Devastating environmental effects of Israeli settler-colonialism
JVL Introduction
Zubayr Alikhan , a student, activist, and writer, writing in Mondoweiss, chronicles the ongoing environmental disaster that is Israeli settler colonialism
Building settlements and the accompanying roads has in itself caused enormous harm: the clearcutting of the land occupied has, according to UNEP, led to “habitat fragmentation, desertification, land degradations, rapid urbanization, and soil erosion”.
It also causes exploitation, overuse, misuse, mismanagement, and contamination of Palestinian natural resources, particularly water.
Add to that the dumping of settlement waste in the West Bank, with vast quantities of untreated sewage, in particular, contaminating the ground water, and the open air burning of toxic waste…
Urbanisation has always been an environmental changer. Under settler colonialism is a truly a devastating environmental disaster.
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Mon 31 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
The devastating environmental effects of Israeli settler-colonialism in the West Bank
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“First, Israeli settlements are almost entirely built on confiscated Palestinian agricultural or grazing lands and are only erected after clear-cutting and uprooting local flora, namely olive trees: a primary source of food and income for Palestinians. The olive tree is also and an integral element of Palestinian identity, dating back millennia and symbolizing peace, steadfastness, fortitude, and resilience.”
So re. the fate of Palestinian olive trees:
I heard on the Today Programme (18/12/2020) the “Thought for the Day” delivered by Bishop James Jones, in appreciation of the late Lord Sacks. It had relevance to the occupation of Palestine.
The bit in question is repeated below. The full original may still be available on the BBC Today website.
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Some years ago I spent time listening to young people’s dreams and dreads about the future. It made me re-think my own attitude to the environment. What did Jesus have to say about the earth? What were the Jewish and Muslim ethics of Creation?
I went to see the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. When I ventured that Jews might begin with Genesis he stopped me.
‘No, James. That’s a very Christian way of reading the Bible on this subject!’
‘No’, he repeated, ‘we start in Deuteronomy with God’s instruction to Moses that as they entered the Promised Land they were never to destroy a fruit bearing tree.’ Long before anyone knew the science of climate change there was a religious intuition that trees were central to our ecology.
Just as I was leaving this ‘masterclass’ he posed a question. ‘Do you know what the three most extraordinary words of Jesus were?’ Here was the Chief Rabbi putting a Christian bishop on the spot about Jesus, and I didn’t know the answer.
He raised his eyebrows, ‘But I say’. Apparently there’s no evidence from that period of a rabbi saying as Jesus did, ‘You’ve heard it said, but I say …’.
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Had “God’s instruction to Moses” stood the test of time, today thousands of “fruit bearing trees”, along with the olive tree farmers, their homes, Palestine infrastructure and freedom would not have been destroyed, or continue to be destroyed.
I found the unconscious irony revealed on the part of Lord Sacks, as related by Bishop James Jones, and the Bishop’s failure to recognise and question it, truly staggering.
Excellent piece ! Another crucial aspect of the Israeli state’s actions
Israel claims to make the desert bloom. Yet this is at the expense of destroying Palestinian lives, their villages, their delicate agriculture and landscape creation that respected and enhanced the environment. The development of Israeli cities, towns, moshavim and kibbutzim, and now the illegal hilltops and settlements, all on stolen land, was done with main aim of imposing Jewish hegemony on the backs of the erasure of Palestine.All this with ruthless disregard for the environment, resulting in the catastrophe of full blooded settler colonialism. All these crimes against humanity must be adjudicated in the ICC, and Israel brought to account by the United Nations acting with one voice.
Additionally, I find it very disturbing that these ‘settlers’ raise their children to despise another racial group, and to be happy to hurt these people and destroy their homes and livelihoods. dispose their livelihoods. Israel is a breeding ground for the ‘settlers’ and thus a breeding ground for racist ideas and belief in their own superiority and indifference to other human beings. Of course the world should never forget the Holocaust. But what is the point when the very people who were the subject of such racist hatred and unspeakable cruelty, are themselves creating hatred ad sanctioning hateful behaviour against another race of people, while hiding behind the ‘victim of the holocaust’ label.