First Plant-a-Tree Action in Palestine: Strengthening the roots of resistance

We are excited to announce the first day of planting with the Plant-a-Tree in Palestine project! 

On January 2, 2012 we are organizing a collective tree planting event. With the donations collected by the Plant-a-Tree project, the Palestinian partners of the project - Stop the Wall Campaign and the Palestinian Farmers' Union - have bought 111 olive and fruit trees.

Each tree stands for one year of existence of the Jewish National Fund, a year of dispossession and expulsion. Each tree bears the name of one of the Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestine) in 1948.

The trees will be planted in Tulkarem district, a district that historically reached from coastline of the Mediterranean Sea in the West until the hills in the West Bank. It was one of the richest and most important districts of Palestine, along key trading routes in the area. In 1948, most of its lands were taken and dozens of villages destroyed. The JNF played a key role in the destruction of some of these villages and the ethnic cleansing of their population. 

On January 2, youth activists from Stop the Wall in Tulkarem district, the Palestinian Farmers Union, and representatives of political parties and grassroots organizations in the area are coming together to welcome the delegation of the Stop the JNF Campaign and to plant together the 111 trees donated through this project.

The area in which the 111 trees will be planted is Palestinian agricultural land close to the checkpoint that cuts the city of Tulkarem off from at-Taibe. The land was historically part of the agricultural land of the city. However, in 2002 at the beginning of the second intifada, the Israeli military has bulldozed the entire stretch of land, supposedly for “security reasons”. On January 2, we will reclaim the land from the Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid, implemented by its military and its para-statal institutions like the JNF.

Tulkarem is additionally one of the districts most affected by the Wall. The Wall alone has destroyed some 84,000 dunums (8.4 square kilometers) of olive and other fruit trees, 615 dunums of irrigated agricultural land (including greenhouses), 37.3 km of water networks, 15 km of agricultural roads in Tulkarem, Qalqiliya and Jenin districts.

The checkpoints, terminals, settlements and industrial zones are all part of the same project to colonize Palestinian land, destroy their economy, exploit the captive workforce and ethnically cleanse as much lands as possible. In fact, today, while Tulkarem sees its agricultural production and lands under continuous Israeli attack, Israeli companies are thriving in the industrial settlements.

In 1983, a number of Israeli factories were moved from Natanya and Kfar Saba into the west of Tulkarem district after they lost sevearl court cases against them charging them for illegal levels of environmental pollution. There are eight factories in the industrial settlement close to Tulkarem. The factories were built on approximately 291 dunums of Palestinian land. 

Research conducted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health found that cancer rates in the region had risen 20% and diseases related to chest and breathing system were also on the rise. Some 300 dunums of land located around the industrial zone became desert. On May 13, 1995 the Birzeit Center for Environmental Science and Health conducted a study on the underground water around the factories and found high percentages of Sulfamic Acid, which is used for chemical herbicides but also causes desertification. Further, the Palestinian Ministry of Health did a second study on February 27, 1997 on burned disposables of the factories and found high percentage of Hydrocarbons, Nitrogen oxides, Sulfur, Carbon and Acids. All these have high health impact on humans, animals and plants.