Rooted in Conflict: The Politicisation of Trees in Palestine/Israel
By Frankie Pinchard
Mainstream media often overlooks how war and genocide weaponise the environment, ignoring that land is the ultimate source of power, livelihood, and cultural heritage.
Since 1948, the State of Israel has changed the landscape of Palestine/Israel through uprooting native trees and planting non-native trees. The shuffling of centuries old landscapes has had a disorientating effect on the land, changing its function and character from centuries old traditions of agricultural and heritage to territorial signposting.
While Palestine/Israel has many species of trees, both native to the region and non-native, this post will focus on the significance of olive and pine trees in the 20th century.
How did British colonisation shape the environmental landscape of Palestine?
After the First World War, Palestine became a British administrative territory between 1920-1948, under the terms of the League of Nations.
But before then, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire who began the registration and taxation of olive trees that was hugely unpopular with the rural agricultural class, the fellahin. Additionally, military service was mandatory for landowners. To avoid taxation and the compulsory military service required of landowners, many fellahin burned their olive trees, while others refused to register their land altogether. (Braverman, Planted Flags, 2009) Prior to this law, the majority of Palestinian crop land was operated under a communal land ownership called musha’a, which the Ottomans attempted to outlaw.
This patchy registration of land deeds had serious repercussions for the rest of the century as Palestinians could not prove ownership of their land under the British Mandate’s highly bureaucratic government.
Land left uncultivated for three years could be confiscated and classed as government land, miri land. Gaps left in land registration records helped enable land expropriation, and made the sale of land to newly arrived Jewish settlers much easier.
The British Mandatory government imposed a conservation model based on a European system of control, which clashed with local practices. This approach was detrimental because it operated on a hierarchy of dominance where humanity is seen as superior to nature.
This was common in 20th century European empires and the same intensive forestation and deforestation tactics were carried out in India, East Africa and Algeria, to name a few. Meanwhile, fortress conservation practices, established by British colonialism, continue to displace local and indigenous people, notably the Maasai and Samburu communities in Kenya. Many scholars and historians have commented on the topic of ‘environmental colonialism’ and ‘ecological imperialism’ such as the likes of Alfred Crosby, William Cronon and Diana K. Davis.
In 1926, the British Mandate government introduced the Forest Ordinance which drastically controlled the way in which Palestinians could farm and manage their land. One such effect was the ban of livestock in newly created forest reserves, the introduction of fencing and grazing permits.
Making the Desert Bloom: the use of pine forests in Palestine-Israel after 1948.
Founded in 1901, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) was the World Zionist Organisation’s body in charge of land acquisition and development. It secured Zionist settlement in Palestine by raising money for the purchase of land, made easier through insufficient land records.
After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the JNF’s role evolved into formal nation-building, with afforestation becoming a central strategy. In 1960, the JNF was promoted to the official governmental body level after the Government Forestry Department was dissolved.
The fast-growing pine forests, funded by the JNF, came to symbolise Israel’s national identity through the so-called rejuvenation of the land as lush and fertile but also served as a legal and physical method of land expropriation. Ecologically, the non-native pines were damaging, creating monocultures that reduced biodiversity and acidified the soil with their needles. It was only after devastating fires and pest infestations like the Matsucoccus aphid in the late 20th century that the JNF began to diversify its tree species.
Legal framework, initiated by the British, enabled expropriation of Palestinian land into forests by the JNF. For example, the Absentee Laws which meant that after the UN’s Partition Plan in 1947 citizens of Palestine who left their place of residence were classed as absentees, and their land as ‘abandoned’. In theory, absentee property was unable to be sold or leased. However, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Kaplan, his finance minister, sold one million dunams of the State-owned land to the JNF that year. (Forman and Kedar, 2004)
Culturally, Israel has institutionalized the symbolism of trees through ceremonies like Tu B’Shevat, a holiday to celebrate the New Year of Trees. This popular holiday is especially associated with children and the rooting of the Jewish people and the land. This process of ‘greening’ political agendas is what scholar Irus Braverman potently describes as ‘cloaking them in the ostensible innocence of nature,’ thereby ‘granting them an appearance of neutrality and legitimacy’. (Planted Flags, 2009, p.4)
This green cloak, however, conceals a history of displacement. The JNF's afforestation projects have directly facilitated the confiscation of Palestinian land, often through force. A stark example is the creation of the Yatir Forest, the largest man-made forest in Israel, which involved the forcible displacement of Bedouin communities. In a single, illustrative act in July 2010, the Israeli Land Authority (ILA) razed the entire village of Al-Araqib, destroying 46 structures, dozens of homes and uprooting over a thousand olive trees.
Ultimately, pine forests planted after 1948 served as a way of artificially rooting an ancient historicity in the new State of Israel as quick-growing forests created the illusion of a previously empty and uninhabited land. The JNF was and still is key to the confiscation of Palestinian land.
Symbolism of and violence against the olive tree in Palestine/Israel
A ubiquitous symbol of peace, the olive tree has been a cornerstone of the Mediterranean region for millennia. The sturdy tree can take up to eight years to provide its first crop of olives, and up to thirty years to reach maturity. In the West Bank and Gaza, 43% of the overall cultivable land pre October 2023 was sowed with olive trees.
Yet, the olive tree in Palestine-Israel is hugely politicised. Beyond peace, it has come to embody Palestinian culture and identity, its durability, longevity and sturdiness mirroring a people’s own resilience against Israeli occupation. The symbolism is woven directly into the fabric of resistance - the black and white keffiyeh, globally recognised today as a symbol of protest. Traditionally worn by the fellahin, the keffiyeh showcases key patterns, including olive leaves, a core part of Palestinian cultural identity.
In the last fifty years, Israeli policies and practices have systematically targeted the ancient bond between Palestinians and their olive trees, presenting two major, interconnected challenges for Palestinian farmers: access restriction and violent settler attacks.
The first challenge is structural, embodied by the West Bank Barrier. Its construction has uprooted thousands of trees in order to build roads, increase visibility and make way for watchtowers, checkpoints and security fences. The scale of this destruction is vast. Between 1967 and 2023, Israel uprooted over 2.5 million olive trees, approximately one-third of all olive trees in the West Bank. In the Palestinian village of Qafeen alone, Israel uprooted 12,600 olive trees in 2002; another 100,000 trees were trapped in ‘seam zones’ with owners unable to access them.
Additionally, bureaucratic restrictions restrict Palestinian farmers' access to their land and trees. In Area C, 20% of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea area are designated as nature reserves. This designation not only prohibits residence in such areas, but also restricts the movement of the 48,000 Palestinians living in the valley and prevents them from growing crops and grazing their flocks. (Adalah, OCHA, 2011) The environmentalist Mazin Qumsiyeh has referred to this project as an ‘environmental Nakba’ - a continuation of displacement through ecological means.
Alongside this state-driven strategy exists a second, more visibly brutal challenge: violence from illegal settlers. Often perpetrated by radical ‘New Settlers’, these attacks directly target Palestinian livelihoods. In a single incident in 2020,settlers destroyed Khaled Masha’lah’s 300 trees in the village of al-Jab’ah in Hebron District.
Image credit: B’tselem: Khaled Masha’lah after Israeli settlers cut down his 300 olive trees in the village of al-Jab'ah, Hebron District (2020).
Israeli settlers in the West Bank systematically target olive trees due to their cultural and economic significance to Palestinians. These attacks have escalated sharply since October 2023..
For over a century, forests and trees in Palestine-Israel have been sites of conflict and war, proving that nature is never apolitical. The olive and pine have been translated into political symbols in a struggle for land and identity.
Yet, in the midst of the ongoing genocide, the ever-present issue of climate change persists. Global militaries are responsible for nearly 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country it would be the fourth biggest emitter in the world. (Forbes, 2025)
In Gaza, the environmental destruction is not merely collateral damage; it is ecocide. The systematic ruin of farmlands, olive groves, and green energy infrastructure like solar panels creates a hazardous legacy of debris and despair.
For anyone concerned with the future of our planet, recognising the reality in Palestine is imperative. Our efforts to solve the climate crisis are fundamentally undermined by the bombs that destroy lives and the enduring exploitation of land as a tool for control and power.
Frankie Pinchard is a First-Class BA History (International) graduate from University of Leeds where she specialised in Environmental History of the Middle East. She is currently based in Muscat, Oman