In the current situation, it is difficult to imagine the existence of agriculture and production in Gaza, where there is no security, peace, and much less arable land. After 20 months of violent attacks, more than 56,000 people have been killed. In the West Bank, however, agriculture is still a reality.
Until October 2024, half a million Jews lived in the occupied West Bank, and after October 7, 2023, this number only grew, along with the violence.
The level of violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is also increasing, with the intensification of land annexation, the increase in gun ownership by settlers, and the number of Palestinian deaths. This occurs in addition to the fact that the Israeli government offers subsidies to Jewish families from other parts of the world (especially the United States and European countries) who, under a belief in an ancestral right to this long-inhabited land, come to the region. The number of settlements has also increased since the beginning of the Netanyahu administration.
In Palestine, agriculture is a historic form of resistance. While we see countless news reports these days about hunger being used as a weapon of war, children being killed in food queues, and other atrocities occurring in Gaza, we also see the daily resistance of the Palestinian people living in the West Bank.
Despite all the obstacles imposed by the Zionist occupation, agriculture is a form of resistance and reconnection with the past and its roots. Beyond the olive tree, a symbol of Palestinian resistance, national production exists and seeks ways to continue amid the control of the Zionist Occupation Forces and settlements.
There are also other forms of production, such as hydroponics—a technique that does not require the use of soil—opening up the possibility of utilizing other areas of life, including urban areas. Furthermore, there are ways to extend production through the processing of fruits and vegetables, which can be used after the harvest season, providing new avenues for entry into the consumer market.
In the West Bank, Israel strongly controls agriculture, land, the production model, crops, and marketing. Sixty-five percent of the land is under Israeli control. Thus, in addition to coexisting with domination, there is the issue of land limits and free movement within the territory, and often a lack of resources to invest in production. This results in the following data: currently, only 26% of the Palestinian population has agriculture as their primary source of income, and 22% of the population still lives in rural areas.
The territories within the West Bank have been divided into zones A, B, and C since the 1993 Oslo Accords, a failed attempt (for the Palestinian people) at diplomacy. Therefore, only Zone C is under full Israeli military control, and zones A and B are under Palestinian administration. But this does not mean that Palestinian-administered zones are free from Israeli rule.
To access arable land under Zionist control, Palestinian farmers must request permission from the IOF (Industrial Fund for Agricultural Development), even though access is restricted and under surveillance—thus posing a situation of enormous danger. Agriculture is also an alternative to high unemployment rates, or to working in Israeli settlements, suffering numerous forms of violence, for wages well below average, and under extremely precarious conditions.
But it is precisely because Palestinian labor is cheaper for Israel that unemployment and the lack of access to other alternatives are deliberately maintained. Furthermore, agriculture itself—by preserving the past and ancestral practices—is the target of a project to erase the culture and identity of the people.
Although there is resistance through an agricultural economy, which accounts for 6% of GDP (but in 1967, it accounted for 67%), most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the West Bank come from Israel. This means they are sold at a much higher price, compete with local produce, and are produced with extensive chemical use.
Leaving with produce for sale means that farmers must pass through Israeli checkpoints daily with their produce—with no guarantee that the product will reach its final destination. In other words, the difficulty exists from access to seeds to the end of the production chain.
The long history of Palestinian resistance around agriculture demonstrates the strength of popular and collective resistance. Cooperatives have always been strong among Palestinian farmers, but there was an alarming decline after the Nakba in 1948. The number of cooperatives fell by 87%. Still, the strength of the cooperative model and family farming, so prevalent in Palestinian society, also provides us with a wealth of information about political organization—through the collective mindset as a historical component of the economy and resistance (both interconnected).
As a form not only of resistance but also of defiance against the Zionist occupation, an example of this strength was when, between 1987 and 1989, 500,000 trees were planted throughout the Palestinian territory during the First Intifada. The so-called “Victory Gardens” were grassroots initiatives of family farming and animal husbandry, based on solidarity. During this period, agro-industries managed by neighborhood cooperatives were created.
Thus, in addition to the total number of trees planted, the Victory Gardens have guaranteed a source of income for thousands of Palestinian families. This initiative is an example of how the Palestinian economy is an economy of resistance, challenging the logic of Israeli occupation and the fragmentation of Palestinian territories and the population.
Although the State of Israel promotes an external image of a green and sustainable economy, it is in its promotion of apartheid that it reveals its true face—greenwashing. The idea of a sustainable Israel, aimed at maintaining geopolitical power, is beneficial and profitable for the regime, while also restricting Palestinians’ access to land and water, another factor hindering local agriculture.
The construction of renewable energy plants on Palestinian land—such as solar panels and wind turbines—defines so-called “green colonialism,” which ignores the socioeconomic changes of the local population and constitutes yet another form of territorial control.
While 65% of the land is under Israeli control, the Israeli company Mekorot holds a monopoly on water exploitation in the region. The company has built pipelines that carry water from Palestinian-administered territories to Israeli settlements, passing beneath colonized land. This pipeline carries the water to the settlers and charges the Palestinian people dearly for its consumption when they allow controlled access.
Hunger is used as a weapon of war, as is the control of land and water. These are ways of maintaining the oppression of the people who resist, increasingly limiting natural resources, seeking to erase their struggle and history.
The imposition of monocultures and the use of pesticides—in addition to causing changes to the ecosystem—are ways in which Israel also directly affects the food sovereignty of these people. This changes the population’s eating culture, impoverishing menus, increasing prices, and reducing the variety of foods available for consumption, especially healthy and agroecological foods. Land restrictions, the obstruction of local commerce, a kilo of meat costing around $350, and the current curtailment of humanitarian aid: all of this shows us the true nature of the Zionist project and its ways of weaponizing everything against the Palestinian people.
The very notion of food sovereignty serves as a counterpoint to the idea of food security, being, according to the La Via Campesina website, “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems.” Therefore, the struggle for food sovereignty by the Palestinian people is a way of challenging the Zionist system itself, and the entire process based on the logic of solidarity and collective organization, going beyond the notion of food itself, but encompassing the entire political, economic, and social context.
For agriculture based on agroecological transition and cooperatives to fully develop, toward food sovereignty, it will first be necessary to achieve the liberation of the Palestinian people. Socioeconomic development cannot exist within a logic of invasion and domination. However, continued resistance through the practices described in this text, as well as the maintenance of an entire culture and identity that Zionists seek to erase, is the path to liberation.
Local Palestinian agriculture is a form of struggle for self-determination for a people living under Zionist colonization, who continue to fight and resist all types of impositions placed upon them. Fighting for the right to produce, to promote local commerce, to create their own economy, amidst colonization, is an act of unparalleled strength.
Fighting for food sovereignty while on the other side of the wall the same people die of hunger or die trying to access food is an act of courage and a way to demonstrate that the Palestinian people will not cease their daily struggle until Palestine is free from Zionist occupation and imperialism. It is also a way to promote a popular social project based on anti-imperialism, solidarity, and the autonomy of peoples.
This article by Vittória Silva Paz Barreto*, from the MST website, highlights agriculture in Palestine as a force of resistance against the Zionist occupation, challenging hunger and control of land and water.
*Master’s in History from UFPE and activist in the Internationalism Sector of the MST
**Edited by Fernanda Alcântara