Land of Symbols: Cactus, Poppies, Orange and Olive Trees in Palestine

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Palestinians experience belonging to a place and how these experiences and their related ideas and symbols inform social organization through their representation, performance, and manipulations over time. In particular, I explore the articulation of symbols and symbolic representations in relation to the Palestinian encounter with the Zionist project in Palestine starting from the early twentieth century to the present. I demonstrate how dominant symbols change according to changes in the political realities and shifts in the dominant agencies. The most prominent aspect of Palestinians' representations of nationhood and peoplehood through these different symbols across time has been the articulation of their rootedness in the land of Palestine. Hence, the Palestinian "narration" of nationness has been a narration of communities and peoplehood in relation to the land, a narration of formation and reformation in the Palestinian cultural imaginary in the face of its reconfiguration by the Jewish nationalist project in Palestine.

The effect of inhalation ofCitrus sinensisflowers andMentha spicataleave essential oils on lung function and exercise performance: a quasi-experimental uncontrolled before-and-after study

“…The fragrant white flowers, produced singly or in cluster of up to 6 flowers, which are around 5 cm wide, with 5 petals and 20 to 25 yellow stamens [ 23 ]. The flowers oil consist mainly from sabinene, linalool, limonene and trans-nerolidol [ 24 ] and are used as an antimicrobial, stomachic, carminative and flavoring agent as well as orange flowers water used in Palestine as food [ 25 , 26 ].…”

The Israel/Palestine Field School

“…We had learned that Arab villages that existed under the park just sixty years previously used native cacti in order to mark boundaries between farmlands. 9 As we walked through thickets of pine trees, we found cacti, and beyond the cacti we found a well, demolished structures, remnants of life destroyed. We found stands of fig trees, tamarind trees, and old olive trees, all the remnants of pre-1948 Palestinian agricultural production.…”

Performing Rootedness in the Negev/Naqab: Possibilities and Perils of Competitive Planting

“…Like the farming of field crops, trees have been enlisted for projects of both Jewish and Palestinian–Arab rootedness. Art, literature, and oral story‐telling enact this rooting of people in landscapes symbolically (Abufarha ; Almog ; Bardenstein ). In Judaism, trees hold a special status.…”

“…Literature, poetry, and artwork feature these trees. For Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the global diaspora, the orange tree connotes loss, because it grows well on the coastal lands around Jaffa, which were taken by Zionist forces in 1948 and incorporated into Israel (Abufarha ). The olive tree, in contrast, is cultivated throughout the hills of the West Bank, making it a symbol of those steadfast Palestinians who remain on a portion of historic Palestine (Bardenstein ).…”

“…Rooting is also enacted and contested materially, through competitive planting, uprooting, and arson (Braverman ; Cohen ). For Palestinians, orange trees once fueled the economy, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, when Jaffa oranges were exported to markets across the Middle East and Europe (Abufarha ). More recently, Palestinians have leveraged the olive tree economically (Buheiry ), as olive oil is produced for local consumption and marketed abroad as a national product of Palestine.…”