Dispossession

The Apartheid wall violently dispossess Palestinians from their land and resources. Israel routinely uproots and destroys olive trees. For Palestinians, olive trees resemble life; they symbolize the rootedness of Palestinians to their land and are a metaphor for the Palestinian identity. Palestinians living in the West Bank are also denied access to underground water resources. Many of the olive trees have been in the land for thousands of years, and the olive oil produced by them is the main cultural industry. Palestinian communities are separated from their lands through the wall and gate system, and then denied access to cultivate the lands, which directly affects their economic existence and cultural history.

Yet despite being foundationally built upon, and sustained through, the attempted destruction of indigenous people and land, settler colonial states like Israel and America brand themselves as eco-friendly. The discourse of democracy and rhetoric of climate justice by Israel and America enables the greenwashing of all the violence they impose onto our bodies and earth. They detach communities from having access to the land in pursuit of profit through extraction and colonial expansion. This is precisely why viewing the decolonization of Palestine as a climate justice imperative allows us to understand how the wellbeing of our earth is the means by which a dignified life can be achieved. 

Our well-being and survival – the human ability to breathe, to drink water, to eat food – are all contingent on the state of the earth. There is no distinction to be made between bodies and the earth when the earth is the means through which we can sustain our bodies. So when Israel bombs Gaza – a besieged strip of land that has been subjected to a land, air, and sea blockade – it doesn’t just target the bodies of indigenous Palestinians, but also it targets the land. Weapons used in Israeli aggressions in Gaza have poisoned the soil and reduced agricultural capacity; in addition to contaminating the environment with heavy metals like mercury, cobalt, and countless others which are known to cause cancer, birth defects, and infertility.

In the same way that Israeli environmental racism and colonialism result in disproportionate harm to Palestinians, BIPOC communities in Philadelphia bear a similar fate. Communities of color, and more specifically predominantly black neighborhoods have strategically been positioned next to toxic waste sites, landfills, congested highways. For example, Chester, which is more than 70% black, is home to a sewage sludge incinerator, a paper mill that burns waste coal and petroleum coke, multiple chemical plants, and toxic waste sites. Similarly, it has been estimated that 80 percent of the waste generated by Israeli settlements is being dumped in the West Bank.  Bodies that are deemed disposable by both settler states are subjected to environmental racism which determines one’s ability to have a dignified life by impacting access to food, air quality, and medical well-being. 

However, despite these transnational colonial attempts to detach marginalized communities from having access to land and depriving them from having a dignified life, resistance from Philadelphia to Palestine remains steadfast. Campaigns, like Save the Meadows, are working to resist the destruction and privatization of South Philly’s FDR Meadows. Whereas organizations like Philly Thrive and The Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network- Friends of Earth Palestine operate so that anti-racism and environmental justice go hand in hand in their praxis. And spaces like Iglesias Garden in North Philly use their garden space to empower the community and create harmony and balance with local ecosystems.