How food is being weaponized from Gaza to Canada – Brandon Sun

Idea

The state of Israel has been carrying out a major attack on Gaza for more than a year, following the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.

In March 2024, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, announced: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that the crime of genocide has been committed has been met.”

A key element of genocide involves the militarization and weaponization of food, a tactic used by Canada to destroy, dispossess, and control Indigenous peoples.

We came together as a group of critical food systems experts to examine the parallels between the weaponization of food in Gaza and Canada to enable the systematic extermination of Indigenous Peoples. But we also observed that food is a powerful tool of resistance and resurrection.

FOOD AS WEAPON

Throughout modern history, food has been used as a weapon by colonial regimes to control and displace Indigenous peoples. The current crisis in Gaza has brought this issue into sharp focus, with the Israeli state attempting to systematically destroy Palestinian food systems with devastating results.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2007 has cut off access to key agricultural areas and restricted fishing activities. Gazan farmers are often unable to access their land, while fishermen are constantly denied access to the coast, harassed, intimidated and even killed by Israeli forces.

This blockade, combined with military operations that have destroyed farmland, trees and infrastructure, has led to more than 95 percent of people in Gaza facing severe food insecurity and a famine declared by United Nations experts in the summer of 2024.

CANADA AND FOOD ARMAMENT

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Canadian government employed similar tactics to restrict Indigenous Peoples’ access to land, food, and water. Colonial policies such as the Indian Act, Homestead Act, and Transition System confined Indigenous Peoples to reserves, prohibited hunting and fishing, and forced them to depend on meager government food rations.

This led to malnutrition and starvation, especially in response to native resistance to settler expansion. The use of food as a weapon was part of a broader project to eliminate or otherwise undermine Indigenous identity and self-determination; This process continues today.

From ongoing boil water advisories to environmental degradation caused by mining, oil and gas extraction, forestry, agriculture, and chemical production, settler governments and industries continue to remove Indigenous Peoples from their lands and undermine their livelihoods.

These practices have severely and disproportionately impacted Indigenous health and wellbeing, as well as food systems.

ISRAEL TARGETS ITS FOOD INFRASTRUCTURE

Israel’s control over land and resources in the occupied Palestinian territories reflects a similar colonial dynamic. Laws such as the Poor Property Law of 1950 facilitated the expropriation of Palestinian land.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has systematically targeted Gaza’s food infrastructure and used starvation as a weapon of war, according to Human Rights Watch. Satellite images show that 70 percent of Gaza’s tree cover has been destroyed or damaged, and about a third of greenhouses have been destroyed.

Tanks and trucks destroyed orchards, field crops and olive groves.

An estimated 800,000 tons of asbestos among the debris of collapsed buildings will cause asbestos-related diseases for future generations. Under the Geneva Conventions, the destruction of civilians’ means of survival and starvation as a means of war is strictly prohibited.

FOOD AS RESISTANCE

Food has also long been mobilized as a powerful tool of resistance. Food sovereignty struggles among Palestinians have played a critical role in self-determination.

Palestinians continue to cultivate their land under rubble, grow olive trees despite ongoing violence, and maintain food practices that connect them to their land and cultural heritage.

Similarly, indigenous nations and communities in Canada used food as a form of resurrection. Along with movements back to the land, efforts to revitalize Indigenous food systems such as hunting, fishing, cultivation, and gathering are also central to movements for Indigenous sovereignty.

Learning and implementing traditional food practices are important acts of resistance; because these practices sustain communities, strengthen connections to the land, and lay claim to lands that Indigenous Peoples are fighting to reclaim. They continue to challenge colonial structures by reclaiming and rebuilding their lands and food systems on their own terms.

FOOD COLONIALISM AND RESISTANCE

The destruction of food systems in Gaza and Canada is part of a larger effort at land grab and capitalist accumulation. By disconnecting Indigenous Peoples from their food systems, settlers and colonial regimes sought to control not only the land but also the people who depend on it.

But these same people are reclaiming their right to self-determination through food sovereignty movements and building global networks of solidarity.

The struggle for food sovereignty is inseparable from broader struggles for land, justice and self-determination.

Connecting the dots between the Palestinian territories and Canada provide powerful examples of global colonial relations and struggles for justice and self-determination. It challenges us to critically examine the role of food in these struggles and demand government accountability.

» Charles Z. Levkoe holds the Canada Research Chair in Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems at Lakehead University. Martha Stiegmanis is an associate professor of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Canada. Sarah Rotz is an assistant professor of Environment and Urban Change at York University, Canada. Tammara Soma is an associate professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. This column first appeared on The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca.