Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Struggle for Land Justice in Palestine

Rural Palestine stands between idealised and romanticised images of abundant land, and the reality of settler violence and the effects on agricultural territory. Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Struggle for Land Justice in Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2026) asks, “What might we learn from rural Palestine if we understand the people living there not as an inert feature of the landscape, but as a force that is actively shaping it?” Focusing on three villages in the occupied West Bank, Bruqin, Farkha and Qarawat Beni Zays, Paul Kohlbry’s research explores the dynamics of land defence in the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle against settler-colonial dispossession and capitalist real estate development. The three villages are described as locations “where property ownership and […]