The Ecology of Occupation: Palestine’s Struggle for Land and Life
Image by Vasilis Caravitis.
In the fractured and scarred landscapes of Palestine, where the earth’s skin is etched with memories of violence, dispossession, and resistance, there lies an unspoken tragedy. An ecological tragedy. Beyond the suffocating walls of the occupation, beneath the rubble of homes and the twisting olive trees, there is a landscape slowly being strangled, not only by military might but by the relentless, invisible hand of environmental degradation. This is a tale not just of loss—of life and liberty—but of a land under siege, of natural resources turned into tools of war and power.
In Palestine, the land is not simply earth. It is history, identity, and memory that is saturated with the blood of ancestors and the hopes of the dispossessed. But in the hands of occupation, it is rendered mute, violated, and endlessly exploited. For the people of Palestine, the environment is both a battleground and a metaphor for their struggle for sovereignty. The occupation, in its systematic devastation, turns every blade of grass and every spring of water into a prize to be controlled, manipulated, and consumed.
Water, that essential lifeblood of the land, has been weaponized in Palestine. The Oslo Accords, in their half-hearted attempt to divide and conquer, left the water resources of the region in a state of absurd fragmentation. Oslo outlines a significant disparity in water resource allocation, with Israel receiving a much larger share, approximately four times the Palestinian portion, of the joint aquifer resources.
The West Bank’s aquifers, once shared by both Palestinians and Israelis, have been effectively monopolized. While Israeli settlements plunge deep into........
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