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colonialism
Lights! Camera! Activism! The Film That’s Rooting for Change in Palestine—Literally
If a film like Where Olive Trees Weep can inspire thousands to plant olive trees in a conflict zone, what else might this model achieve when applied to other global challenges?
Dec 08, 2024
We’ve all seen movies that tug at our heartstrings, maybe even prompt a tear or two. But every so often, a film does more than just make us feel—it makes us act. From saving dolphins to battling climate change, certain films have ignited movements that leap from the screen into the real world. The latest addition to this unexpected genre? Olive trees.
Yes, olive trees. In the West Bank, no less.
Where Olive Trees Weep is a recent documentary that delves into the hardships and resilience of the Palestinian people. It has captivated viewers around the world—not just emotionally, but in a way that has moved them to action. This isn’t just a story on screen. With the help of everyday people, it has mobilized a movement that’s planting 1,500 olive trees in one of the most contested regions on the planet.
The Intersection of Art, Activism, and Agriculture
The filmmakers behind Where Olive Trees Weep didn’t just want to connect with audiences emotionally—they wanted to inspire real change. Before the film even started rolling, viewers were invited to donate to plant an olive tree in the West Bank. What began as a cinematic experience became a grassroots movement, turning passive viewership into direct action.
Every tree cut down is a blow to the Palestinian people, but every tree planted is a defiant stand for their heritage, their survival, and their future.
These trees—planted by thousands of people around the world—are doing more than taking root. They’re providing Palestinian farmers with a sustainable source of income in a region where food security and land ownership are perpetually under siege. The trees will generate $200,000 annually in olive oil sales, creating economic stability for communities that desperately need it.
But more than that, the olive trees are a symbol of defiance. In a place where Israeli settlers destroyed 4,000 trees this year alone, planting an olive tree is an act of resistance—a stand against oppression, colonialism, and environmental degradation. Like Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, where tree planting became a form of resistance against both environmental destruction and political oppression, these olive trees are symbols of resilience and survival in the face of adversity.
The Olive Branch Strikes Back
Since the movement began, six new Freedom Farms, each home to 250 olive trees, have sprung up in the West Bank. These trees, which will live for up to 500 years, will support 15 generations of farmers, provide food and economic stability, and scrub 54 million pounds of carbon from the air. That’s the long-term vision. For now, they’re putting down roots where few dare to dig.
In Palestinian culture, olive trees are more than just crops—they’re living legacies. They represent peace, wisdom, and deep-rooted connections to the land. Every tree cut down is a blow to the Palestinian people, but every tree planted is a defiant stand for their heritage, their survival, and their future.
As settler violence escalates, this year’s olive harvest was the most dangerous in recent memory. The Palestinian Farmers Union documented over 700 attacks on farmers during the harvest. The union met with diplomats from around the world, urging them to pressure the occupation. Yet it’s the viewers of this movie, not the politicians, who have replanted a third of the olive trees lost to settler violence. (When was the last time a speech planted anything?)
And Palestinian farmers, supported by this global tree-planting movement, are standing their ground. “Protecting the olive harvest is more than safeguarding crops; it’s about defending our culture, our heritage, and the roots of our existence,” says Abbas Milhem, president of the Palestinian Farmers Union and one of the key figures in this initiative.
From Reel to Real: How Films Are Planting More Than Ideas
Where Olive Trees Weep isn’t the first film to make waves beyond the cinema. The Cove shone a harsh light on dolphin hunting in Japan, sparking global efforts to end the practice. An Inconvenient Truth made climate change impossible to ignore. And Blood Diamond made us rethink where our jewelry comes from. But what makes Where Olive Trees Weep stand out is how it transformed viewers into activists before they even pressed play. By inviting people to plant trees in real time, the film didn’t just tell a story—it became part of the story.
As the world faces relentless crises—from Sudan to Ukraine to Gaza—storytelling has never been more critical. If a film can inspire thousands to plant olive trees in a conflict zone, what else might this model achieve when applied to other global challenges?
Moviegoers have shown that even the smallest acts—like donating $20 to plant a tree—can have profound ripple effects. When stories are paired with action, they become blueprints for real change.
As for the Palestinian olive trees standing tall in the face of destruction? They’re living proof that sometimes the most powerful act of resistance is just putting down roots.
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Climate Change Gives Us the Chance to Truly Decolonize; Will We Take It?
If we are to safeguard our very existence, climate change will challenge us to rethink, review, and reinvent the very notion of civilization and modernity.
Nov 20, 2024
As delegates enter the final days of negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan for the 29th seating of the Conference of the Parties—COP29—one thing is certain: These discussions happen under circumstances far different from the early 1990s. At that time, it was an absolute novelty that climate activists were highlighting the consequences of a Euro-North American notion of modernity and civilization rooted in extraction and overconsumption. Today, delegates meet within the framework of a global recognition that colonialism exacerbated climate change and that decolonisation is critical in reversing its effects on humankind.
In its 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a clear connection between climate change and colonialism, stating that colonialism not only caused climate change but continues to exacerbate the impact of the climate crisis on the most vulnerable around the world. This acknowledgement sent a strong message to the global community and fired up the debate around the need to decolonize our mindsets, economic systems, and definition of modernity and civilization if we are to adequately deal with the climate crisis.
Climate change has inadvertently exposed the inferiority of modern civilization, characterized by a neocolonial economic model rooted in extraction, exploitation, and destruction of nature
2024 has given humanity a foretaste of the apocalypse that awaits us all if we do not rethink our approach to development and make true commitments toward staying below 1.5°C and attaining net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050.
With record-high temperatures in several parts of the world this year, the reality of climate change has dawned on even the hardest denialists. Climate change is a lived experience for billions around the world, as floods continue to ravage cities, droughts threaten villages and communities, and wildfires scorch through lives and livelihoods.
Can We Afford to Continue With Business as Usual?
Science tells us we must immediately halt all new investment in fossil fuels. Many countries are making significant strides in the right direction—the U.K. recently announced that it was closing the last of its coal plants following Portugal, Greece, and many others making the switch away from the most polluting fossil fuel. Despite these gains, threats still loom. Trumpism and its “drill baby drill” narrative might have left climate activists feeling despondent, while news reports expose unsettling conversations between the COP29 chair and fossil fuel corporations. The fact of the matter is that no one can truly deny that the world is facing one of its greatest challenges yet and human-made climate change is at the center of it all.
There’s no room for fossil fuels, even though capitalist greed, individualism, and desire for profits over people and the rest of nature still drive the fossil fuel industry. But this industry is well aware of the devastation it has and continues to cause humanity.
COP28 gave a glimpse of hope with terminology to transition away from fossil fuels. COP29 must be more audacious in calling for a full phase out of fossil fuels if we are to reverse the harms of the last 100 years.
Climate Change as a Gift
Unlike many other human-made disasters facing the world—wars, conflicts, economic crises, and political rivalries—climate change has no borders or boundaries. It affects the wealthy and the less privileged, even if the wealthy can adapt better to its damages. The heatwaves, droughts, and the ferocity of the wildfires which science directly link to human activity have cast a dark cloud on the credibility of the Western civilization that has driven global systems in the last 100 years.
this reality calls on every one of us who is confronted with climate change to challenge the Euro-North American notion of a good life, of well-being, of development, of wealth, that has driven us to a climate apocalypse.
Climate change has inadvertently exposed the inferiority of modern civilization, characterised by a neocolonial economic model rooted in extraction, exploitation, and destruction of nature. A civilization that has destroyed the Earth, polarised society, driven individualism and greed, and left our very existence hanging on a thread if we do not act fast to reverse the speed at which the Earth is heating.
Beyond the horrors and misery bestowed on us by extreme weather events, collapsing food systems, and negative health impacts, there may also be a gift in climate change. If we are to safeguard our very existence, climate change will challenge us to rethink, review, and reinvent the very notion of civilization and modernity.
The Imperative of Decolonial Thinking and Decolonisation
Climate talks today should prioritize the need for a decolonial mindset, focusing on an alternative economic model rooted in our relationship with nature, our relationship with self, with each other, and rethinking growth and development.
Wisdom guarded by Indigenous African communities, and other Indigenous communities around the world, shows that it is possible to live great lives, build great empires and kingdoms, while maintaining peace with nature.
Whether world leaders commit to what must be done at COP29 is yet to be seen. However, the reality of a world ravaged by extreme weather events is indisputable. And this reality calls on every one of us who is confronted with climate change to challenge the Euro-North American notion of a good life, of well-being, of development, of wealth, that has driven us to a climate apocalypse.
Whether we like it or not, we will not save ourselves unless we treat the tragedy of climate change as a gift that compels us to do things differently and ultimately to live better lives.
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Palestine Is Our Pandora
James Cameron dreamed it, but Palestinians are living it. If we continue to let violence against their land and people go unchecked, we’ll all pay the price.
Oct 28, 2024
Exactly one year ago today, on October 28, 2023, Bilal Saleh was shot dead by Israeli settlers while peacefully harvesting his olive trees. It happened near the field he had tended for years, with his wife and children as witnesses. He was unarmed. The settler who killed him walked free, back to Rehelim. The world barely noticed.
Cast into the shadow of the more than 40,000 Palestinian lives lost since the war on Gaza began, Bilal’s death is barely a blip.
Farmers won’t fight with guns, but they will plant. Again and again, they will plant.
But it’s a different kind of death, being murdered in an olive grove. It’s part of a larger colonial strategy of dislocation to sever the deep connection Palestinians have to their land. Olive trees, once symbols of peace, have become battlegrounds—and settlers, soldiers in this war of erasure. This year alone, 4,000 trees have been destroyed by settlers.
What does it mean to destroy a tree? It’s not just vandalism—it’s an attack on identity, history, and survival.
The Tree of Souls: Palestine’s Living Resistance
For Palestinians, the olive tree isn’t just a crop. It’s their Tree of Souls. Remember that scene in Avatar when the Na’vi fight the colonizers to save the giant, sacred tree that holds their entire world together? The olive tree is that for Palestinians.
For thousands of years, olive trees have provided food, oil, income, spiritual roots, and cultural pride. They have withstood droughts, fires, and wars; held back the desert; and kept the soil from vanishing into dust. And here’s another feather in their leafy cap: Each tree quietly absorbs around 75 pounds of carbon a year. So when 4,000 trees are destroyed in a single season, it’s like leaving 300,000 pounds of carbon hanging around. Worse still, the Palestinian Farmers Union estimates that since the occupation began, 2.5 million trees have been destroyed. That’s the carbon equivalent of millions of transatlantic flights.
All of which makes farmers like Bilal the last line of nonviolent defense—not just against the occupation but environmental disaster. Farmers won’t fight with guns, but they will plant. Again and again, they will plant.
Colonization 101: The Settler’s Guide to Killing Trees
Olive trees don’t just die by accident. They’re methodically cut down, one by one, in a calculated sweep of colonization. For years, Israel has leveraged an Ottoman law allowing the state to claim uncultivated land. By destroying olive trees—trees that take years to mature and produce—they clear a path for more illegal settlements. That’s the game. It’s a slow deliberate erasure.
If even a fraction of the $18 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel were spent planting trees, we’d have hundreds of millions of trees helping transform a polarized holy land into a prosperous heartland.
Each felled tree isn’t just about clearing the land or fouling the air. Passed down like heirlooms, the trees hold a different kind of currency: history, survival, pride. Destroy them, and you don’t just take away a crop, you sever a people’s claim to the soil and connection to their past.
Without their olive trees, Palestinian farmers lose their autonomy, becoming increasingly dependent on external aid and less able to resist the encroachment of settlements. The landscape changes—slowly at first, then all at once.
Planting is the New Protest
But here’s the thing—Palestinians refuse to disappear. When Bilal was killed, we at Treedom for Palestine worked with the Palestinian Farmers Union to plant a new “Freedom Farm” for his widow, Ikhlas. She’s now a caretaker, a breadwinner, and the steward of a new olive grove—one that will nourish her family and keep Bilal’s memory alive. The grove is surrounded by steel fencing, protecting both farmer and trees.
Today there are 70 Freedom Farms across the West Bank: 17,500 more thriving olive trees, each a source of income and prosperity in a region hungry for both. But the need for more is great. In plain numbers: $30 plants, irrigates, and protects an olive tree. If even a fraction of the $18 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel were spent planting trees, we’d have hundreds of millions of trees helping transform a polarized holy land into a prosperous heartland.
Resistance doesn’t have to be violent to be revolutionary.
The Global Cost of Colonization
Settler violence against olive trees isn’t just unsettling—it’s unsustainable. Each tree felled isn’t just a lost crop; it’s a severed connection to the past and a stolen future. For Bilal’s family, the loss is deeply personal. For the world, it’s a reminder that justice, equality, and sustainability are intertwined, like the vast mycelium network beneath the soil, linking trees together in profound ways and sustaining life. As below, so above.
Above ground, the consequences of this ecological warfare ripple outward. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental collapse. The destruction of olive trees in the West Bank is just one battle in a much larger war.
What’s happening in Palestine isn’t far removed from us. The violence against the land isn’t just about one place—it’s about the shared fate of people and the planet. Palestine is our Pandora. If we continue to let violence against their land and people go unchecked, we’ll all pay the price. But for now, Palestinians are teaching us an important lesson: When your roots run deep, you can withstand almost anything.
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