Ecologies, the interdependent systems that sustain inhabitation, are always political. Considering the political ecologies in Palestine helps us articulate the intersections of several questions and discourses that often seem contradictory or are often kept conveniently separate. Palestine reveals the multiplicity of such issues: from logics of conservation of nature that rely on ecocide, to circuits of violence that lay waste on land, air and water; from the interconnections of extracting resources to the movement of building material; from debates about native and invasive plants, to questions about food and food sovereignty, preservation and resisting the slow toxicities of occupation. In all of these, a critical lens on ecologies and the multiple logics of environmentalism help us connect the dots of how space is embroiled in an ongoing struggle over land itself. It further orients us to questions of livelihoods, inhabitation, and futurities. This theme suggests an organization around key, ordinary, ecological elements to trace the worlds, discourses and politics they gather. Plants; which help unpack logics of conservation, seeds, food and practices of foraging, and landscaping as a settler colonial tool. Stone; which helps unpack the ecologies of extraction, quarrying, building and, often, demolitions. Water; which orients towards the flows of life, cultivation, waste and toxicities.

Key Questions

  •  How do logics of nature conservation rely on erasing Palestinian ecological interdependencies? And how do they continue to be resisted?
  • How does attending to plants, stone and water articulate the political and existential terrains in Palestine?
  • How does the settler colonial discourse on “making the desert bloom” connect to environmental orientalism?

Key Cases

  • Plants (seeds, food, landscape, trees)
  • Stone (building material, such as stone and cement)
  • Water (infrastructure, waste, weaponising water)

Key Resources

  1. Tesdall, O. and Iyad Issa. 2017. “Balu‘ as Residual Space: Landform and Sociality in Palestine.” Jerusalem Quarterly. Issue 69. 107-119. ( open-access link )
  2. Manna, Joumana. 2020. “Where Nature Ends and Settlements Begin.” e-flux journal, 113. ( open-access link ); pair with اليد الخضراء Foragers (2022), film by Joumana Manna. ( website )
  3. Rubaii, Kali. 2016. “Concrete and Livability in Occupied Palestine.” Engagement: A Blog Published by the Anthropology and Environment Society, 20 September 2016. ( open-access link )
  4. Abusaada, Nadi. 2022. “Jerusalem Stone: The History and Identity of Palestinian Stereotomy.” The Architecture Review. ( open-access link ); pair with White Oil (2013) film by Judy Price. ( open-access film )
  5. دجاني، منى. ٢.١٤. ” تجفيف فلسطين: حرب إسرائيل المنهجية على المياه.“ الشبكة، ٤ سبتمبر ٢٠١٤ ( مصدر مفتوح الوصول )

In English: Dajani, Muna. 2014. “Drying Palestine: Israel’s Systemic Water War.” Al-Shabaka. 4 September 2014. ( open-access link ); pair with Weaponising Water in Palestine (2025), documentary by Al Jazeera. ( open-access film )

Further Resources

Please contact us if you would like access to any resources.

  1. أبو قطيش، علاء. ٢.١٩، ”سياسات المشهد الطبيعي في قرية صطاف المهجّرة قبل النكبة وبعدها.“** باب الواد**، ١٨ نوفمبر ٢٠١٩. ( مصدر مفتوح الوصول )
  2. عبد الخالق، يارا، ٢.٢٤، ”أيّ حديثٍ عن العدالة المناخية في ظلّ الاحتلال؟“ الصفر، ٢٩ فبراير ٢٠٢٤. ( مصدر مفتوح الوصول )
  3. الآغا، زينة. ٢.١٩. ”التغير المناخي والاحتلال وفلسطين المعرَّضة للتأثر“ الشبكة. ( مصدر مفتوح الوصول )

English version: Agha, Zeina. 2019. “Climate Change, the Occupation, and a Vulnerable Palestine.” Al-Shabaka, March 26, 2019. ( open-access link )

  1. Alatout, Samer. 2008. “States of Scarcity: Water, Space, and Identity Politics in Israel, 1948-1959.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26: 959–82. ( link )
  2. Alqaisiya, Walaa. 2023. “The Decolonial Wor(l)ds of Indigenous Women.” Social & Cultural Geography 25 (7): 1025–43. ( open-access link )
  3. Azoulay, Ariella Aïsha. 2022. “Imperial Desert Effect: Palestine Is There, Where It Had Always Been.” In Deserts are not Empty, edited by Samia Henni, 109-42. New York: Columbia University Press.
  4. Boast, Hannah, 2012. “‘Planted Over The Past’: Ideology and Ecology in Israel’s National Eco-Imaginary”. Green Letters 16(1): 46-58. ( link )
  5. Braverman, Irus. 2023. Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ( open-access link )
  6. Dajani, Muna. 2020. “Thirsty Water Carriers: The Production of Uneven Waterscapes in Sahl al-Battuf.” Contemporary Levant 5(2): 97-112. ( link )
  7. Davis, Diana K., and Edmund Burke. 2011. Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press. ( link )
  8. Harb, Samir. 2022. “Exhausted Circulation: The Limits to Cement Transportation and Urban Metabolism in the West Bank.” Journal of Palestine Studies 51 (4): 45–67. ( open-access link )
  9. Hassouna, Silvia. 2023. “Cultivating Biodiverse Futures at the (postcolonial) Botanical Garden”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 49 (2): 1-16. ( open-access link )
  10. Razek, Sherena. 2024. “Fire as Elemental Intifada in Colonized Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 53 (3): 94–107. ( link )
  11. Reynolds, Kate. 2024. Political Ecologies of Palestine. Annotated Bibliography. ( open-access link )
  12. Ross, Andrew. 2019. Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel. London: Verso. ( link )
  13. Salih, Ruba and Olaf Corry. 2022. “Displacing the Anthropocene: Colonisation, Extinction and the Unruliness of Nature in Palestine.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 5(1): 381-400. ( open-access link )
  14. Sasa, Ghada. 2023. “Oppressive Pines: Uprooting Israeli Green Colonialism and Implanting Palestinian A’wna.” Politics 43(2): 219-235. ( link )
  15. Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Sophia. 2019. Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ( link )
  16. Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Sophia. 2020. “Essential Readings: Land, Water, and the Environment in Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). ( open-access link )
  17. Tesdell, Omar. 2017. “Wild Wheat to Productive Drylands: Global Scientific Practice and the Agroecological Remaking of Palestine.” Geoforum 78: 43–51. (o pen-access link )
  18. Turhan, Ethemcan. 2024. “Palestinian Political Ecologies Reader.” Undisciplined Environments. ( open-access link )
  19. زحالقة، جمال. 2021. ”الصهيونية والعنزة السوداء.“ مجلة الدراسات الفلسطينية 125 : 35-60. ( مصدر مفتوح الوصول )

Audiovisual Material

  1. Manna, Jumana, director. 2022. Foragers. 65 mins. ( website )
  2. Palestine Institute for Biodiversity & Sustainability, Bethlehem University. ( website )
  3. Price, Judy, director. 2013. White Oil. 64 mins. ( open-access film )
  4. Sansour, Vivian. Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. ( website )
  5. Tesdell, Omar, ed. 2018. Palestinian Wild Food Plants / النباتات البرية الغذائية الفلسطينية, ( open-access link )
  6. Areej Ashab. ( website )
  7. Tan, Palin, director. 2023. Landscapes as Archives: On the Spatial Production of Palestine. YouTube. 19 mins. ( open-access film )

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Image: Palestinian farmers harvest rain-fed (ba’ali) okra (bamyieh) in al-Battuf valley, the Galilee, 2017. Photography by and courtesy of Muna Dajani.

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