Palestine in Focus - Ecocide, Environmental Governance, and Justice in Palestine
The concept of ecocide—large scale, systematic destruction of ecosystems—has gained support as a lens for analysing environmental harms that intersect with conflict, oppression, settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
In this talk, Martijn Dekker will examine how a range of Israeli policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) generate ecological degradation that meets the emerging criteria for ecocide, and situates these impacts within broader debates on environmental and climate justice.
In this eleventh edition of Palestine in Focus Dekker will touch on subjects such as the Israeli water governance in occupied Palestine, the uprooting of olive groves and afforestation and its consequences for both ecology and culture and the disproportionate environmental burden for Palestinian communities.
By foregrounding ecocide as a legal and moral framework, the talk invites critical reflection on decoloniality, activism, accountability mechanisms, the role of international law and organisations, and social movements.
Practical
Date: 4 November 2025
Time: 16:00
Place: IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance: Free admission, but please send an email to event@iisg.nl if you want to join.
Martijn Dekker is a political anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) specialising in contentious politics and critical security studies. He has conducted extensive research in the Middle East on how Palestinians try to organise their own security and how they resist (non-violently) the Israeli occupation. He is also an active member of Extinction Rebellion (XR).
