Ban Monsanto (Bayer) & Israel Chemicals Ltd’s White Phosphorus Weapons

White phosphorus (not to be confused with phosphate-based fertilizers from phosphate rock) is a chemical weapon that ignites upon exposure to oxygen. Burning at up to 1400°F, it inflicts horrific, burning injuries, contaminates land and water, and renders entire regions uninhabitable for generations. International law bans its use against civilians, but Israel has repeatedly used it in Gaza and Lebanon, scorching fields, homes, and bodies.

Lebanon has the highest proportion of agricultural land in the Middle East, but now much of it is poisoned. This is a tragedy not only for the Lebanese people, but for the entire region’s food security and heritage. Modern wheat’s earliest ancestors – einkorn, emmer, and spelt – still grow wild in Lebanon where farmers preserve the ancient traditions of the Fertile Crescent, the center of origin of the Triticeae family of wild grasses, to which wheat, rye, and barley belong.

Israel’s use of white phosphorus weapons is supported by the U.S. Department of War and its monopoly suppliers of white phosphorus, Monsanto (Bayer) and Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL). St. Louis is currently supporting ICL’s expansion with $200 million in taxpayer funding.

TAKE ACTION: Ban Bayer & ICL’s White Phosphorus Weapons!

WATCH:

The petition to ban white phosphorus weapons was launched by the Collective for Architecture in Lebanon at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale in an artistic rendering of an actual seed library, including bricks of soil embedded with seeds. To learn more, watch this fascinating discussion with members of the collective about rare varieties of agricultural and ornamental plants preserved in Lebanon.

At the 2025 People’s Food Summit, OCA political director Alexis Baden-Mayer spoke with Beirut-based historian and writer Zeaad Yaghi, author of the report “Pathways Towards Food Sovereignty in Lebanon,” on the current food crisis, exacerbated by Israel’s use of Bayer and Israel Chemicals Ltd’s white phosphorus weapons supplied by the U.S., as well as ICL Out of STL activists in St. Louis fighting ICL’s city-funded expansion.