War, Ecocide and the Struggle for Liberation: The Encounter between Ecologism and the Global Movement for Palestine

The contribution aims to analyze - through the perspectives of Political Ecology, Environmental Justice Studies and Social Movement Studies - the Palestinian question from an ecological point of view and the consequent link between ecological mobilizations and those in solidarity with the Palestinian people during the current historical conjuncture, with particular attention to the Italian case. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, the deliberate destruction of water infrastructures and local agriculture, as well as the blockade of humanitarian aid imposed by Israel on the Strip have in fact contributed to revitalizing not only mobilizations and expressions of solidarity all over the world for the Palestinian people, but also public debate and scientific interest in the system of ‘ecological apartheid’ in which millions of people live in the Occupied Territories and in the socio-environmental consequences of settler-colonialism. This contribution therefore aims, first and foremost, to analyze the system of segregation fueled by Zionism's combination of crime, damage and environmental inequalities. In fact, what is called the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ can be understood as a unique and enduring conflict of ecological distribution.

Secondly, an analysis of the current mobilization in solidarity with the Palestinian people is proposed, highlighting the peculiarities of the ‘ecological side’ of the mobilization. Taking the Italian case in particular, a first objective is to identify the collective actors who, in the ecological galaxy, have decided to mobilize for Palestine. Thanks to the conceptual and methodological tools of social movements, participant observation and the discursive and document analysis of some ecological groups, an in-depth study of their modes of action, their repertoires and the performance of the protest as well as the framing process will be proposed.