Not Belonging to the Land
I listened in on two talks today given by our host, Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh. Mazin is a well-known activist for Palestinian freedom and human rights. And he is also a scientist and founder/director of Bethlehem University’s Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability.
Mazin was wearing his academic hat for his talks today. Both had to do with the land and its plant and animal life.
The first one was about Biological Reserves in the Middle East. Biological Reserves are legally designated protection zones for plant and animal life. There are a number of them in Jordan and Lebanon and 4 sites being considered in Palestine. But the sites in Palestine are not in the same condition as those in the neighboring countries. The reason is simple, Mazin said. It’s because Palestine is not a sovereign country in charge of its own resources and so can’t sustain these areas very well. And Israel has no concern for the welfare of the natural world.
Not only is the land being destroyed by Israel’s years of military attacks, it is also left unprotected to toxic development. The occupation is not just of the people, but also of all life forms.
An example of Israel’s attack on the land is the case of one of the places being considered for a Biological Reserve and possibly a World Heritage site. On both sides of this site Israel has built settlements. And now it wants to develop the area between the two settlements so as to link them together. With no regard or acknowledgment of the environmental damage this would entail.
The Palestinian scientific community is calling on international bodies to restrain Israel from precluding this possible Biological Reserve. But it’s hard to see how it might prevail against Israel’s unrestrained settler colonial project.
The second talk I listened in on was an online conversation with a couple of researchers who were concerned about the destruction of olive trees in Palestine, especially one said to be the oldest olive tree in the world.
Mazin broadened the focus to include all of the Palestinian plants and animals. He said it is basically in the nature of colonization to destroy diversity and thereby weaken the natural environment.
He said Israel’s Zionist project has
- Brought many invasive species
- Bulldozed native species just as it bulldozes homes
- Bombed trees - olives, figs, almonds - as it bombs people
- Created a monoculture with its massive planting of non-native pine trees
So it is not just the olive trees that are being destroyed, it’s the whole natural environment. And it’s not accidental. The Israeli colonists have uprooted hundreds of thousands of trees in Gaza and the West Bank. It’s a war on nature.
Mazin says what’s driving this ecocide is more than just trying to make life unlivable for Palestinians. It’s also for more psychological and religious reasons. He says that Zionists believe they are commanded by god to destroy “Amelak.” That god said they have to kill or expel every man, woman, and child in their way, but also to destroy their trees, animals, plants.
In other words, the idea is one of cleansing “pollutants,” meaning not just the people, but anything that reminds them of the people. Native trees are, like the people, just bad things needing to be removed. Israelis want to destroy the very memory of the Palestinians being native to the land. Everything Palestinian has to go. He says American colonists did the same thing when they killed all the buffalo, along with the Native Americans.
I recall a comment made once in response to Israel’s deliberate and malicious burning and uprooting of olive trees. The trees so cherished and loved by Palestinians. The comment was that no one indigenous to the land would do such a heinous thing to its trees. And that this is indisputable evidence that Israel does not belong to this land, nor does the land belong to Israel.