The book begins with Palestine's oranges. Illustrated by many colour maps, it explores how citrus cultivation, once a staple of Palestinian agriculture, has almost completely disappeared in Gaza. Instead a variety of non-traditional crops, such as strawberries or even pineapples and broccoli have been used. Molavi explains that this is because the methods of warfare that Israel uses have systematically destroyed Palestinian agriculture, both as a result of their dislocation of the Palestinian people and their land, and as a result of the destructive nature of war. In the introduction she writes:
This layered colonialty and the ways in which apartheid and occupation policies are activiated in Gaza become visible when weobserve the historical transformation of its agricultural lands, the forced transtions in cultivation practices adopted by Gazan farmers, and their relation to the stifled urban development of Palestinian cities within the strip... Far from an understanding of the environment as a passive landscape - or a mere setting for conflict - we consider how Israeli settler-colonial practices make use of environemal elements as an active tool of military warfare.
In 1951, the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion made a speech which famously said that the new state would "make the wilderness bloom". It was an explicit statement of a core idea of settler colonialism, that the land was empty or, indeed, it had been used wastefully and destructively. The new "Israeli landscape" Molavi says "was largely cultivated through the multifaceted and by now well-documented eco-colonial practices of the quasi-governmental Israeli organisation, Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael, the Jewish National Fund". While the JNF claimed to be acting in a positive way, its policies actively displaced, destroyed and deforested enormous areas. The destruction of the Gazan citrus industry was a major consequence of policy in this era. Indeed the JNF actually chose trees that emphasise a particular image of the landscape:
The JNF's preference for European-looking pine is not surprising given the historical matrix of European colonialism within which the Zionist movement emerged. Cultivating trees that conform to the Picturesque Western ecological sensibilities further demonstrates Israel's European-style environemntal values, while also pushing forward a new historical narrative on the landscape that naturalises a more 'civilised' colonial presence.
Forests she says are "weaponised" to "erase Palestinian presence in strategically important spaces, providing camouflage for military objectives".
Moving to more recent times, Palestinian farmers have experienced repeated destruction of their lands and crops. At the core of Molavi's book is a study of how the Israeli state uses herbicides to clear areas. This is done to ensure that "line of sight" exists for military incursions. Farmers frequently must deal with the loss of their crops as the herbicide blows onto their fields, in addition to the risks of sniper bullets and explosions. Molavi shows how the timing of the flights that drop the herbicides is done when winds blow towards the land and people of Gaza. No warnings are issued, despite the State's obligation to protect civilians under occupation.
At times the book feels more like an academic study. This is, of course, important. It matters that researchers like Molavi document the methods by which Palestine has been erased and attacked. The scientific rigour at the centre of the book is bleak testimony to a forgotten aspect of oppression. This changes in the afterword where Molavi documents the very personal loss of a Palestinian journalist Roshdi Yahya al-Sarraj, killed during an Israeli airstrike, in October 2023. This tragic episode reflects the disregard for life that is emblematic of the Israeli occupation and its "environmental warfare". But Roshdi's life, work and indeed that of all those who contributed to the research, and all those who continue to resist and farm in Palestine, are testiment to the resiliance of the Palestinian people. As Molavi concludes, "as long as this desire... to create a settler ecology out of the ecology of Palestine continues, novel and subversive frontiers of resistance to confront it will also continue to blossom."
Related Reviews
Masalha - Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History
Pappe - Ten Myths About Israel
Englert - Settler Colonialism: An Introduction
Sand - The Invention of the Jewish People
Alexander - 'Revolution is the Choice of the People': Crisis & Revolt in the Middle East & North Africa
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