"The insanity of the settler colonial mindset has no limit."
Palestinian boys throw stones at an Israeli tank as it destroys an orange farm May 19, 2003, at Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip.(Abid Katib / Getty Images)
Genocide is not only the destruction of human life. It is also the destruction of land, water, food systems, and ecosystems that make life possible.
In Palestine, the devastation of agricultural lands, the poisoning and destruction of water systems, and the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of olive trees are part of a broader campaign to erase Palestinian life, culture, and connection to the land.
This is the environmental Nakba: the ecological destruction woven into more than a century of settler colonialism that continues to unfold today.
On this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray speaks with Dr. Hatem Bazian, Palestinian-American scholar, organizer, and professor at UC Berkeley. They discuss how environmental destruction functions as a weapon of genocide and colonial control. From the destruction of Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure to attacks on beehives, they examine how the destruction of the natural world makes Palestinian life increasingly unlivable.
They also explore the architecture of occupation: how border walls, checkpoints, settlements, and segregated infrastructure divide land, restrict movement, and engineer two radically unequal worlds for the colonizer and the colonized.
Palestine is not somewhere “over there.” As Bazian puts it, “In every city in America, there’s a Palestine.” He points to collapsing schools, a healthcare system that leaves people to die, and endless wars waged to sell weapons. The same corporate and political systems shaping life in Palestine are also reshaping life in the U.S.
But Bazian argues that colonialism is fundamentally unsustainable and is clear about what that means for Palestine. “Palestine will be free sooner than later.” Key Topics
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Host: Shilpi Chhotray
Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker
Engineer: Dennis Maxwell
Project Manager: Asia Simms Dr. Hatem Bazian
Dr. Hatem Bazian is a teaching professor at UC Berkeley and a leading decolonial scholar whose work centers Islam’s epistemology and Global South analysis. He founded the Islamophobia Studies Center, serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Islamophobia Studies Journal and President of the International Islamophobia Studies and Research Association. He co-founded Zaytuna College and American Muslims for Palestine, and serves as President of the Northern California Islamic Council and Chairman of the Muslim Legal Fund for America.
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“Those who own the land get to be decision makers over what happens to the land. They get to decide whether they're gonna frack and how much they’re going to pollute.”
Corporations have made fortunes by extracting from the land, while Black and Indigenous communities who have long understood land as something to steward have been systematically pushed off of it. But what if reparations could both repair the legacy of land theft and help solve the climate crisis?
In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray speaks with writer and organizer Brea Baker, author of “Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership.”
They discuss how land theft and slavery are connected to our broken industrial food system and the environmental crisis we’re living with today. But Brea argues that reparations are more than just a moral reckoning with the past — especially when they go beyond financial compensation. What does that look like in practice? Returning property. Reversing eminent domain seizures. Repairing polluted places. Investing in communities with generations of knowledge about the ecosystem. And the payoff reaches far beyond those directly receiving reparations: more sustainable land use, less pollution, lower emissions, and a healthier environment for all.Key Topics
Credits
Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation
Powered by Wildseeds Fund
Host: Shilpi Chhotray
Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker
Engineer: Dennis Maxwell
Project Manager: Asia SimmsBrea Baker
Brea Baker is a writer and activist whose book, ROOTED: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, details her family’s experiences across the South and makes another case for reparations as a racial, economic, and environmental justice policy. As a sixth generation Black landowner with deep ties to North Carolina, Brea writes about and organizes with Black Southerners whether with Black Farmers’ Market, Cypress Fund, the BLIS Collective, and many other political homes. Her next book, a biography of Jazz Age artist and nightclub owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith, will be published in 2027.
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Shilpi ChhotrayShilpi Chhotray is the host of A People’s Climate, a new podcast from Counterstream Media and The Nation. New episodes every Saturday, starting September 27.
Mindy RamakerMindy Ramaker is the Executive Producer of A People’s Climate, a new podcast from Counterstream Media and The Nation. New episodes every Saturday, starting September 27.