Water Protectors in Palestine and the Indigenous US Southwest with Dr. Muna Dajani, Dr. Amrah Salomon J., Amber Ortega, & Napolean Marrietta

<p>Today, as California yet again faces prolonged drought conditions, severe water shortages, and imminent restrictions on water consumption, we devote the show to a conversation with water protectors in Palestine and in the US Southwest. Both regions are subject to settler colonial regimes that bring with them sustained resource extraction, including the over-consumption of water resources that are a precious and limited element in these arid regions. We discuss the violence of settler colonial regimes that discount both Indigenous understandings of wise water use and the cultural and religious meanings of water and that monopolize and deplete once rich water sources to serve urban and agricultural expansion. We consider the legal and other resistance strategies deployed to protect and preserve water sources in both regions and the growing problem of settler-driven desertification that has harmed the formerly rich ecologies of Palestine and the US Southwest. Our guests are scholar and activist Dr. Muna Dajani, speaking to us from occupied Jerusalem, and Dr. Amrah Salomon J., Amber Ortega, and Napolean Marrietta, members of the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/oodhamantiborder/?hl=en" target="_blank">O'odham Anti Border Collective</a>.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Muna Dajani</strong> is a Palestinian Jerusalemite and a Research Associate at Lancaster Environment Centre. She holds a PhD in Geography and Environment from the London School of Economics (LSE). Her research focuses on documenting the lived experiences of agricultural communities in the context of settler colonialism in the occupied Syrian Golan and the Galilee (Al-Battuf Valley). She was a Research Officer at the Middle East Centre at LSE, where she led a collaboration project with Birzeit University and Al Marsad (Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan) on documenting the untold story of the occupation of the Syrian Golan. She is also a policy member at <a href="https://al-shabaka.org/en/" target="_blank">Al Shabaka, thePalestinian Policy Network</a>.</p