or significantly Muslim.
"Russia has 8,000 mosques? Who would've known a country with millions of Muslim Central Asians and Caucasians would need so many!" said one X user.
Israel's post came amid growing international outrage over its 691-day assault and siege on Gaza, which has left more than 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving and facing ethnic cleansing as Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—a campaign to conquer, occupy, and "cleanse" the strip—ramps up amid a growing engineered famine that has already killed hundreds of people.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives form the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and forced starvation.
European nations including Belgium, Ireland, and Spain are supporting the South Africa-led ICJ genocide case against Israel. Since October 2023, European countries including Belgium, France, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and Spain have either formally recognized Palestinian statehood or announced their intention to do so.
"This is unfathomable discrimination against immigrants that will cost our country lives," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The Trump administration is reportedly putting new restrictions on nonprofit organizations that would bar them from helping undocumented immigrants affected by natural disasters.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is "now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants" while also requiring these groups "to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations."
Documents obtained by the paper reveal that all volunteer groups that receive government money to help in the wake of disasters must not "operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration." What's more, the groups are prohibited from "harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens" and must "provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien."
The order pertains to faith-based aid groups such as the Salvation Army and Red Cross that are normally on the front lines building shelters and providing assistance during disasters.
Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert who teaches at Arizona State University, told The Washington Post that there is no historical precedent for requiring disaster victims to prove proof of their legal status before receiving assistance.
"The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory," he said.
Many critics were quick to attack the administration for threatening to punish nonprofit groups that help undocumented immigrants during natural disasters.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) lashed out at the decision to bar certain people from receiving assistance during humanitarian emergencies.
"When disaster hits, we cannot only help those with certain legal status," she wrote in a social media post. "We have an obligation to help every single person in need. This is unfathomable discrimination against immigrants that will cost our country lives."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that restrictions on faith-based groups such as the Salvation Army amounted to a violation of their First Amendment rights.
"Arguably the most anti-religious administration in history," he wrote. "Just nakedly hostile to those who wish to practice their faith."
Bloomberg columnist Erika Smith labeled the new DHS policy "truly cruel and crazy—even for this administration."
Author Charles Fishman also labeled the new policy "crazy" and said it looks like the Trump administration is "trying to crush even charity."
Catherine Rampell, a former columnist at The Washington Post, simply described the new DHS policy as "evil."