I just read the new Haaretz article about how Israeli planted pines are suddenly dying en masse and it is absolutely worth dissecting. Here are a summary & my observations as a Palestinian scholar who writes on green colonialism. 1/ Israel boasts about having planted 250 million trees since its founding. 90% of those trees are not Indigenous. About 50% of the planted trees are "Aleppo pines" that originated in the south of Europe (mainly Spain) & North Africa. The article doesn't note they're invasive. 2/

Ten years ago, my aunt went to renew her passport in Canada, where she was told she couldn't list "Palestine" as her place of birth. The only other options they gave her were "West Bank," "Israel," & "Jordan." She refused to pick from them so the employee called their managers.1/ It became a huge ordeal but they ultimately agreed that my aunt could write "Bethlehem" as her place of birth without mentioning a country. She left the center feeling devastated but she succeeded in holding onto her homeland, expressing her steadfastness & dignity. 2/

In response to my argument that we shouldn't manufacture consent for imperialism, some folks countered that the US doesn't need consent. This is an ahistorical, illogical, & reactionary argument. At its core is the popular belief that people are powerless. 1/7 States have consistently manufactured consent for their actions, seeking internal & external legitimacy to ensure their survival. For instance, Indigenous peoples have been portrayed as non-Christian "savages" to alleviate White guilt around the continual theft of their lands. 2/

"Why can't you condemn both the Iranian regime & Western intervention?" It's for the same reason we as Palestinians refrain from critiquing authorities in Gaza. It's not bc they're perfect — as if anywhere lacks political discontent — but bc we're facing a colonial genocide. 1/ Our social, environmental, & economic woes can all be traced to the founding of the Israeli settler colony in 1948, the regime that displaced, massacred, kidnapped, raped, & tortured our people en masse, uprooted our trees, destroyed our homes, & undermined secularism. 2/

The day of my graduation was such a bittersweet day. On the one hand, I finally received my PhD in International Relations — with my research on Israeli green colonialism — in the presence of my loved ones, cherished colleagues, & former students. 1/6 It was no small feat to obtain this degree in the social sciences as one of only two people to do so in my extended family. Further, I had to grapple with a genocide against my community, and was a leading activist for the rights of various communities on & off campus. 2/

I am happy to share that my dissertation on Israeli green colonialism has been published. It accomplishes four major goals: 1) I theorize settler colonialism as a process that is inherently genocidal and ecocidal.
macsphere.mcmaster.ca/handle/11375/3… 2) I identify Western environmentalism, Zionism, & Orientalism as foundations of Israeli green colonialism or the weaponization of environmentalism to colonize our land. For example, I investigate the Israeli adoption of hiking as a tool of conquest. 2/

Too many kind & intelligent pro-Palestinian people insist that it is impossible to influence governments or that cozying up to politicians/holding mass rallies is the only way, but direct actions have proven to be effective time & again. From my experience as an activist 1/ Direct actions have been key ways through which comrades & I influenced our government to de-Zionize. For instance, one week after October 7, a bunch of protesters & I peacefully crashed the convention of the biggest Canadian so-called political progressive party. 2/

Notice the silence of religious institutions & scholars in the face of genocide. I am primarily interested in Islam as my religion & that of so many other Palestinians. Maybe Imams will curse Israel or urge you to donate... But are they urging worshippers to fill the streets? 1/ Are they quoting verse 4: 76 of the Quran as @AbubakerAbedW has done to highlight that Islam prioritizes struggling for justice over prayers, zakat, and fasting, or are they also promoting a superficial version of Islam that numbs the masses and suits elitist interests? 2/

Remember that Israel heavily restricts Palestinians under 50 from praying in al-Aqsa mosque. And that's because they fear the youth and their revolutionary capacity. Historically, mosques have been places where Muslims united, organized, and launched uprisings. 1/ Notice how during the "Arab Spring," (which didn't succeed due to Western intervention), Arabs often escalated on Fridays when many Muslims went to pray. And when Egypt was colonized, the British purposely placed mosques on the outskirts vs the center of villages. 2/

I cannot even tell you how powerful this action was today by an Egyptian outside the Egyptian embassy in the Netherlands, protesting his country's complicity in the genocide against Gaza. Here are some quick thoughts from a Palestinian and Arabic speaker. 1/

https://twitter.com/RoyaNewsEnglish/status/1947370996232790437

Firstly, nearly 2 years into Israel's (intensified) genocide against Gaza and as 2 million Palestinians face mass death this week as a result of forced starvation, Anas effectively exposed & mocked the lie that Egypt is not also blocking aid to Gaza.

You may have heard that Mexico recently facilitated "the largest ancestral land restitution to date," but did you know that it was after the Wixárika led a lengthy legal battle and a cross-country march to the Presidential Palace? 1/ In April 22, 2022, "the Caravan for Wixárika Conscience and Dignity" was launched, consisting of a 1000-km march by 200 Indigenous men, women, children, & elders, demanding to meet with President López Obrador & the restitution of 11,000 hectares of their lands. 2/

You know what's remarkable? Despite the fact that the vast majority of Israelis were conscripted into the army & support its ongoing genocide against us, which has taken half a million lives (mostly women & children), members of our community still extend empathy toward them. 1/ Both from interactions with my kin online & in-person, I can attest that many Palestinians feel sorry for Israelis who are killed & fleeing the same homes they violently expelled us from over the last several decades & traumatically denied us return. Yet I'm not surprised. 2/

I'm sitting in a cafe. As I was looking at posts mocking Western feminism for wanting to save racialized women again, I overheard an older Arab Muslim man trying to convince his niece to continue her education and not focus on marriage. The demonization of our men is so unfair. And the denigration of our women! Growing up, our victimization was so foreign to me, not because patriarchy doesn't exist in the Arab world, but because it's not that different from here. I grew up around fierce women & in a society that deeply respects women.

A couple years ago, I heavily advocated for the lifting of draconian sanctions against Syria. I was attacked for it & defamed as pro-Bashar by many Syrians. Now, the same people celebrate because sanctions are ending under direct US/Israeli rule. 1/ Palestine was once part of Greater Syria. How did we let Europe divide us like this? How could fellow Arabs have the heart to celebrate the lifting of sanctions at the expense of their kin being mercilessly starved, besieged & bombarded across the border? 2/

After Israel managed to control the latest massive forest fire in Jerusalem, I made a highly condensed thread on its causes and implications as an expert in green colonialism. 1/ Several large Israeli forest fires erupted in the last several years (2010, 2016, & 2021 in Jerusalem). Israel regularly jumps to accuse the Indigenous inhabitants (Palestinians) of terr*rism, when they're usually sparked by negligence & climate change. 2/

I used to keep my head low. I thought is kept me safe. In undergrad, I sank in my seat as my White history professor explained that Palestinians "may have been expelled or left on their own accord," whitewashing Zionism. My heart raced and silence ate me from the inside. 1/

https://twitter.com/sasa_ghada/status/1917325647094960509

And I thought never again will I betray my people or Islam which commanded us to always defend the truth. So as a Master's student, I mentioned in class how the readings greenwashed Israel's theft of 🇵🇸 water by celebrating the settler colony as a pioneer in drip-irrigation. 2/

Imagine if Nazi Germany launched a global atrocity propaganda tour to victimize itself & rally support for the Holocaust. This is the strategy Israel deployed last year by launching the Nova Music Festival Exhibition, which is coming to Toronto from April 23 to June 8. 1/ The Lincoln Center for Human Rights, which operates under the name Lawfare Project Canada, is bringing this exhibition to Canada that manufactures consent for the genocide of Palestinians. The group was founded by Canadian Zionist attorney Brooke Goldstein. 2/

In case you missed it, Canada's supposed most left-leaning party @NDP dropped a campaigner last week for rightfully comparing the ongoing genocide against Palestine to the Holocaust. They smeared her name & emboldened media to denigrate her for sex work. 1/ Notice that the NDP did not defame Jessica Wetz as an anti-Semite in classic Zionist fashion, but as "disrespectful" for comparing the Nakba to the Holocaust, speaking to the extent that respectability politics are weaponized to shut down anti-oppressive critiques in "Canada". 2/

Dear fellow Muslims, when you are sick, do you just pray and make duaa? No, you take medication, follow doctors' orders, and do everything you can to heal — in addition to prayer. It's obvious. So how do you claim prayer is sufficient in the face of genocide with a straight face? How do you have so much confidence that Allah SWT will excuse your inaction because of XYZ? When the Quran commands us multiple times to aid the oppressed? When our kin in Gaza have clarified the way we can help the most is by protesting & sacrificing to halt the massacres?

🚨 A large Zionist organization at @YorkUniversity is hosting Israeli soldiers who genocided Palestinians in Gaza this year and teaching Israeli military combat tactics to students. 🚨 1/ On September 22, Hillel York hosted THREE Israeli soldiers, boasting in a now-deleted Instagram post about how two of them served in the 'elite' units Ezog (terrorizing Palestinians in Gaza & the West Bank) & Duvdevan (imitating Arabs to monitor & kill Palestinians). 2/

Yesterday on a panel hosted by @SURJto & @JewsSayNo, Ghassan Najjar, a Palestinian based in Burin, explained that Israel destroyed over 16,000 olive trees in this one village, just in the last 20 years. And Israeli settlers have a new method of poisoning land. 1/ Ghassan added that Israeli settlers destroyed over 1000 olive trees in Burin, which is located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, just in the last month. Normally, Palestinians can replant olive trees in 3 years. But now settlers are poisoning our land to drive us away. 2/