Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna by Ghada Sasa

This article provides a comprehensive overview of Israeli green colonialism, denoting the apartheid state’s misappropriation of environmentalism to eliminate the Indigenous people of Palestine and usurp its resources. I focus on the violence of ‘protected areas’, encompassing national parks, forests, and nature reserves. This article argues that Israel primarily establishes them to (1) justify land grab; (2) prevent the return of Palestinian refugees; (3) dehistoricise, Judaise, and Europeanise Palestine, erasing Palestinian identity and suppressing resistance to Israeli oppression; and (4) greenwash its apartheid image… Israel’s genocidal aims are advanced by its dehistoricisation of Palestine – utilising protected areas – manifesting in the erosion of Palestinian identity and resistance to Israeli oppression (Abu-Sitta, 2011; Gandolfo, 2017: 196)…