The Uprooted Olive Tree: Ecopolitics in Palestinian and Israeli Children’s Literature

discussed by
Loaay Wattad (EUME-FU Berlin Fellow of the Minerva Foundation 2025-26)

moderated by
Maysoon Shibi (Research Fellow of the Minerva Foundation / Freie Universität Berlin)

This talk explores the intersection of ecology, politics, and literature in Palestinian and Israeli children's books, focusing on how environmental themes shape national narratives and ideological landscapes. Through an analysis of forty-four picture books published between 2000 and 2023, I examine the ecopolitical underpinnings of children's literature in both societies, highlighting contrasting approaches to environmental storytelling. Palestinian children's literature intertwines ecology with nationalism, using symbols like the olive tree to represent resilience, displacement, and the struggle for land preservation. These narratives emphasize Sumud – the concept of steadfastness – depicting nature as a site of both cultural identity and political resistance against Israeli occupation. In contrast, Israeli children's literature largely eschews direct political engagement, focusing instead on urban ecological themes that contribute to a broader national image of environmental consciousness. However, this approach often aligns with greenwashing narratives, presenting Israel as a global environmental leader while omitting the ecological impact of the occupation. By situating these literary works within broader ecocritical and postcolonial frameworks, this talk interrogates the role of children's literature in shaping ecological consciousness and national identity. Ultimately, I propose that greater cross-cultural engagement and translation between these literary traditions could foster new conversations on environmental justice and sustainability.

Loaay Wattad is a cultural sociologist specializing in Israeli and Palestinian children's literature with a focus on politics, war, and borders. He earned his PhD from Tel Aviv University, where his dissertation Minor Literature for Minor Readers provided a comparative analysis of Palestinian children's literature. Loaay has been awarded fellowships from the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and the Internationale Jugendbibliothek. In 2023/24 he has been a EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien, and in 2025-26, he rejoins EUME as a Minerva postdoctoral Fellow at the Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2025, he published his first children's book in Arabic, Salman the Pirate in Search of Shirts, as part of the Maktabat al-Fanoos project.

Maysoon Shibi holds a PhD in Arabic literature from Tel Aviv University (2021). Her research concerns Arabic poetry in general and its Arud in particular, or what is called the metric system of poetry. Her works published in peer-reviewed journals include two studies on the rajaz meter in modern Arabic poetry, published in the Journal of Semitic Studies. Her next paper will be published by Alif Journal with Brill (2025) on muhawara poetry in Alf Layla wa Layla. In addition, the monograph of her dissertation Poetic Stanzas and Magic Statements in Palestinian Fairytales has been accepted for publication by Harrassowitz Verlag.

Please note that this seminar will take place on-site at the Forum Transregionale Studien. We kindly ask for prior registration via eume@trafo-berlin.de.
Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.