Boycott Chevron! That’s the message motorists on the 5 Freeway saw when looking up from their Friday afternoon commute and seeing protest banners at the Main Street overpass in Santa Ana. 

The Orange County group, OCBANNERDROP4PALI, unfurled the banners calling for a boycott of all Chevron gas stations until the company cuts ties with Israel because of the country’s ongoing starvation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. 

Simultaneous actions were planned at freeway overpasses up and down the Western Coast, including Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Vancouver, Portland, Sacramento, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 

In Berkeley, California, strong winds posed a challenge in displaying the massive messages. In Santa Ana, it was a powerful, week-long heat wave.”  (Berkeley photos by Leon Kunstenaar

Concerned OC residents opted to join the regional action initiated by the activist groups Oil and Gas Action Network, the National Boycott, Divest,  Sanctions Committee (BDS) and the United States Committee on Palestinian Rights (USCPR). 

For Rami Anabtawi, a second-generation Palestinian American, has family in Palestine’s West Bank. “Chevron co-owns and operates two Israeli-occupied fossil gas fields in the  Mediterranean,” says Anabtawi. “It’s the largest multinational player in Israel’s fossil gas industry.”

According to the group, Chevron’s gas sale revenues from these fields totaled $1.5 billion. Anabtawi says Chevron paid $820 million USD in taxes and royalties to Israel for its extraction activities. Funds, he says, bankroll Israel’s systems of genocide, apartheid, and criminal theft of Palestinian land and resources.

The organizers from the various groups are calling on community members to boycott Chevron gas stations and products, and calling on local institutions like universities and churches to divest from Chevron for its practice of fueling genocide and war crimes. The West Coast effort aims to generate awareness about climate change and the impact of fossil fuel use on the warming of the planet. 

Residents did the painstaking work of safely hanging the banners in 90-degree heat and repeated the process on Sunday, August 31, from 12 to 2 pm for the weekly OCBANNERDROP4PALI banner drop at the Fullerton location, situated at the 57 Freeway overpass on Yorba Linda Blvd. 

“Responsible and principled people around the globe donated money so that there could be food for these starving children and starving families in Gaza,” says Anabtawi. “And Israel blocked them all less than a mile away from reaching them in order to torture and eradicate the two million people living in Gaza. And now, hundreds of thousands are starving to death. More than 350 have already starved to death – over 150 of them less than 5 years old. It takes months to starve to death. It’s one of the most painful ways to die.”

While putting up the banners last Friday, Rami kept stopping to acknowledge motorists who blared their horns in support. “As you can see, 80% of the cars are honking to support us – almost everyone is against this – the polls show it too. Our politics are a sham – there is corruption in every facet of our society, and learning the truth about Gaza and Palestine is the quickest way to become aware of that.”

The West Coast coordinated highway banner amplifies calls made by local organizers across the country for individuals and institutions––such as universities and churches––to boycott and divest from Chevron because its profits come at the cost of genocide, apartheid, and the climate crisis.

Israel’s genocide machine couldn’t run without power from Chevron. As Israel bombed hospitals, homes, universities, and UN schools in Gaza, the Chevron corporation supplied energy via the operation and co-ownership of Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land. Chevron also manages a pipeline that illegally runs from Israel to Egypt off the coast of Gaza, and is a key company implicated in supplying crude oil to Israel. A recent report from the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Franchesca Albanese, specifically mentioned Chevron by name. The report concluded that Chevron may be criminally liable for several crimes including genocide and apartheid under international law.

In addition to its complicity in grave violations of Palestinian human rights and the rights of other Indigenous communities around the world, Chevron is failing to align with international commitments to phase out fossil fuels and limit global temperature rise. Among all investor-owned companies, Chevron has produced the most cumulative climate pollution in history. If the company were held partially accountable for the climate loss and damage caused by its pollution, it would owe $900 billion.