Irus Braverman will join us to discuss her latest book, Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel (2023, University of Minnesota Press). Drawing on more than seventy interviews with Israel’s nature officials and on observations of their work, this book explores the widespread ecological warfare practiced by the state of Israel. Recruited to the front lines as part of this warfare are the fallow deer, gazelles, wild asses, griffon vultures, pine trees, and cows on the Israeli side—against the goats, camels, olive trees, hybrid goldfinches, and akkoub on the Palestinian side. The state’s use of these nonhuman organisms as soldiers in a human war is all the more effective because nature camouflages their tactical deployment as such. At the end of the day, the administration of nature by the state of Israel advances both the Zionist project of Jewish settlement and the corresponding dispossession of non-Jews from this space. Register for the talk HERE

Irus Braverman is professor of law, adjunct professor of geography, and research professor of environment and sustainability at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her books include Zooland: The Institution of Cabtivity (2012), Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink(2018) and Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel (2023).