The Sierra Club, national environmental nonprofit, has canceled scheduled trips to Israel after pressure from progressives and anti-Zionist groups. BDS activists threatened the organization, stating that it was “greenwashing the conflict” and “providing legitimacy to the Israeli state, which is engaged in apartheid against the Palestinian people,” this according to an email from a volunteer associated with the nonprofit.

The email from Owens read: “On January 20, the board of directors received an email from a Jewish American activist urging us to cancel our upcoming trips to Israel (scheduled for March 15 and 29, 2022 and March 2023), saying that we are greenwashing the conflict there and providing legitimacy to the Israeli state, which is engaged in apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

The board notified Owens and the National Outings team, which “sent our standard response which states that we don’t restrict our trips due to regional conflicts or politics,” wrote Owens wrote. “The activist was not satisfied and said he planned to get additional activist groups involved.

“On February 22, the board received an email from a coalition of activist organizations … threatening that if we did not cancel the upcoming trips within a week, they would go public that the organization was violating the organizational values it recently rolled out.”

After “reviewing the pros and cons of each outcome,” Owens wrote, the organization canceled the scheduled trips. In other words, the Sierra Club caved in to pressure from BDS activists. As popular blogger Elder of Ziyon noted, “This is hardly a moral response by the Sierra Club. It is pure cowardice. It caved to haters and violated its own policies not to let politics enter into these kinds of decisions.”