Existing comment:
Ecologies of Disappearance (2004-10)
Environmental destruction cannot be disassociated from processes of modernization, urbanization, and colonization. Under a capitalist tendency for expansion, natural spaces are destroyed, and ecological systems annihilated or reconfigured for profit. The specifically western and capitalist notion of "use" (for industrialization, profit, etc.) is a convenient alibi for colonial domination of "unused" or "uncivilized" spaces. Israeli land management is not as anodyne as it sounds. It justifies expropriation, exploitation, and displacement under the auspices of improvement.
Israel's policies in occupied territories, and in parts of the Negev Desert, in relation to ecology and agriculture are not well known internationally. Many are familiar with olive trees, their importance to the Palestinian community, and their ongoing abuse by Jewish settlers in occupied territories. In the past few years there has been a growing momentum of settler violence directed at Palestinians, particularly during harvesting season. These attacks on centuries-old trees and traditions result in violence against the general population and farmers cut off from their land. |