TWO urns stand sentry outside the Anglican Archbishop’s house next to St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. During previous visits, I’ve admired the lush peace lilies that grow in them. When I visited earlier this month, the lilies looked rather forlorn, battered at the edges, and not in the best of health; yet they go on growing, hoping against hope.
They became a metaphor for what I was hearing from Palestinian Christians in the West Bank: forlorn, battered, hoping against hope. Under the cover of the war in Gaza, the expansion of Israeli settlements has picked up at pace. Legal claims about ownership, intimidation, and violence are all used by Israeli settlers and well-funded settler groups in the Jewish diaspora to coerce, confiscate, and buy land from Palestinian farmers.
It feels to the farmers that, whichever way they turn, there is an obstacle. Legal claims use different laws from the Ottoman, British Mandate, and Jordanian periods, as well as recent Israeli military orders, in complex cases that drain Palestinians of their resources and resilience. Intimidation and violence by armed settlers is now common practice; the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) either turns a blind eye or accompanies and protects the settlers. The farmers risk arrest, or being placed in administrative detention, if they seek to defend themselves.
DESPITE repeated assertions by the UK Government and many other countries that the West Bank settlements are illegal under international law, and break repeated UN resolutions, nothing is being done internationally to protect Palestinian farmers. Meanwhile, many settlers seem to be acting with impunity.
The impact is colossal, not only in personal and humanitarian terms, but also the far-reaching ecological consequences around biodiversity, water access, and environmental justice. If the international community is serious about peace in the region, it must treat environmental degradation as a central pillar of injustice — not a side effect. It must hold Israel to account for settlement expansion, advocate for equal access to natural resources, and support grass-roots Palestinian efforts to reclaim and restore their land for nature and people.
The 400-mile concrete, razor wire, and electric partition wall snakes around and deep into the Occupied Territories, so as to protect Israeli settlements. To one side, it represents security and protection; to the other, it is a daily symbol of separation, land annexation, oppression, and lost hope. It restricts movement and cuts off communities from their neighbours, and farmers from their olive groves, leaving the land to become unmanaged and the diversity of species to change. It also fragments natural ecosystems, and inhibits the seasonal migration of fauna.
When you look out across the West Bank, you see the settlements dotted on virtually every hilltop. Yet, if you look back into Israel, the hilltops are generally forested or protected ecological landscapes. The infrastructure linking settlements is also vast, cutting deep into stunning landscapes such as the Cremisan and Al Makhrour valleys — both parts of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I remember walking in pine forests of Jabal Abu Ghunaym 30 years ago, the sweet aroma filling the spring air. That incredible forest was cleared for the huge illegal settlement of Har Homa.
AT THE heart of this issue is land. For Palestinians, land is not merely property: it is livelihood, identity, and legacy. Generations have cultivated olive groves, grazed sheep, and harvested water from natural springs and stored it in cisterns. At the Tent of Nations farm, which I visited, the smell of wild herbs filled the air.
In the Cremisan Valley, largely owned by Christians, the wildflowers, including orchids, created a rich tapestry display with insect life thriving. Traditional methods of rainwater harvesting, dryland farming, and terraced agriculture are still very visible. This Palestinian way of life, the gentle balance of sustainable farming co-existing with nature, is being rapidly lost as land is seized and families are displaced.
Nowhere is the ecological impact more visible than in the realm of water. The West Bank sits atop three major aquifers providing water for both Israelis and Palestinians. Access is far from equal, however. Israeli authorities control more than 80 per cent of water resources in the West Bank, and allocate, on average, three times more water per capita to settlers than to Palestinians.
Some Palestinian communities survive on as little as 20 litres per person per day — well below the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of 50 litres. At the same time, settlers have irrigated lawns, swimming pools, and modern infrastructure. In arid zones already affected by climate change, this imbalance not only deepens the humanitarian crisis, but puts shared ecosystems at risk as springs dry up and hilltop water-catching vegetation is removed.
Moreover, protected areas designated by the Palestinian Authority are often disregarded or damaged in the settlement process. In some cases, national parks established by Israeli authorities become accessible only to Israeli settlers. The current move of the checkpoint in the Nahal Refa’im Valley seems to be designed to take in more land within the Jerusalem Park. This is the weaponisation of land as a tool for exclusion rather than nature protection.
Tragically, hope is thin on the ground for people, place, and nature in a time that, for many, is forlorn and battered. I hope against hope for people and nature to thrive in that land. The trees, springs, and soil are the silent witnesses and passive victims, but their fate, like that of the Palestinian people, depends on justice.
The Rt Revd Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich, is the lead bishop for the environment for the Church of England and lead bishop for biodiversity in the Anglican Communion.