MADRID – Israel faces an ecological crisis as forest fires ravage the woods near occupied Al-Quds. For two consecutive days, firefighting teams have struggled to control the flames, which have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and the closure of major communication routes. 

The emergency, which has taken on an international dimension, led Benjamin Netanyahu to declare a state of emergency and request international aid. While images of firefighters battling the flames are striking, this catastrophe serves as a wake-up call about the deeper layers of the landscape and history burning in those flames.

The fires are not merely a natural phenomenon, but they shed light on a deeply colonial aspect of the territory. The fire consumes, both symbolically and literally, a landscape created under a project that, in its early stages, focused on transforming the land with a political purpose, beyond just agricultural or ecological goals. The forests now ablaze are not the result of an indigenous nature but of foreign intervention: the Jewish National Fund (JNF) planted tree species such as pine and eucalyptus, native to Europe and Australia, mostly highly flammable and water-hungry. These trees were planted on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba of 1948, a symbolic act that hides the violence of Zionist colonization behind a veil of vegetation.

Afforestation in occupied Palestine was one of the pillars of the construction of the Israeli state, driven not only by agricultural motives but as a tool for identity consolidation and territorial control. Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, in his inaugural speech to the Knesset in 1951, called on Zionists to "make the desert bloom." This phrase, which has become one of the most iconic founding myths of Zionism, not only appealed to the creation of a new entity but to the recreation of an "empty" land that had to be transformed by human hands, specifically those of the Zionist settlers. Through the planting of these trees, Ben Gurion aimed not only to create employment and strengthen immigrants’ emotional ties to the land but also to build a symbolic bond with the territory. Afforestation was an act of appropriation of the land, of transformation of the landscape, and of creating a new national narrative that erased the traces of displaced Palestinian peoples.

This process fits within one of the most persistent colonial ideologies: the myth of Terra Nullius, the idea of a land without people, which Zionist settlers found empty and, therefore, available for colonization. According to this myth, Palestine was an uninhabited territory, a hostile desert that only gained value with the arrival of Zionist settlers. This narrative, still present in contemporary Israeli discourse, is based on the idea that the Jewish people were the only ones capable of "redeeming" the land and making it thrive. Under this framework, Palestinians were not only invisible but also considered incapable of cultivating their own land, which justified colonization.

The myth of "making the desert bloom" is a clear example of how Zionist settlers used the rhetoric of civilization to legitimize the dispossession and destruction of Palestinian communities. This narrative builds upon Orientalist stereotypes that describe West Asia as a backward, primitive, and decadent place where, according to colonialist vision, only Europeans (or, in this case, European Jews) could "civilize" the land. At the same time, it was a project that not only dispossessed Palestinians of their lands but also their history, identity, and rights. The occupation of Palestine, in its colonial aspect, was not only materialized in the appropriation of territories but in the transformation of the landscape to erase any trace of Palestinian presence.

The Axis of Resistance and the Islamic Republic: Anti-colonial resistance rooted in an Islamic grammar

In this context, the political presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Axis of Resistance emerges as an anti-colonial response to the Zionist colonization project. Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic has offered an alternative perspective to the hegemonic narrative that justifies Zionist colonialism under the umbrella of civilization and the "redemption" of the desert. Islamic resistance, largely articulated through the figure of the Islamic Revolution and the subsequent consolidation of Hezbollah, has been the main political force in the region that has openly challenged Israel's expansionist aspirations.

The anti-colonial discourse of the Axis of Resistance is based on an Islamic grammar that recognizes the struggle for Palestine’s liberation as part of a broader struggle against global colonial structures. This approach opposes not only Zionist colonialism but also the neocolonial dynamics that have characterized foreign powers’ intervention in the region. The Palestinian struggle, in this context, is an integral part of the resistance of peoples in West Asia and beyond, against colonial powers that, in their quest for domination, have reconfigured borders and landscapes according to their own geopolitical interests.

Iran’s opposition to Zionist colonialism is closely linked to a vision of Islam that promotes the self-determination of oppressed peoples and denounces injustice. The discourse of the Islamic Revolution, with its emphasis on social justice, the fight against tyranny, and the unity of Muslim peoples, has been fundamental in articulating a resistance that not only rejects the Zionist project but also opposes forms of oppression perpetuated by Western powers, mostly allies of Israel, in the region.

This resistance not only combats Israeli occupation but also challenges the narrative of Terra Nullius and the claim that Palestine was an empty land waiting to be civilized. Instead, the members of the Axis of Resistance promote an anti-colonial vision that defends Palestinians' historical rights to self-determination and the recovery of their lands.

The struggle against Zionist colonialism has also led to a decolonization discourse that has extended beyond Palestine’s borders. The Axis of Resistance has emphasized the importance of the struggle not only against Israeli occupation but also against the global power structures that have upheld foreign powers’ dominance over the Arab and Muslim world. This vision becomes a kind of continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle, from an Islamic perspective, that not only questions the occupation of Palestine but also the Western interventions in other geopolitical contexts of the Muslim world.

Thus, while the fire consumes the forests planted by Zionism, it uncovers a history that still resists, a struggle that remains alive in Palestinian resistance and in the commitment of those who oppose Zionist colonialism.