"Anti-Palestinian racism entails the dehumanization and erasure of the Palestinian people. Anti-Palestinian racism can be implicit, overt, systemic and structural. It is perpetrated across Canadian society, including by political, intellectual, social and economic elites. Anti-Palestinian racism includes: denying that Palestinians are a people who belong to historic Palestine, devaluing Palestinian life, denying or excusing violence against the Palestinian people, pressuring institutions to exclude Palestinian perspectives, and stereotyping Palestinians and those who defend Palestinian rights as un-Canadian, anti-Semitic or supportive of violence." https://pcaan.org/?fbclid=IwAR0xK7xoVBjO-sJabxu4pkSqa-RoNxikmV7npmgJg8U5PLEOH_cfjuvutas
About
The Palestinian-Canadian Academics and Artists Network (PCAAN) is a growing national and interdisciplinary network of Palestinian-Canadian academics and artists concerned with Palestine and Palestinians, including in relation to Canada and Turtle Island.
Our Mission
We help challenge anti-Palestinian racism in its various expressions. We provide Canadians a network through which they have access to Palestinian-Canadian academic and artistic voices, expertise, and opinions regarding past and current events related to Palestine.
Why We Do It
Palestinian Canadians are increasingly
represented in the Canadian academic and artistic landscape. At the
same time, we are witnessing rising anti-Palestinian racism in Canadian
academic and artistic circles. We believe it is our obligation to raise
awareness of the realities of the Palestinian people.
PCAAN
Palestinian-Canadian Academics and Artists Network
“Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna” by Ghada Sasa
Abstract
This article provides a comprehensive overview of Israeli green colonialism, denoting the apartheid state’s misappropriation of environmentalism to eliminate the Indigenous people of Palestine and usurp its resources. I focus on the violence of ‘protected areas’, encompassing national parks, forests, and nature reserves. This article argues that Israel primarily establishes them to (1) justify land grab; (2) prevent the return of Palestinian refugees; (3) dehistoricise, Judaise, and Europeanise Palestine, erasing Palestinian identity and suppressing resistance to Israeli oppression; and (4) greenwash its apartheid image. I situate Israeli green colonialism within the broader histories of Western environmentalism – particularly its perpetuation of the human–nature binary – and Zionism. Furthermore, I identify various means through which Palestinians and their land resist this phenomenon. I also explore Palestinian environmentalism, which is influenced by the concepts of a’wna (collaboration), sumud (steadfastness), and a’wda (return), in addition to the Islamic concept of tawhid (unity). I offer it as an alternative environmentalism, which is holistic, anti-racist, feminist, socialist, and nonlinear, while rejecting the trope of the ecological savage. Overall, the intrinsic link between all humans, and them and the environment must be recognised, to realise a just and sustainable society, in Palestine and beyond.
Sasa, Ghada. (2022). Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna. Politics, online first, 1-17
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