Dozens protest Chevron over ‘complicity’ in genocide in Gaza

Around noon on Sept. 26, dozens of San Francisco Bay Area residents huddled in a grassy corner behind a parking lot in San Ramon, California, anxiously waiting to make their way to Chevron Corporation headquarters. 

Organizers from Chevron Out of Palestine, Oil & Gas Action Network, Scientist Rebellion, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) Movement passed out stickers to protestors, solidifying the call to expose Chevron’s complicity in “fueling the genocide.” According to organizers, this was the seventh protest in the Bay Area this year against the oil giant, which is one of Israel’s largest power sources. 

A half-hour later, the group made their way along a dirt-paved trail parallel to a lake that sits within Chevron’s headquarters. Dressed in keffiyehs, protesters carried signs that read, “Boycott Chevron” and “Chevron Out of Palestine,” while chanting, “Chevron, Chevron, you can’t hide, you are fueling genocide!” Meanwhile, at the center of the lake, activists stationed on three boats unfurled a banner that read, “Boycott Chevron.”

Back across the water, supporters hung a 45-foot banner across Chevron’s riverwalk entrance, boldly declaring the corporation the “genocide energy company,” obscuring its original trademark as the “human energy company.” Nicky Gott, the march’s emcee and a volunteer with Oil and Gas Action Network, shouted into a microphone, “All across the world, people are fed up with you, Chevron. Entire cities are boycotting you, and people everywhere are rising up to protest against you.” 

The protest at Chevron’s headquarters in the Bay Area was one of dozens of actions across the U.S. at the company’s refineries, gas stations, and offices in coordination with a global week of action. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched in 2005 to push for justice in Palestine and an end to Israeli occupation and apartheid. 

Olivia Katbi, the North American coordinator for BDS, told Prism that strategic campaigns aimed at isolating Israel are one way to achieve these broader goals. 

“We want to end all international support [to Israel]. That includes states that are sending weapons and corporations that are propping up the Israeli economy. Everyday people [can] take part by withholding their own money [and] joining campaigns to get institutions to end support and isolate Israel internationally,” Katbi said. 

The BDS movement issued a global call to boycott Chevron in January that aims to reach 100,000 pledges in support of the campaign. As Israel commits genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, companies like Chevron are actively expanding their footprint in Israel as it wipes away Palestinians and Palestinian culture.  

“We want to see Chevron held accountable everywhere that it is operating, especially as it profits off of the genocide in Palestine,” said Lujain Al-Saleh, a member-leader of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) that fights for racial and economic justice and the dignity and liberation of Arab and Muslim communities. Al-Saleh also works as the coordinator with Communities for a Better Environment in Richmond, California, where Chevron’s refinery is located.

Since January 2023, a growing list of organizations and cities have joined the call to withdraw support for Chevron. The International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers (IAATW), which represents 100,000 drivers in 20 countries, announced in March a boycott of Chevron-branded gas stations as an act of solidarity with Palestinian trade unions. American cities like Portland, Maine, and Alameda and Hayward, California, include Chevron in their divestment resolutions.

A history of targeting energy infrastructure 

Chevron began operations in Israel in 2020 when it acquired Noble Energy and quickly expanded its reach. The corporation now operates and co-owns the two largest Israeli gas fields, Tamar and Leviathan, holding 25% and 39% stakes, respectively. By 2022, 70% of Israel’s electricity was supplied by methane gas, and nearly all of it was sourced by Chevron. The Tamar gas field supplies 98% of energy to the Israeli Electric Company (IEC). The country’s utility company provides power to all Israeli military bases, prisons, and police stations, including hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements. Chevron also partially owns and operates the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline, which runs 90 km (56 miles) from the Israeli settlement Ashkelon, six miles north of Gaza, to El Arish in Egypt. 

Chevron touts that its investment in Israel has helped the country achieve energy independence, though, for decades, Israel has used its energy supply as a tool to exploit and subjugate Palestinians. The BDS movement calls this “energy apartheid.” 

Dov Baum, American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) director of corporate accountability and research, said that because Chevron co-owns and operates these gas fields, it’s “more complicit” in apartheid.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, Israel displaced more than 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, seizing the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. That same year, Israel handed the Palestinian electric grid to the Israeli Electric Company (IEC), making Palestinians dependent on the occupying country’s services. Israel now routinely targets energy infrastructure throughout Palestine.

In 2006, the year Israel began its blockade of Gaza, it bombed all six main transformers on the region’s sole power plant in Nuseirat. By 2023, Gaza’s power plant could only sustain electricity for 10 hours per day. In West Bank’s Area C, where 300,000 Palestinians live, installing solar energy infrastructure is nearly impossible because Palestinian building permits are rarely approved, and home demolitions are routine. It is estimated that from 2001 to 2016, Israel demolished $70 million worth of EU-funded aid projects, including solar energy installations. 

Immediately after the Al Aqsa Flood uprising on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel unleashed a complete siege on Gaza, barring access to food, fuel, water, and electricity. Gaza’s sole power plant lost all functionality. The lack of fuel has devastated hospitals, access to clean water, and waste management services, creating conditions for spreading disease. After a year of relentless bombings, starvation, and mass displacement, Israel still has not restored electricity to the decimated strip.

But the investment in Israel, including its ongoing violence against Palestinians in Gaza, has proved beneficial to Chevron’s bottom line. Last February, the company and its partners invested $24 million to expand the Tamar gas field, the reservoir 55 miles west of Haifa in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The construction would lay an additional 93-mile pipeline from the gas field to the processing platform off the coast of Ashkelon, just 6 miles north of Gaza. In August, Chevron and its energy partners invested $429 million to expand the Leviathan gas field near the Tamar field. Chevron has since delayed the Leviathan expansion, citing security reasons, with plans to resume construction in April 2025. 

Chevron only sees a return on its investment. The corporation’s net earnings are higher than most countries’ gross domestic product: In 2022, Chevron brought home $1.5 billion from Israeli gas sales alone. From now until 2040, Chevron could potentially earn $20 billion in revenue from Israeli gas production, illustrating what Chevron’s vice president said is a “long-term” investment in the region despite the ongoing genocide. 

Kassem Hamideh, a Bay Area organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement who spoke at the Chevron protest in September, said that Israel, the West, and U.S. companies like Chevron are exploiting moments of crisis at the expense of Palestinian lives.

“They profit while our homelands burn,” Hamideh said. “They profit while our people are martyred; they profit while our people are starved. We will never accept these conditions.”

An August report by Oil Change International tracked oil shipments to Israel’s military since October 2023 and found that Chevron and the multinational oil and gas company BP held the top spot in supplying crude oil. Last January, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel is “plausibly committing genocide.” By supplying fuel to Israel’s military operations, Chevron could be held liable for genocidal acts under the genocide convention. This has prompted organizers to advocate for taking Chevron’s social license to operate away anywhere the company is located.

In a statement, a representative from Chevron told Prism that the corporation is “deeply concerned about recent global events and the devastating impact on communities.” 

“Chevron supports energy development efforts in the East Mediterranean,” the statement continued. “We believe our projects in the Eastern Mediterranean can continue to play a significant role in supplying much-needed energy within the region and globally. Wherever we are present, we operate in compliance with all local laws and international standards.” 

BDS activists are determined that consistent action starting at the local level will disrupt Chevron’s operations. 

“Let it be clear, all backers of Zionism, of Israel, and of U.S. imperialism have been put on notice,” Hamideh said. “The perpetrators and profiteers of genocide have faces, and they have names, and the masses of people around the world stand against them in the millions.”

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