Asia's oldest living organism, the ancient Abarkuh cypress tree - at least 4500 years old - is rooted in land that was already known as Iran at the time.

Asia's oldest living organism, the ancient Abarkuh cypress tree - at least 4500 years old - is rooted in land that was already known as Iran at the time.

The Cypress of Abarkuh (Persian: سرو ابرکوه Sarv-e Abarkuh), also called the Zoroastrian Sarv,^[1] is a Persian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) tree in Abarkuh in Yazd Province of Iran. It is protected by the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran as a national natural monument and is a major tourist attraction with a height of 25 metres (82 ft 0 in) and with a perimeter of 11.5 metres (37 ft 9 in) at its trunk and 18 metres (59 ft 1 in) higher up around its branches. It is estimated to be over four millennia old and is likely the oldest living lifeform in Asia.^[2]

According to legend, the tree was planted by Zoroaster, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion. It is said that Zoroaster left to spread his teachings to an Iranian city towards Balkh and met Shah Vishtaspa. He stopped at Abarkuh and supposedly planted this tree.^[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarv-e_Abarkuh

Jewish Voice for Peace: "We strive to build a world where every human and every plant can thrive without fear of being killed or uprooted... "

Jewish Voice for Peace

@jvplive

 

On Tu Bishvat, the Jewish new year for trees, we stand with Palestinians against the Israeli government’s systematic destruction of their land. 

 

As anti-Zionist Jews, we mark this holiday by resisting Israeli apartheid and colonialism on Palestinian land on the lands we live on. 

 

We strive to build a world where every human and every plant can thrive without fear of being killed or uprooted. 

 

A free Palestine means nurturing a lush, thriving land, filled with trees, from the river to the sea.     https://x.com/jvplive/status/2018051801501581755

 

We’re proud anti-Zionists at JVP.  But what is Zionism and why are we opposed to it?

 For 75 years, Zionism has been used to justify massacres of Palestinians by the Israeli military, the destruction of ancient villages and olive groves, and a military occupation that separates families from each other with checkpoints and walls.

The Israeli government, and the US Jewish institutions that defend Zionism and the state of Israel, want us to think Zionism was inevitable, and that to be Jewish is to be Zionist.

As anti-Zionists, we know our history of oppression, but we reject Zionism as the answer. We know our safety is — and always has been — in solidarity and a shared future... READ MORE   https://x.com/jvplive/status/2006087318084673996/photo/1   

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1936, Jerusalem, Palestine 🇵🇸 A Palestinian shepherd.

1936, Jerusalem, Palestine  A Palestinian shepherd.

Pals

@palsofnations

https://x.com/palsofnations/status/2013478790047969428 

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The March of Trees -Nabil Anani & On the Wing of an Angel -Sliman Mansour... EXPLORE more in the Palestinian Museum

The March of Trees

Nabil Anani

 

On the Wing of an Angel

Sliman Mansour

https://www.palmuseum.org/en/permanent-commissioned-artworks2

The Palestinian Museum is a non-governmental association dedicated to supporting an open and vibrant Palestinian culture locally and internationally. The Museum presents and contributes to narratives on Palestinian history, culture and society from new and critical perspectives. It also offers spaces for creative ventures, educational programmes, and innovative research. The Museum is a Swiss-registered non-governmental association with a branch in Palestine. Its mission is to produce and disseminate emancipatory learning experiences about Palestine, its people and history through innovative exhibitions and programming, locally and internationally and to transcend political and geographical borders by seeking to form a link between Palestinians in Palestine and abroad through its digital archives and online platforms. 

 https://www.palmuseum.org/en/about/the-museum

https://www.palmuseum.org/en/exhibitions-and-events/exhibitions 

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"The Christ child still lies among the rubble, reminding us that God chose not safety, not power, not palaces—but vulnerability and solidarity with the crushed of the earth. And yet now, rising from that rubble, stands a tree - a living tree. For me, this is a profoundly Palestinian image—and a profoundly Christian one. The tree is declaration. It is the tree of life. It is defiance in the face of death. It is hope planted where despair is expected to rule. The tree appears almost as if it grows out of the rubble itself. Not beside it. Not after it is cleared away. But from within it. This is our story." Rev. Munther Isaac

Rev. Munther Isaac منذر اسحق

@MuntherIsaac

 

Today I had the chance to visit Christmas Lutheran Church, where I served for more than ten years—eight of them as the main pastor. 

 

Returning to a place that shaped so much of my life and ministry is never an easy experience. It carries memory, prayer and appreciation. 

 

Under the faithful and courageous leadership of my dear friend Rev. Ashraf Tannous, the church made a deliberate and meaningful decision: to keep Christ in the Rubble—but to place it under the Christmas tree. 

 

This old-new crib spoke to me again. 

 

The rubble remains. 

 

The broken stones are still there. 

 

The Christ child still lies among the rubble, reminding us that God chose not safety, not power, not palaces—but vulnerability and solidarity with the crushed of the earth. 

 

And yet now, rising from that rubble, stands a tree - a living tree. 

 

For me, this is a profoundly Palestinian image—and a profoundly Christian one. 

 

The tree is declaration. 

 

It is the tree of life. 

 

It is defiance in the face of death. 

 

It is hope planted where despair is expected to rule. 

 

The tree appears almost as if it grows out of the rubble itself. 

 

Not beside it. Not after it is cleared away. But from within it. This is our story.

 

A cry from the heart and a call to action from a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian

In this impassioned and incisive book, Munther Isaac challenges Western Christians’ uncritical embrace of Zionist theology and politics. Speaking from his unique vantage point as a prominent Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian, he proclaims a truth that is rarely acknowledged in Christian circles: Israel’s campaign to eliminate the Palestinian people did not begin after October 7, 2023. Rather, the campaign is a continuation of a colonial project with nineteenth-century roots that has, since 1948, established systems of entrenched discrimination and segregation worse than South Africa’s apartheid regime. 

Writing with close-up knowledge of conditions on the ground, and rooted in a commitment to nonviolence and just peace, Isaac argues that support for the State of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza reflects a failure to apply a properly Christian theological critique to colonialism, racism, and imperialism. He calls on Christians to repent of their complicity in the destruction of the Palestinian people. And he challenges them to realign their beliefs and actions with Christ―who can be found not among perpetrators of violence, but with victims buried under the rubble of war.

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"Violence must never be normalized or glorified. It provides no solutions to social problems. Our path forward lies in unity and peace." Volker Türk- United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

"Violence must never be normalized or glorified. It provides no solutions to social problems. Our path forward lies in unity and peace."  Volker Türk  United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

@UNHumanRights Chief

"The olive tree is more than a tree in Palestine, it is a heartbeat, a witness, a rooted elder holding centuries in its branches. When Israeli forces and settlers tear these groves from the earth, it is not only roots that are severed, but memory, heritage, and the quiet dreams of generations. Yet even uprooted, the olive carries a stubborn truth: that belonging cannot be erased, and that the land remembers those who loved it." Sliman Mansour of Palestine

Olive grove (حقل زيتون), oil on canvas, 2012 by Sliman Mansour of Palestine

sliman.mansour

The olive tree is more than a tree in Palestine, it is a heartbeat, a witness, a rooted elder holding centuries in its branches. When Israeli forces and settlers tear these groves from the earth, it is not only roots that are severed, but memory, heritage, and the quiet dreams of generations. Yet even uprooted, the olive carries a stubborn truth: that belonging cannot be erased, and that the land remembers those who loved it.

 

"Holy Family in an Olive Grove, 2020" painted by Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour

"Perseverance" by Sliman Mansour of Palestine

Mosab Abu Toha poem ... "Every house is my heart"

Palestinian writer from Gaza. Main account @mosab_abutoha

 Author

Backup: @mosababutohapoet
Pulitzer Prize winner
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist

Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

Forest of Noise (Knopf 2024)/ Pulitzer Prize/ OPC/ American Book Award/ National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist/ Founder of the Edward Said Public Library
 

Mosab Abu Toha 

(مصعب مصطفى أبو توهة)

https://www.facebook.com/mosab.abutoha

Irina Naji: The other day I was sent a photo found under the rubble of our house in Gaza. In the photo I am with my son - 1998. This is all that remains... and memories.

Irina Naji

The other day I was sent a photo found under the rubble of our house in Gaza. In the photo I am with my son - 1998. This is all that remains... and memories.

Artwork by Irina Naji   

Palestinian Heritage

Irina Naji

World Poetry Day 2025 with a poem by Mosab Abu Toha (of Palestine)

 Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

If we stay in our houses, they bomb us. 

If we shelter in a school, they bomb us. 

If we run to a hospital, they bomb us. 

If we move into a tent, they bomb us. 

If we go to a toilet, they bomb us. 

If we run from an air strike, they bomb us. 

If we do not do any of this, they still bomb us. 

If we stay like a tree, 

or temporarily leave like a leaf in the fall, 

they bomb us. 

But spring will come 

and they, those who bomb us, 

will find no bombs among 

the flowers. 

We will be on the trees bathing in the sun, 

and they, those who bomb us, 

will have no sun, 

no place to rest, 

no legs to run.

 

UNESCO Held every year on 21 March, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity.: Practiced throughout history – in every culture and on every continent – poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue and peace.

"... and birds shall return" The Deluge and the Tree poem by Fadwa Tuqan, written in 1967, right after the Naksa (ongoing israeli made Nakba) & remembered #Gaza 2024

 

Found online:  

 

"Eid Mubarak.

 

Let me offer you this poem, which has been my talisman during these six brutal months. By our glorious Fadwa Tuqan, written in 1967, right after the Naksa.

 

Translated by Naomi Shihab Nye and Salma Khadra Jayyusi"

Harvesting oranges in Palestine - 1937

Harvesting oranges in Palestine - 1937

Satellite analysis shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts say Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable

 

The age of extinction

‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime? 

 by Kaamil Ahmed, Damien Gayle and Aseel Mousa in Gaza

In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.

Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.

“This life is not life,” says Abu Diab, who was displaced from Gaza City. “There is pollution everywhere – in the air, in the water we bathe in, in the water we drink, in the food we eat, in the area around us.”

For her family and thousands of others, the human cost of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, launched after the Hamas attack on 7 October, is being compounded by an environmental crisis.

The al-Naji family break their fast during Ramadan amid the ruins of their home in Deir al-Balah. Photograph: AFP/Getty

The full extent of the damage in Gaza has not yet been documented, but analysis of satellite imagery provided to the Guardian shows the destruction of about 38-48% of tree cover and farmland.

Olive groves and farms have been reduced to packed earth; soil and groundwater has been contaminated by munitions and toxins; the sea is choked with sewage and waste; the air polluted by smoke and particulate matter.

Researchers and environmental organisations say the destruction will have enormous effects on Gaza’s ecosystems and biodiversity. The scale and potential long-term impact of the damage have led to calls for it to be regarded as “ecocide” and investigated as a possible war crime.... READ MORE    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/29/gaza-israel-palestinian-war-ecocide-environmental-destruction-pollution-rome-statute-war-crimes-aoe

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A Glimpse of Palestine's Beauty shared by Mazin Qumsiyeh of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability

 

"Due to difficult circumstances, we are still doing weekly or twice a week field trips. Last ride was Saturday. Under difficult circumstance, we still did yet another field trip this past weekend. We had amazing discoveries "

Mazin Qumsiyeh

Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability