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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/jerusalem-forest-fire-kindle-Palestinian-dreams-return">middleeasteye.net</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">'Nature has spoken': A forest fire to
kindle Palestinian dreams of return</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Johnny Mansour - August 28,
2021<br>
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<p>During the second week of August, Some 20,000 dunams of
land were engulfed by fires across Jerusalem’s
mountains. </p>
<p>It was a natural disaster of the first degree. However,
no one could have expected the sight that unfolded after
the fires were extinguished. Or rather, no one had
imagined that the fires would expose what followed. </p>
<p>After the flames were put out, the resulting landscape
was terrible for the human eye in general, and for the
Palestinian eye in particular. For the fires had
revealed remains of ancient Palestinian villages and
agricultural terraces; terraces built by their long-dead
ancestors to enable them to cultivate crops and plant
olive trees and vines on the slopes of the mountains. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Photographs taken before the Nakba of 1948 show that
olive trees and grapevines were the two most common
plants in these areas</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Across these mountains, which make up the natural
environment on the western side of the city of
Jerusalem, ran the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, the road that
linked Jaffa’s historical port with the Holy City of
Jerusalem. This route across the mountains was used by
pilgrims from Europe and North Africa to visit Christian
holy sites. They had no choice but to use the
Jaffa-Jerusalem road, through valleys and ravines, and
across the mountaintops. Over the centuries, it would
have been touched by the feet of hundreds of thousands
of pilgrims, soldiers, invaders, and tourists. </p>
<p>The agricultural terraces - or platforms - that
Palestinian farmers constructed have an advantage: their
durability. The terraces are up to 600 years old,
according to estimates by archaeologists. But I believe
they are <a
href="https://www.wmf.org/project/ancient-irrigated-terraces-battir"
target="_blank">even older than that</a>.</p>
<h3>Working with nature</h3>
<p>The Palestinian farmer’s hard work is visibly clear on
the surface of the earth. It has been proven through
many studies that Palestinian farmers have always
invested in the land regardless of its form; including
mountainous land, which is very difficult to cultivate. </p>
<p>Photographs taken before the Nakba (Catastrophe) of
1948, when Palestinians were evicted by Jewish militia,
and even dating back to the second half of the 19th
century, show that olive trees and grapevines were the
two most common plants in these areas. </p>
<figure role="group">
<div>
<p><img
src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/000_8XL73U.jpg"
alt="Olive trees" width="439" height="297"></p>
<figcaption>Israeli soldiers stand before Palestinians
trying to plant olive saplings on Palestinian land
near Salfit in the occupied West Bank, 22 December
2020 (AFP)</figcaption></div>
</figure>
<p>These plants maintain soil moisture and provide a
livelihood for local people. The olive trees, in
particular, help prevent soil erosion. Olive trees and
grapevines can also create a natural barrier to fire
because they are leafy plants that retain humidity and
need little water. In the south of France, some forest
roads are lined with vineyards to act as fire barriers.
The Palestinian farmers who planted them knew how to
work with nature, how to treat it with sensitivity and
respect. It was a relationship formed over the
centuries.</p>
<p>But what did the Zionist occupation do? After the Nakba
and the forced expulsion of large parts of the
population - including the ethnic cleansing of every
village, town, and city on the route of
the Jaffa-Jerusalem road - Zionists began planting large
areas of these mountains with non-native and highly
flammable European pine trees to cover and erase what
the hands of Palestinian farmers had created.</p>
<div>
<p><a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-settlers-uproot-olive-trees-west-bank"
target="_blank"><img
src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Palestinians%20harvest%20olives%20from%20their%20lands%20which%20currently%20lie%20on%20the%20Israeli%20side%20of%20the%20controversial%20separation%20barrier%20%28background%29%20near%20the%20West%20Bank%20village%20of%20Dura%20on%20October%2030%2C%202019%2C%20AFP_0.jpg?itok=eq-aLA1l"
alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p>
<p>Israeli bulldozers and settlers uproot Palestinian
olive trees in West Bank</p>
</div>
<p>In Jerusalem’s mountainous region, in particular, all
that is Palestinian - with its 10,000 years of history -
has been erased in favour of everything that suggests
the place’s Zionism and Jewishness. As a result of the
European colonial mentality, there was a transfer of the
European “place” to Palestine, so that the settlers
would be reminded of what they had left behind.</p>
<p>The process of concealment was aimed at denying the
existence of Palestinian villages. And the process of
obliterating their features aimed to eliminate their
existence from history.</p>
<p>Note that residents of the villages that shaped human
life in the mountains of Jerusalem, and who were
expelled by the Israeli army, live in camps and
communities close to Jerusalem itself, including the
Qalandiya and Shu’fat refugee camps and others.</p>
<p>Such pine forests are found in other locations,
concealing Palestinian villages and farms that were
demolished by Israel in 1948. International Israeli and
Zionist institutions also planted European pine trees on
the lands of the village of Maaloul, near Nazareth,
Sohmata village near the Palestine-Lebanon border, and
the villages of Faridiya, Kafr Anan, and al-Samoui on
the Akka-Safad road, among others. They are now hidden
and cannot be seen by the naked eye. </p>
<h3>Huge significance</h3>
<p>The villages were not even spared their names. For
example, the village of Suba has become “Tsuba,” while
Beit Mahsir became “Beit Meir”, Kasla became “Ksalon”,
“Shoresh” instead of Saris, etc. </p>
<p>But if Palestinians have not yet been able to resolve
their confrontation with the occupier, then nature has
now spoken in the way it deems appropriate. The fires
revealed a glaring aspect of the well-planned and
engineered components of the Zionist project.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The terraces assert that the Palestinian cause is not
over, that the land is awaiting the return of its
children</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To Palestinians, the discovery of the terraces on the
mountains affirms their narrative that there was life on
this land, that the Palestinian himself was the most
active in this life, and that the Israeli expelled him
so that he could take his place.</p>
<p>In this regard alone, the terraces carry huge
significance. They assert that the cause is not over,
that the land is awaiting the return of its children;
people who will know how to treat it in the right way. </p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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