The following article was published in the November 2024 issue of the International Review of Contemporary Law, the journal of the IADL, focusing on climate and social justice.
Israeli designation of “Nature Reserves”: A tool of colonization
by Charlotte Allombert and Mazin B. Qumsiyeh
Abstract
Scientific work in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank showed that over 22 marked areas do not fit criteria for protection and that their designation by the state of Israel as “nature reserves” was mostly related to Zionist political/ideological reasons of excluding indigenous Palestinians and expanding colonial settlements and military uses. This paper focused on the history of such designations, the legal aspects, and relevance of international humanitarian law and international conventions.In particular we address the role of the Jewish National Fund and how locals may attempt to legally challenge land usurpation under the guise of “green areas” and nature reserves.
أظهر العمل العلمي في الضفة الغربية الفلسطينية المحتلة أن أكثر من 22 منطقة محددة لا تتناسب مع معايير الحماية وأن تصنيفها من قبل دولة إسرائيل كـ “محميات طبيعية” كان في الغالب مرتبطًا بالأسباب السياسية / الأيديولوجية الصهيونية لاستبعاد الفلسطينيين الأصليين والتوسع الاستعماري والاستخدامات العسكرية. ركزت هذه الورقة على تاريخ هذا الإستيلاء وآلياته والجوانب القانونية وأهمية القانون الإنساني الدولي والاتفاقيات الدولية. نتناول على وجه الخصوص دور الصندوق القومي اليهودي وكيف يمكن للسكان المحليين مفاومة اغتصاب الأراضي تحت ستار ” المسطحات الخضراء “والمحميات الطبيعية.
Introduction
The first national protected area in the modern era was Yellowstone in 1872 and a global system has since developed that includes scientific basis of selection and classifying such areas (Phillips 2004). In our region, there was a concept developed and used for thousands of years called ‘hima’ where land is set aside for beauty and as a common heritage (Ten Veen 2022). After the UN was formed in 1945, protection of nature was facilitated via conventions and treaties, a process that accelerated as environmental threats became increasingly recognized. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed to standards for protection of biodiversity. Further, the UN Framework Principles on Environmental and Human Rights (2018) states that “Human rights and environmental protection are interdependent.” and highlights in its principle 15 the necessity for states to “comply with their obligations to indigenous peoples and members of traditional communities”.
Colonialism equally affects human rights and environmental protection, and to a greater extent, uses the second one as a tool or a pretext to violate the first one. Territoriality is settler colonialism’s irreducible element: the primary motive for native elimination is access to territory (Spence 1999; Wolfe 2006; Lunstrum and Megan 2018). Similarly, the Zionist project to colonize Palestine involved substantiating the myth of a “land without a people for a people without a land” and thus using “nature” as an excuse to expel Palestinians from their lands (George 1979). Braverman (2023) uses the terms “settling nature” or “settler ecologies” to describe the process of “wilding” the area as a method of controlling and operating on an “emptied” territory.
The areas occupied by Israel in 1967 which are slated for a Palestinian State under the evolving International consensus had 51 areas designated as “nature reserves” by the state of Israel. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) together with the Environment Quality Authority (EQA) and our team at the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and sustainability examined these areas in detail, based on IUCN and CBD criteria. The result was a very different protected area network with 27 real protected areas (see Qumsiyeh et al. 2023). The finding raised the question as to how and for what reasons the other areas were designated. This paper therefore asks the following questions: why and for what real purpose did Israel designate 530 “nature reserves” and “national parks” comprising 25% of the land of historic Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights? To answer this question we first contextualize the use of “nature reserves” in colonial situations then tackle with concrete examples the issue of Israeli policies vis-a-vis these areas.
Nature reserves as tools of domination in colonial systems including in Palestine
Colonial environmental injustice focused on land including using “nature reserves” in many situations (Spence 1999; Binnema and Niemi 2006; Whyte 2018). The policies of native removal from Yosemite, Yellowstone and Glacier national parks from the 1870s to the 1930s have served as models for native dispossession around the world (Spence 1999). Described as the “Green Colonialism” ideology, such systems are common (Blanc 2022). In Palestine, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) was formed from the merging of the National Parks Authority and the Nature Reserves Authority. The INPA works effectively on both sides of the 1949 Armistice (Green) Line with some nuances intended to obfuscate the de facto annexation of the 1967 occupied areas. For example, the INPA is subject to the authority of the “Civil Administration”, which, contrary to what its name confusingly implies, manages the reserves through the military regime. A bill under discussion at the Knesset currently aims to impose civil law over settlement blocks and national sites and nature reserves in the occupied West Bank (Shpigel and Tibon 2023). The bill paves the way for de jure annexation.
The INPA is merely a management agency. The three main bodies deciding on allocation of land are the Israel Lands Administration, the military (overseeing closed military zones), and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which is the most important (Alterman 2001). The JNF or Keren Keyemet L’Israel was established 1905 as an organ of the World Zionist Organization, a supranational entity established for colonization purposes (Davis & Lehn 1978). The JNF advertises on its page that it is the “custodian of the Land of Israel on behalf of its owners – Jewish people everywhere” and is thus not an institution that is interested in conserving land for use by its inhabitants, i.e., indigenous communities or living plants and animals, but more about transformation to serve the Zionist project (Lehn. 1974; Davis & Lehn 1978; Shilony 1998; Alterman 2001). Most of the local Palestinian population was ethnically cleansed in 1948 and the land of the indigenous Palestinians was turned over to the JNF to administer (Pappe 2006). The JNF noted the remaining Arab populations especially in the Galilee and the Negev and acted accordingly in designating new politically motivated “nature reserves” (Bishara., 2018; Orenstein & Hamburg., 2009; Lehn 1974; Schaffer & Levin., 2014; Dromi & Shani., 2020; Assiuf n.d.). As Tal (2008) pointed out, decisions by JNF is driven by Zionist political agendas and not by biodiversity conservation needs, especially in “peripheral” or sensitive areas Israel seeks to control such as the Galilee, the Negev, and the Jordan valley (Orenstein & Hamburg, 2009). While the JNF and Israeli authorities expanded their works in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) initially in a discrete manner, the attempt to Judaicize parts of the West Bank accelerated in the 21st century (Etkes & Ofran 2007). Twelve decades after it was formed, the JNF continues to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars annually to dispossess more Palestinians.
Legal aspects
A convoluted legal system ensures advancement of zionist colonization including via use of “nature reserves’’ on both sides of the Green Line has developed and is contrary to international law (OCHA 2014). Palestinians owners are prohibited from cultivating, building, or grazing, and many times even from visiting such areas but Israeli use them even for colonial settlements and military purposes (Braveman 2023). Palestinian villagers can’t use their lands but Israeli settlers are building in the same “nature reserve” whether in Wadi Qana or Masafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills (Braveman 2023).
The entire international community, apart from the occupying power, considers the West Bank and Gaza (and the Syrian Golan) to be “occupied territories” as they were allocated to the State of Palestine (SP) under the partition plan in U.N. resolution 181 (II) of 1947. Instruments of protection for the local people include The Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949, Additional Protocol I of 1977 and the Regulations Annexed to the Hague Convention No. TV respecting the laws and customs of war on land of 1907. UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 declared illegality of acquiring territory by force and this includes extending sovereignty and laws of the belligerent occupiers on the land occupied. Article 55 of the Hague Convention states: “The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.” The declaration of “nature reserves” for colonial activities is a clear violation (Braveman 2023). A good legal analysis of obligations to protect the environment under international law in times of conflict is found in UNEP (2009), Badil (2019), Quigley (2005), and Al-Haq (2015b, 2017).
Israel has tried to create convoluted justifications for its breaches of IHL. For example, it contends that because no legitimate sovereign control existed in these areas before, the lands are thus “contested” rather than “occupied” (Shalev 2012; Badil 2013, 2019). Israeli authors recognized the convoluted and deceptive fabrications and theft in broad day light with a veneer of quasi-legality providing the needed fig-leaf cover (Yiftachel 2006; Tal 2002, 2008a,b; Shalev 2012; Leshem 2013; Braverman 2023).
The Oslo II interim agreements did not change things on the ground even though several articles specifically dealt with the transfer of powers and responsibility from the Israeli military government and its Civil Administration to the Palestinian Council in the spheres of nature reserves (Article 25), parks (Article 26), Archeology (Article 2), Forests (Article 14) and environmental protection (Article 12) (ARIJ 2005). Under the Oslo I and II, 61% of West Bank’s nature reserves were located in Area C (under Israeli civil and military control) and only reserves contained within Areas A (under full Palestinian control) and Area B (under Palestinian civil and Israeli military controls) were directly handed over to the PNA (Dror Etkes 2015). With regards to area C, Oslo Agreement II in its Annex III – Protocol concerning Civil affairs, article IV – special provisions concerning area C, article 25 – Nature reserves, reads that : “powers and responsibilities related to the sphere of Nature Reserves will be transferred gradually to Palestinian jurisdiction that will cover West Bank and Gaza Strip territory”.
In a scientific evaluation it was shown that 22 areas in the West Bank were declared “protected nature reserves” mostly for Zionist ideological reasons to exclude Palestinains and allow for expansion of settlements and military training areas (Qumsiyeh et al. 2023). Indeed, many designated nature reserves overlap with Israeli settlements or overlap with closed military areas and bases (Etkes and Ofran 2007). Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (which Israel ratified) is very clear about such practices: “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
Way forward
The Israeli administration justifies the dispossession of Palestinians from their land and reshaping nature in a way to create a mystical “biblical” scene but more practically to clear areas for Jewish colonization (Braverman 2023). This represents a unique case in international law with regards to a) the institutionalized and systematic character of its IHL violations b) the extensive period of time c) the unprecedented use of “nature reserves” to reshape the landscape and separate the indigenous people from their land. This reshaping of an imagined “land without a people for a people without a land” has been devastating and recognized as illegal theft of natural resources (Tal 2002, 2008a,b; Shalev 2012; Braverman 2023). Nature reserves are not only used for the purpose of land grabbing from Palestinians, but also to deprive them from any economic autonomy through the exploitation of their resources.
The first article common to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights state, “All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources. . . In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.” This fundamental principle of international law has been violated for the past 55 years of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Al-Haq (2015a) has asserted that the prevented access of Palestinians to their natural resources, in conjunction with Israeli policies to meddle with Palestinian attempts to develop the Gaza Marine and oil fields (for example in Rantis) has been an active measure to prevent development and Palestinian empowerment. The occupying power does not have the right to exploit natural resources (Arai, 2009; Dinstein 2019).
Upon admittance of Palestine as a non-state member of the UN general assembly, SP has signed onto many international conventions including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The ramifications of such signatures carry significant opportunities, such as their applicability to protect Palestinian rights, and challenges, such as the importance of meeting obligations and applying pressure for their enforcement while the SP is under occupation (Jaradat et al., 2015). While technically a non-state member of the UN, Palestine cannot bring a case unilaterally to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but can do so in one of two ways: if both Palestine and Israel agree to go before ICJ, or if both Palestine and Israel signed an international convention (Pontin et al,. 2015). The latter is particularly interesting with regards to the CBD, as its article 3 declares that states have “the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction”. Further, article 14 1. (d) recognizes that in case of harm “to biological diversity within the area under jurisdiction of other States or in areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction” the State must immediately “notify the affected State of such danger and damage, as well as initiate action to prevent or minimize such danger or damage”. We can indeed have sustainable societies and natural communities if we are freed from the Israeli occupation and recover control of our lands and nature. Despite Israel’s continued presence and breach of international law, a key principle of international humanitarian law is that military occupation is temporary and that the occupying belligerent state must safeguard the lives, livelihoods, and natural resources, among others, that belong to the people of the area occupied. Protecting the environment requires change in power dynamics and decolonization (Murphy 2009; Qumsiyeh and Al-Baradeya 2022). We must work through the available legal mechanisms as well as pressure via international and other legal mechanisms to force the belligerent state to comply.
Charlotte Allombert and Mazin B. Qumsiyeh Director
Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Biodiversity, Bethlehem University
Bethlehem Palestine
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