APN | Amman - Zoom
4 March 2024
The Tunisian Association of Palestine Land Studies for Development and Identity invited to Hassan Al Jaajaa, Co-Founder and Agricultural Advisor of APN, to speak via Zoom at a symposium held at the Nawras Library in Tunisia. The symposium, titled "The Strategy to Resist the Zionist Genocide of the Palestinian Environment", was organized in commemoration of Palestinian Environment Day. It featured participation from representatives of various organizations, including the Palestinian Diaspora Association in Sweden, the Future Association for Development and Environment in the Gaza Strip, and the representative of the International March of Women in South Africa. Additionally, activists and experts from Palestine, Tunisia, Mali, Algeria, and London were also in attendance.
Al Jaajaa's presentation, titled "How to Counter the Weaponization of the Environment through Green Resistance," provided an overview of APN's perspective on the concept of food sovereignty. He highlighted the organization's efforts in Palestine, particularly its Million Tree Campaign, and its advocacy work aimed at influencing policies on international, regional, and local levels. The presentation shed light on the occupation's violations against the environmental and agricultural sectors in Palestine, emphasizing the long-standing use of food as a weapon. Over decades, there have been continuous attempts to dismantle and undermine Palestinian food systems, militarize the environment, appropriate natural resources such as land and water, and systematically destroy fruit trees through burning and other means.
Al Jaajaa elaborated on agriculture as a form of resistance, illustrating how planting trees serves as a tangible manifestation of this resistance. Whether for their significant nutritional and economic benefits or as a means of safeguarding lands endangered by potential confiscation under the old land law, tree planting stands as a strategic response. The occupation has manipulated the land law to seize approximately one million dunums in the West Bank.
