Tree as enemy soldier
War, Trees, and the Banality of Land: Navigating Conflict Through the Lens of Landscape
War is shit, absolute fucking shit, unequivocally abhorrent. There’s no other way to start this post.
Amidst the ongoing chaos, I am confused, not sure what and how to write. In the midst of constant vitriol, social media cacophony, and pervasive misinformation, a few voices of reason emerge, providing perspective and aiding my thought process. Yet, fear often lingers. It feels like déjà vu post-9/11, admittedly a somewhat selfish perspective. Should I advocate for peace, denouncing violence, or should I aim for a balanced argument, considering both sides?
Today, I want to address the often-overlooked importance of plain old land in war rhetoric. Regardless of how deeply we delve into concepts like justice, equality, religion, history, or ideology, at its core, it’s about a fucking piece of land. These are not just any lands; we imbue them with cultural significance, making them crucial enough to justify war and violence. Untangling the physical from the emotional proves challenging. I am privileged enough to move and have my landscape not dictate how I live or die, a power determined by geographical circumstances. I am fortunate not to be born there, yet I still wonder. That is a luxury. Perhaps, by focusing a bit more on the land and history, we can unveil the engineered, unnatural aspects of these conflicts?
An old work that resonated with me explores the role of trees in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Irus Braverman’s 2009 book “Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine” delves into how trees, particularly the pine and olive trees, become a proxy for war (“totemic totemic displacements in the occupied West Bank, eroding the boundary between law and war”). The pine tree, considered a “Jewish tree,” is central to Israeli planting projects. Pine trees grow quickly, can construct a European-style landscape. Olive trees, integral to Palestinian identity, are often perceived as more “traditional”, “cultivated”, “not planted”. Even though both pine and olive trees are mentioned in the Bible, they acquire different significance. The legal aspect (historical, local and international) comes in place as well. Article 78 of the Ottoman Land Code states that “only trees planted for the purpose of producing fruit can be considered as cultivation.” This means that trees that are not planted for the purpose of producing fruit, such as pine trees, cannot be used to claim ownership of land. But how this Ottoman land code gets interpreted is very confusing and fascinating. Here’s a quote from Braverman’s work (goes to core of what cultivation and improvement means)
Consequently, in its application of Article 78 in the West Bank Israel has been walking a fine line between restricting the application of Article 78 for the purpose of Palestinian cultivation, on the one hand, and acknowledging its powers for the purpose of declaring state land, on the other hand. Accordingly, the Land Appeal Committee has been strictly adhering to the development-through-cultivation model designed in the Ottoman period, refusing to broaden the definition of development to include other forms of improvement such as industry or even forestry. Put differently, while the apparent rationale for Article 78’s application by the Ottomans was based in the liberal Lockean idea of recognizing improved nature as the property of the improver (Locke [1690] 2003; see also Cronon 2003:79), Article 78 has been utilized by Israel to restrict Israel's recognition of the possible scope of improvement by confining the terms of the article to agriculture. At the same time, what Israel considers as real improvement in the West Bank has been taking place through noncultivation, which then enables other forms of improvement, such as Jewish settlement.
A comparison to Locke's attitude toward the American Indians in the seventeenth century is almost inevitable in this context. According to Locke, "several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life; [...] and a king of a large and fruitful territory there feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day labourer in England" ([1690] 2003:118). The twist in this context is that cultivation, which rep- resents Locke's highest form of improvement in the state of nature, has come to both reinforce and conceal the opposite of improve- ment in the context of Israel's military administration of the West Bank. It serves to confine Palestinians to limited agricultural prac- tices, while defining them, as Locke defined the American Indians, as being part of nature rather than active transformers of this nature.
Braverman further talks about how trees become part of the war discourse — that viewing Palestinian trees (olive trees in most cases) as “enemy soldiers” is symbolising the enemy itself. An Israeli Chief Inspector, Kishik, overseeing tree uprooting, emphasises the tree as the source of the problem, symbolising Arab occupation and serving as the means through which it is carried out.
[T]he tree is the source of the problem. It's not just an incidental thing like [it is] in the Bible. Here, the tree is not only a symbol of the Arab's occupation of the land, but it is also the central means through which they carry out this occupation. [...] It's not like the tree is the enemy's property, in which case the Bible tells you not to uproot it because it has nothing to do with the fight. Here it has everything to do with it. The tree is the enemy soldier.
For the historical and theoretical discussion, Braverman also brings up John Locke's theory of property rights which is often used for justifying colonisation and displacement (“individuals have a right to homestead private property from nature by working on it,”) Locke takes his inspiration (or misreading?) from Genesis — God created mankind “in our image . . . so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky” (Gen 1:24) and told man and woman to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,” (Gen 1:27). Braverman’s study shows that similar ideas are invoked by Jewish settlers in the West Bank who argue that their improvements make them rightful owners.
The control of nature and landscape aligns with core capitalist thinking, turning seemingly “natural” entities like pine and olive trees into artefacts justifying violence, displacement, and land confiscation. Financialisation, with foreign investors driving up land prices, exacerbates the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, making it harder for non-settlers to acquire land.
There’s a lot more I can write about this. But I won’t today.
Can we advocate for a more nuanced understanding of how our landscapes are entwined with war? I am not overly optimistic, even with sophisticated studies shedding light on the destructive impact of war machines.
I highly recommend Irus Braverman’s work. She has a recent book (2023) about studying nature conservation in Palestine-Israel through the lens of settler colonialism. Another recent and enlightening read is “Milk and Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land” by Tamar Novick, which presents an environmental history of Israel/Palestine, focusing on the intersection of religion and technology in modern Israel. Through an analysis of animal production and reproduction across three distinct political regimes—the late Ottoman rule, British rule, and the early Israeli state—Novick reveals how settlers and state experts employed agricultural technology to recreate a biblical vision of past plenitude, literally a “land flowing with milk and honey,” through the manipulation of animal and human bodies. Once again, we tend to take for granted what is deemed “natural.” War, loss of lives, killing, and destruction of land become tragically normalized.
In reflecting on these works, it becomes evident that our perception of nature and landscape is intricately linked with conflict, often serving as a tool for justifying violence and asserting dominance. Again, we take for granted what natural is. As often, war, loss of lives, killing, and the destruction of land become natural.