University at Buffalo School of Law Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2009 Uprooting Identities: The Regulation of Olive Trees in the Occupied West Bank Irus Braverman University at Buffalo School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation Irus Braverman, Uprooting Identities: The Regulation of Olive Trees in the Occupied West Bank, PoLAR, Nov. 2009, at 237. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Irus Braverman SUNY-Buffalo Law School Uprooting Identities: The Regulation of Olive Trees in the Occupied West Bank It is as though, by virtue of the derealization of Palestine, a project reaching back over 50 years, the roots of Palestinian violence – the dispossession of the Palestinian people, the dispersal of refugees, and the horrors of military occupation – have been torn up with their olive groves. [Gregory 2003:319] Like children, their trees look so naïve, as if they can’t harm anyone. But like [their] children, several years later they turn into a ticking bomb. [Interview, Chief Inspector Kishik, Israel’s Civil Administration, Beit El military base, September 7, 2006] Trees in general, and olive and pine trees in particular, perform a pivotal role in both the Zionist and the Palestinian national narratives.