EVER since the European invasion of the Arabian peninsula, there has been a considerable damage to the environment. The occupiers of Palestine have uprooted over a million olive trees and hundreds of thousands of fruit trees have been destroyed in Palestinian lands.

The land has been torched. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) habe been busy uprooting olive trees to facilitate the building of settlements, expand roads and build infrastructure. The so-called ‘security wall’ that the colonists have built in Palestine has destroyed many farms.

The occupiers are Europeans so they get away with not only killing nine-month-old babies, teenage children and women, but destroying the environment; the same environment the UN is so concerned about. Muslims are fully aware that the UN is not going to go against the apartheid regime. Yet many organisations have reported that the occupiers are the cause of the environmental damage done in Palestine.

Waging war by the ‘white’ race on the pretext of combating extremism has caused mayhem. Weaponry made in America and Europe has been and is being used in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

The occupiers of Palestine use banned phosphorus bombs on the Palestinians, causing enormous damage to humans, animals and the environment. Recently, the Israelis stopped Palestinian farmers from feeding their farm animals. Yet no European country seems concerned.

Displacing people from their own homeland is another huge environmental damage. When the colonists stole Africa’s resources, the process caused huge damage to the environment.

The cause of damage to the environment is the greed of the West. Considering this, the so-called civilised West should not lecture us, the brown people, of damaging the environment. We have lived in this region for centuries without causing any damage to the environment. The environmental damage started only when the Europeans landed on our soil.

Angabeen Ahmad
Umm Al Quwain, UAE

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2021