We are happy to share this article by Manal Shqair who is a founder of the Palestine COP 26 alliance.
Join the Scottish demonstration for Gaza – 1pm Saturday 2nd December – assemble on Regent Road – just up from Waterloo Place.
Human-induced climate change represents the biggest challenge and threat to living species and human existence. The climate crisis is deeply rooted in centuries of European colonialism intertwined with capitalism, which is rooted in white supremacy. The exploitation of the planet and its resources, dehumanization of colonized people and obliteration of their cultures, knowledge and lifestyle have been the foundation of colonialism. Israeli colonization of Palestine is among the living examples of how colonialism and environmental degradation are intertwined.
In the last two decades, the Gaza Strip has been facing severe effects of the climate crisis due to the inhumane Israeli blockade. With the incessant Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza since 7 October, the climate crisis is exacerbating threatening the lives of the 2.3 million people living there. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, between October 7 and November 2, Israel dropped 25, 000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, equivalent to two nuclear bombs.[1] Israeli excessive bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 13, 000, including at least 5, 500 children, and injured at least 30, 000 people.[2] Moreover, since October 7, Israel has been subjecting the territory to mass dehydration and starvation. The full extent of Israeli violence toll, including the resultant climate catastrophe is unclear yet.
Israel’s ability to dehydrate and starve 2.3 million people, half of them are children point to the decades-old Israeli policies and practices in terms of taking over and exploiting Palestinian natural resources, particularly land and water. For decades, before the assault on Gaza started, about 96% of Gaza’s water was unfit for human consumption due to Israeli siege and the acute power crisis. Israel has always denied Palestinians’ right to food sovereignty.[3] Since 2000, Israel has been gradually destroying Gaza’s agricultural land to establish buffer zones.[4]
In the occupied West Bank, Israel controls more than 87% of the Palestinian water resources and over 60% of fertile land in favor of illegal Israeli settlers, in an act of climate apartheid. Several agrarian communities in the West Bank are facing increased Israeli settler violence under the protection of the Israeli army to force them from their land.[5] So far since October 7, 16 Palestinian herding communities have been expelled from their land thanks to intensifying Israeli settler and army violence.[6] The displacement of these communities is a threat to the environment that is shaped by their sustainable environmental stewardship.
Palestinians are unable to adopt to and mitigate the climate crisis due to Israeli settler colonial policies, particularly the control of water and land. Simultaneously, Israel has been positing itself as an environmental steward and expert in agri-business, afforestation, water solutions and land efficiency. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been playing a key role in greenwashing Israeli apartheid settler colonialism. The JNF prides itself on planting millions of pine trees as an act of making ‘the desert bloom’ while in fact it has been a way to cover up destroyed Palestinian villages when Israel was created in 1948.
The struggle of the Palestinian people for climate and environmental justice is inextricably linked to the struggle for self-determination. Climate movements in the UK and beyond should recognize the centrality of the Palestinian struggle to reclaim and liberate their land and resources to the struggle for a just energy and agricultural transition amid the exacerbating climate crisis.
Support Palestine as a climate justice issue by:
- Joining in the international call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the provision of humanitarian aid, including water and food.
- Supporting the Stop the JNF campaign, which seeks to revoke the charitable status of the JNF in the UK, as well as expose it role in the colonization of Palestine.
- Adopting the BDS call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-attacks-on-gaza-weapons-and-scale-of-destruction
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/11/19/israel-hamas-war-live-israel-attacked-two-schools-killing-
dozens#:~:text=At%20least%2013%2C000%20people%20have,on%20Gaza%20since%20October%207.
[3] https://www.newarab.com/features/israels-blockade-gaza-creates-environmental-crisis
[4] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-gaza-aerial-spraying-herbicides-near-palestinian-farmlands
[5] https://antigo.stopthewall.org/factsheet-cutting-lifeline-stop-annexation-palestinian-water
[6]https://www.btselem.org/video/20231113_community_of_khirbet_zanutah_south_hebron_hills_was_forcibly_transferred_under_cover_of_gaza_fighting#full
Employment, Energy and Environment 
