Conclusion
In conclusion, applying (post)colonial discourse to the events surrounding Palestinian food systems helps make the case that the Zionist project is essentially a settler colonial project. Settler colonialism necessarily involves eliminating the native, which makes food production a target for colonisers and the consumption of produce an act of resistance. Indeed, food systems have been widely targeted by agents of the Zionist project, and continue to be targeted in occupied Palestine by the Israeli state and independent Zionist settlers. Additionally, the supplantation of indigenous food species for colonial species is part and parcel to the settler colonial project, not only because it further undermines the means to subsistence, but because transformation of the territory completes the project to forge indigeneity. This idea is illustrated by the uprooting of olive trees and the rooting of pine trees in Palestine. The olive tree also helps demonstrate food crops and production have cultural value, which in accordance with Cabral’s definition of culture can also make it a means for anticolonial resistance. Anti-colonial resistance further manifests itself in the establishment of “food sovereignty,” a project also underway in occupied Palestine.
Whilst the present paper often discusses the material and cultural significance of food as separate facts, it also illustrates Wolfe’s (2006) idea that these facts are heavily intertwined: activities marked as “cultural genocide” often simultaneously have a direct impact on a population’s capacity to live. Additionally, though the bulk of this paper focused on the agricultural and general production aspect of food in Palestine, future research could focus on how (anti)colonialism manifests itself in the preparation of food. For example, Ranta and Mendel (2014) discuss how early Zionist settlers adopted and appropriated street food culture in the region, and point to how the falafel and flatbread that are part of this street food culture are now frequently used to claim an authentic “sense of belonging” in Israel (as cited by Saggar, 2018, p. 262). Alternatively, Saggar (2018) analyses cookbooks created by Palestinians in the diaspora as a means to codify their national culture in the face of erasure. Investigating such phenomena through the lens of (post)colonial theory can create a more elaborate understanding of how Palestinians are colonised from plant to plate, and the potential for resistance at different points in this journey.