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josh green
Governor Green, Genocide Is Not Aloha
Fifteen organizations and more than 2,600 people are demanding an end to Hawaii’s “Strategic Partnership” with Israel.
Mar 07, 2024
On February 29, 2024, 15 organizations in Hawaii at a press conference at the Hawaii State Capitol called for Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to terminate any relationship the State of Hawaii has with Israel, citing the Israeli genocide being conducted in Gaza.
On the day of the press conference, Israeli military killed 107 and wounded over 700 starving Palestinians that were attempting to get food for their families from food relief trucks. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and 70,000 wounded in the 152-day Israeli attack and siege of Gaza.
On February 22, 2024, the Green’s office issued a letter stating his commitment to “unbreakable bonds” between the U.S. and Israel and the enduring commitment to Israel’s security.
“What Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is not self-defense, it is genocide, pure and simple.”
According to the letter received by email from the governor’s office on February 22, 2024:
Under Governor Green’s administration, this commitment to Israel’s security continues to be bipartisan and sacrosanct. The United States remains steadfast in preserving and strengthening Israel’s capability to deter threats and defend itself. Additionally, the pledge never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon remains integral to this partnership.
The historic Memoranda of Understanding on security assistance, signed by successive U.S. administrations, further demonstrate the unwavering support for Israel’s security. These arrangements underscore the importance of Israel’s security to U.S. interests and regional stability.
Governor Green’s administration upholds the commitments outlined in the Joint Declaration, ensuring the enduring U.S.-Israel strategic partnership remains strong and steadfast.
Prior to Governor Green’s statement of a “strategic partnership” with Israel, in October 2022, then-Gov. David Ige signed a Joint Declaration for the State of Hawaii with the State of Israel establishing a “strategic partnership for friendly exchanges and cooperation between Hawaii and Israel,” and a formal relationship between both governments “to foster economic cooperation, facilitate joint industrial research and development, and enhance business relationships, research, and educational opportunities.”
Over 2,600 persons have signed a petition demanding that the “strategic partnership” with the State of Israel signed by Ige in October, 2022 be terminated.
Considering the genocide the Israeli government is conducting on Palestinians in Gaza, with over 100,000 confirmed killed, injured, or missing at the hands of Israeli forces in what was then 145 days, and in light of the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, 15 organizations in Hawaii demanded at the press conference an end of Hawaii’s “strategic partnership” with the State of Israel.
The 15 organizations calling for a termination of all “strategic partnerships” with Israel to be immediately terminated are: Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawaii, Hawaii for Palestine, Rise for Palestine, Kona 4 Palestine, Maui for Palestine, Kauai for Palestine, Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawaii, Veterans For Peace-Hawaii, Seed of Love Hawaii, Humanists of Hawaii, Weaving Our Stories, AF3IRM Hawaii, Sabeel-Hawaii, World Can’t Wait-Hawaii, and Hawaii Peace and Justice.
In a statement, Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawaii coordinators Imani Altemus-Williams and Julie Warech wrote:
As Jews in Hawaii, we believe that maintaining any alliance with Israel is co-signing the ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Israeli actions are not about Jewish safety but rather the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. We call on Governor Green to stand with the Jewish values of shalom and tikkun olam by terminating this partnership and refusing to enable atrocious war crimes. We call on Governor Green to take a public stand for a CEASE-FIRE NOW.
Petition originator Jason Mizula, who has visited the West Bank of Palestine, stated, “The State of Hawaii’s strategic partnership with such a government contradicts our values here in Hawaii—values rooted in respect for all life forms and peaceful coexistence. By continuing this partnership, we are cosigning these acts that go against our principles. Occupation is not aloha. Apartheid is not aloha. Genocide is not aloha.”
Fatima Abed of Rise for Palestine said: “The International Court of Justice has found Israel’s actions in Gaza likely constitute war crimes and genocide, in direct violation of international law. The contract between Hawaii and Israel not only supports the current genocide of over 30,000 innocent people, 13,000 of which are children, but also supports the same system of colonialism that continues to cause harm to Hawaii and in particularly Kanaka Maoli.”
Sam Peck, a University of Hawaii (UH) undergraduate and member of Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine (SFJP) at UH, said:
Through its support and partnership with Israel, the U.S government and the State of Hawaii are directly responsible for the murder of over 20,000 children. Countless more have been orphaned, amputated, and have died slowly under rubble while their loved ones looked on, powerless to help. By continuing its partnership with Israel, the State of Hawaii is endorsing these atrocities, and stating that it believes they should continue unchecked. We believe that the State of Hawaii and its representatives do not wish to continue supporting such a heartless genocide, and as such we call on Governor Green to terminate the state’s partnership with Israel. SFJP at UH also calls for an immediate cease-fire and an end to funding for Israel.
Retired U.S. Army Colonel and former U.S. diplomat Ann Wright who has been to Gaza eight times commented, “What Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is not self-defense, it is genocide, pure and simple. The numbers of people killed and injured and the level of destruction of housing, hospitals, schools and universities, and other infrastructure is intended to force Palestinians out of an uninhabitable Gaza—it is genocide and a second Nakba.”
She continued: “Hawaii, its state institutions, and universities should not continue a partnership with a country that conducts genocide. We demand Governor Green rescind Hawaii’s ‘strategic partnership’ with Israel.”
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A Just Recovery for Maui Must Center Native Hawaiians
As we look forward to how we not only rebuild, but work to reduce the threat of these climate change-fueled disasters, we have to change who is leading this work.
Aug 30, 2023
In the wake of the Maui fires, Governor Josh Green moved to prevent the sale of land to outside investors in an effort to prevent disaster capitalism, a common pattern we’ve seen play out in the wake of disasters from Hurricane Katrina to the tsunami in Thailand. This is an important first step to prevent further displacement of Native Hawaiians, but it only scratches the surface of a deeper issue.
In the days after the devastating wildfires on Maui, we saw patients with burns, wounds, infections, chronic disease flare-ups, displacement and, overwhelmingly, mental health crises. Neither of us would have ever imagined experiencing such a tragic crisis as a physician or seeing the amount of devastation right here at home. Treating these patients—and hundreds of Native Hawaiians in our careers—brings to life what research shows: When Native Hawaiians’ connection to land is severed, we suffer.
This is because when the land is sick, so are we.
Centuries before European settlers arrived in Hawai‘i, Native Hawaiians developed an elaborate and highly sophisticated public health system based on socioreligious tenets to ensure equitable access, availability, and distribution of natural resources to help minimize, if not eliminate, starvation and illness across islands with finite resources.
Human-triggered climate change is the latest environmental injustice threatening Native Hawaiian health and wellness. The Maui fires make this clear. The causes of the fires are complicated, but climate change played a key part. Climate change causes stronger, more frequent storms and droughts, and we see that in Hawai‘i, which is suffering worsening drought conditions, despite being surrounded by ocean. Dry conditions and dangerous wind changes produced by Hurricane Dora fueled the fires.
In responding to this disaster and charting a path forward, we need to look to those with the greatest commitment to acting as stewards of Hawai‘i. Centuries before European settlers arrived in Hawai‘i, Native Hawaiians developed an elaborate and highly sophisticated public health system based on socioreligious tenets to ensure equitable access, availability, and distribution of natural resources to help minimize, if not eliminate, starvation and illness across islands with finite resources.
Colonization changed Hawaiʻi’s natural landscape, through deforestation for sugarcane, pineapple, and cattle. Water from mountains was redirected from natural streams and aquifers to flow instead through concrete irrigation ditches, feeding golf courses and hotels. Fire-prone invasive grass species replaced native vegetation.
As we look forward to how we not only rebuild, but work to reduce the threat of these climate change-fueled disasters, we have to change who is leading this work. An important solution is stewardship of land by Native people. Indigenous peoples maintain sustainable relationships with their environment and recognize and respond to environmental changes in creative ways, drawing on traditional knowledge and science to find solutions that can help society at large. When Native communities have sovereignty to take care of the land, it helps everyone.
This work of respecting Native Hawaiian leadership is already happening. We are both kiaʻi (stewards) of sacred places, like Loko Iʻa Pāʻaiau, a 400-year-old royal fishpond at Pearl Harbor that was contaminated with fuel from military operations. Restoration of Pāʻaiau is one example of how allowing Hawaiians to practice aloha ʻāina—to honor and advocate for land so it will sustain all inhabitants—leads to increased community well-being and resilience, as demonstrated by the return of healthy native plants, animals, human descendants, and relationships in the area. Restoration remains incomplete until the flow of freshwater from the mountains is restored, but stewardship efforts persist forward, through a collaborative community-based partnership with the U.S. Navy, Native Hawaiians, and the larger community, centered around a practice of aloha.
There is a lot of blame going around right now; we do need to look at how the Maui fires happened, but we must focus on moving forward. That can only happen when Native Hawaiians are central to the decision making surrounding how our land is treated.
Tradition teaches that Hawaiians descend from nature gods; thus, to heal Native Hawaiians, we must heal the 'āina that sustains us. Like our connections with those who love and nurture us, our relationship with ʻāina dramatically influences overall health and wellness. If we are able to progress with centering land practices around Indigenous knowledge and rights, Hawai‘i can model how to recover from climate-related disasters in ways that build safer, healthier futures for our children and future generations.
Preventing outsiders from buying land in Lāhainā is important, but only preserves a troubled status quo. We need to build a better future, one that is informed by Native Hawaiians’ shared history, knowledge, and connections with the land. We need Native Hawaiians on the land, and at the table.
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Fears of 'Plantation Disaster Capitalism' Mount in Wake of Maui Fires
"Justice is returning control of public resources like land and water to the people," wrote one activist. "For too long the strings of Maui and thousands of communities like it have been pulled by forces indifferent to their soul."
Aug 23, 2023
As Maui County faces a daunting recovery from the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century—with at least 115 confirmed deaths as of Tuesday, around 1,000 people still unaccounted for, and a rebuild expected to cost billions of dollars—fears and fights over land and water are highlighting the long history of colonialism and exploitation in the Hawaiian Islands.
"It's disaster capitalism at its finest," Hokuao Pellegrino, a seventh-generation Native Hawaiian farmer, educator, and president of the nonprofit Hui o Nā Wai 'Ehā, toldCNN in a Monday segment about Maui's current water battles.
Disaster capitalism, as journalist Naomi Klein explained in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, is "orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities."
Fire spread by hurricane winds earlier this month leveled Lahaina, a Maui tourist destination that was previously the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, before an 1893 coup led by American expatriates and sugar planters. The United States formally annexed the islands in 1898. Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1900 and the 50th state in 1959.
"Disaster capitalism has taken many forms in different contexts," Klein wrote last week in a Guardian column with Kapua'ala Sproat, a University of Hawaii at Manoa law professor and director of the Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law.
"It's always a little different, which is why some Native Hawaiians have taken to calling their unique version by a slightly different term: plantation disaster capitalism," the pair continued. "It's a name that speaks to contemporary forms of neocolonialism and climate profiteering, like the real estate agents who have been cold-calling Lahaina residents who have lost everything to the fire and prodding them to sell their ancestral lands rather than wait for compensation. But it also places these moves inside the long and ongoing history of settler colonial resource theft and trickery, making clear that while disaster capitalism might have some modern disguises, it's a very old tactic. A tactic that Native Hawaiians have a great deal of experience resisting."
As Klein and Sproat detailed:
For over a century, water across Maui Komohana, the western region of the island, has been extracted to benefit outside interests: first large sugar plantations and, more recently, their corporate successors. The companies—including West Maui Land Co. (WML) and its subsidiaries, as well as Kaanapali Land Management and Maui Land & Pineapple Inc.—have devoured the island's natural resources to develop McMansions, colonial-style subdivisions, luxury resorts, and golf courses where cane and pineapple once grew.
This historical and modern plantation economy has taken a tremendous toll on water in particular, draining Indigenous ecologies of their natural moisture. Lahaina, once known as the Venice of the Pacific, has been transformed into a parched desert, which is part of what has made it so vulnerable to fire.
A few days after flames tore through Lahaina, Hawaiian state Attorney General Anne Lopez announced a probe into the formal response. Her sweeping investigation includes a five-hour delay in the state Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM)—which is responsible for how much water flows through streams—approving WML's request to fill its private reservoirs that are not connected to local hydrants but the company was willing to make available to firefighters.
The delay was reportedly the result of unsuccessful attempts to reach a farmer of taro—or kalo, a root vegetable sacred to Native Hawaiians—affected by the diversion. Activists and officials have pointed out that wind would have prevented helicopter crews from reaching the WML reservoirs for firefighting. According to the Honolulu Civil Beat, "The company suffered no significant property damage in the fires."
A water official involved with the delay, Kaleo Manuel, was then reassigned to another Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources division—though the DLNR said in a statement last week that the shift was part of an effort "to focus on the necessary work to assist the people of Maui recover from the devastation of wildfires" and "does not suggest that First Deputy Manuel did anything wrong."
In a lawsuit filed Monday, Maui residents Kekai Keahi and Jennifer Kamaho'i Mather argue that the redeployment was illegal, and ask a Hawaii court to void the decision and affirm that any such move must be made in an open meeting to allow public testimony.
Hawaii Public Radioreported Tuesday that while decision has also "prompted serious concerns" from CWRM members, the state attorney general's office claims the case is "wholly without merit" and plans to file a motion to dismiss it.
"One thing that people need to understand especially those from far away is that there's been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years," Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said during a press briefing last week. "It's important that we're honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I'll leave that to you to explore."
The Democratic governor has faced criticism for the comments and for suspending the "state water code, to the extent necessary to respond to the emergency," through his recent proclamations relating to wildfires.
As the Civil Beatreported:
"No one's trying to oppose the use of water to fight fires," said Isaac Moriwake, an attorney with Earthjustice. "That was unfair for the governor to go there."
The real issue, Moriwake said, is that West Maui Land Co. is trying to use the fire as an excuse to gain control over the region's water supply.
Moriwake points out that Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources Chair Dawn Chang has agreed to amend—temporarily—several water regulations, at West Maui Land Co.'s request, pursuant to an emergency declaration related to the fire issued by Green. That included a provision allowing companies like West Maui Land to fill its reservoirs when fire was reported in the area.
"They should stop trying to use this tragedy for cheap advantage," Moriwake said.
Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former member of the CWRM, also challenged Green's claims about community members fighting against the release of water for firefighting, tellingThe Washington Post that "in my eight years on the water commission, I never heard, in a single hearing, that testimony from anyone in the community."
Lahaina's Native Hawaiian community "has fought for literally generations to seek justice and balance for the streams and the community and other usages," added Beamer, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies.
According toThe New York Times:
Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, said conservationists had supported the use of water for fire reserves. But he said he worried that water companies and large landowners use fire protection as an excuse to hoard water for commercial purposes.
"No one has opposed the need to reserve water for firefighting, but we want to know how much they actually use for that purpose," Mr. Tanaka said.
Sproat made similar remarks in an appearance on
Democracy Now! last week after her column with Klein was published.
"Plantation disaster capitalism, I think, is, unfortunately, the perfect term for what's going on in Maui Komohana, or in West Maui, right now," Sproat said. "The plantations, the large landed interests that have had control over not just the land, but really much of Hawaii's and Maui Komohana's resources for the last several centuries, are using this opportunity, are using this time of tremendous trauma for the people of Maui, to swoop in and to get past the law, basically."
"They're using the emergency proclamation that the governor put into place the day after the fires to, you know, ravage Lahaina, and they're using this as an opportunity to try to get their way, especially with respect to water resources, something they could not achieve when the law and Hawaii's water code, in particular, were in place," she explained.
During a Thursday interview with the Civil Beat, Green "defended his position that government, developers, and environmental and cultural activists need to work together to resolve issues," but also insisted that Lahaina's rebuild "will be done with direct input from fire survivors, the island, and its mayor," and "new construction will be primarily to house locals and not to favor large developers."
A coalition of community members gathered at Maui's Wahikuli Beach Park for a Friday press conference about rebuilding. Keahi—one of the residents behind the suit over Manuel's redeployment—said that "we don't want to hear the governor's office saying that we have a plan for Lahaina because none of us ever got to speak to the governor."
Reporting from the event, Hawaii Public Radioexplained that Nā 'Ohana O Lele—or the Families of Lele, in honor of Lahaina's ancient name—has three demands for Green: "One is to allow the community time to heal before rebuilding. Two is to let Lahaina lead the planning process. And three is to amend the emergency proclamation to ensure Hawaii's open meeting regulation or 'Sunshine Law' remains in full force."
Noting the group's demands, Kaniela Ing, a seventh-generation Native Hawaiian and national director of Green New Deal Network, wrote Monday for The Nation, "The vision is clear: The restoration of Lahaina should be by the community, for the community."
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to Maui on Monday to tour the destruction and meet first responders and survivors. In a pair of speeches, the president claimed that "we're going to rebuild the way the people of Maui want to build."
"It's time to rebuild this community the way you want it built—the way you want it—so it's still a community, not a group of beautiful homes, but a community," Biden declared at the Lahaina Civic Center, provoking applause from residents impacted by fires.
Still, Hawaiians stress that such words from government officials are not enough—action is also required. Ing wrote Monday that "political and legislative fights lie ahead to ensure that rebuilding efforts steer clear of the pitfalls of external influences, and that resources are channeled to foster local resilience and empowerment."
"True justice doesn't lie merely in acknowledging the climate crisis," he argued. "Justice is returning control of public resources like land and water to the people. It's about recognizing that for too long the strings of Maui and thousands of communities like it have been pulled by forces indifferent to their soul. It's acknowledging that survivors aren't just figures in a news report but the heartbeats of a resilient community that demands its rightful place in shaping its future."
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