AP decided that they needed to do a story on the olive harvest season among my neighbors out here in Samaria, in the Binyamin Regional Council area.
The background story to the story is complex including issues of ownership, security and human rights as an instrument of distraction and disruption.
In the report below, for example, 6 Arabs are quoted by name, other Arab supporters are quoted anonymously, two pro-Arab Jews are quoted and one "settler" is quoted by name, thus:-
A settler leader, Yitzhak Shadmi, dismissed reports of vandalism as staged.
Six photographs accompany the story, one of Jews from afar and faceless.
Here then is the full story and I'v added some comments:
Olive harvest becomes West Bank battleground
By KARIN LAUB and DALIA NAMMARI
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank (AP) — The olive harvest was off to a bad start for Said Abu Aliya — branches torn from the Palestinian farmer's trees lay scattered on the ground, along with bright-green olives.
He blamed Israeli settlers in a nearby hilltop camp, and Israeli soldiers patrolled as a buffer while he and his family picked the remaining crop.
"Without their presence, we wouldn't be able to enter our lands because the settlers would attack us," said the 47-year-old.
Olive groves within a 50 meter of so radius of Jewish communities are problematic because Arab terrorists have used them as cover and becuase not all land ownership issues have been adjudicated in courts.
For many Palestinians, the fall harvest of some 10 million trees used to be a joyful ritual steeped in tradition. But the West Bank's olive groves have increasingly become a target of extremist Jewish settlers who, hilltop by hilltop, seek to expand their control over land they say they were promised by God.
And land that is not privately owned by Arabs.
Just in the first two weeks of this season, farmers say, assailants beat a 63-year-old olive picker, slashed another man's car tires, tried to chase Palestinians out of several groves and stole or damaged some of the crop. In one incident captured on video, four settlers punched and kicked a Palestinian photographer and a foreign activist in an olive grove.
In that last incident in Hebron, the Arabs purposefully entered an area closed-off to them in order to be provocative.
Compounding the farmers' problems, more trees are harder to reach because they lie beyond Israel's lengthening West Bank separation barrier or close to Jewish settlements and their multiplying satellite camps.
The barrier has nothing to do with this in most cases.
Israeli human rights activists say securing the harvest is an important test of Israel's obligation as an occupying power to protect Palestinians. They say the military and police are doing a better job than in the past, but have failed to protect crops or bring vigilantes to justice.
And Jewish crops are protected from Arab vandalism - which isn't mentioned. At one Jewish farm site near Nahliel, over 5000 grape saplings were uprooted, twice within a month.
This week Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas complained that the army isn't doing its job, raising questions about whether Israel is serious about peace with Palestinians. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak denounced those attacking farmers as "hooligans," but said troops are making a major effort to protect farmers. The military said soldiers have been briefed about the importance of the harvest, jeeps patrol trouble areas and officers are given maps to rule on ownership disputes.
Where there is coordination, there isn't much of a problem.
In the past, Israeli troops have destroyed thousands of Palestinian olive trees along roadsides to protect against snipers and stone throwers. Palestinians still complain that settlers are often given free rein by the military. For example, the settlers who were filmed attacking the photographer were allowed to walk away, while police arrested three Israelis helping with the harvest for entering a "closed military area."
A settler leader, Yitzhak Shadmi, dismissed reports of vandalism as staged.
That's it? No example?
Growing numbers of Israelis and foreigners are flocking to the groves to help the farmers. Yaakov Manor's Harvest Coalition helped arrange West Bank trips for hundreds of Israelis last year.
Thousands of Palestinians take part in the harvest, with students given time off to help and professionals returning to their villages. Olive oil is a food staple, and even the leftovers from the oil presses are used as fuel.
The economic benefits are relatively modest — about $100 million from an expected 21,000 tons of olive oil this year — but the extra income reaches some 100,000 families. For some, it's just pocket money, for others enough to plan a wedding or build a house.
Near the village of Burin, Amneh Abdel Qader sat on a tarpaulin under a tree, as her son, daughter-in-law and three grandsons combed the branches with handheld rakes. The olives tumbled onto the tarp, and the 70-year-old sorted them, the plumpest for eating and the rest for oil.
"We used to bring a radio and have fun, sing and enjoy ourselves," Abdel Qader said. "But from the day they came," she said, referring to Israeli settlements near her village, "we can't relax anymore."
Not true. I see radios and family gatherings at the sides of the roads.
Burin's farmers can only reach lands near the settlements of Yitzhar and Bracha with special coordination from security forces. Farmers say they're allowed to visit those areas only twice a year, for planting and harvesting, and that they need more access to hang traps for olive flies, prune branches and clear underbrush.
After a terrorist burned a caravan, stabbed a boy and then was killed while trying to toss a firebomb, just last month!
Israel's Civil Administration, the branch of the military dealing with the Palestinians' day-to-day life, denied any quota on visits, but a senior official said the idea is to keep settlers and farmers away from each other.
"You can smell the fuel in the air," the official said on condition of anonymity, in line with briefing regulations. "We don't want to have a situation where the olive harvest is setting off the atmosphere again."
At times, there's also lack of coordination within the military.
In the village of Naalin this month, near Israel's separation barrier, border police fired tear gas and stun grenades as villagers and volunteers tried to reach a grove. The army had given a permit for the Naalin harvest but apparently not briefed the border police, said Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights. Several Israelis were injured and three detained, he said.
This demo has nothing to do with the olive harvest but is an ongoing, weekly, event.
The Palestinian olive harvest falls about 5 to 10 percent short of its potential every year because of settler violence and Israeli restrictions, estimated Palestinian economist Samir Hleileh. Israel requires permits for villagers who have land in the roughly 10 percent of the West Bank swallowed up on the "Israeli" side of the barrier.
Eighty percent of the people who used to work these lands no longer get permits, according to U.N. monitors.
Mohammed Jabareen, mayor of the village of Taibeh, which has 250 dunams (60 acres) of land beyond the barrier, said landowners have received permits, but not all of the workers needed for the harvest. The army says it's issuing extra permits during the harvest.
Some are trying to improve output by teaching farmers how to grow premium oils for export. Industrialist Bassem Khoury has invested in a premium oil storage facility with 30 steel vats, even though business prospects are uncertain.
"To me," he said, "the olive tree is a symbol of Palestine."
Additional reporting by Ali Daraghmeh in Azmut.
Karen has been the subject of a quite critical piece of Barry Rubin who is no extremist or rightwinger who has written Karin Laub and the AP do their part in war against Israel.
CAMERA also caught her out four years ago already as an unethical journalist:
the AP has used “militias” when paraphrasing statements made by Israeli and U.S. officials who did not use this word at all. As the following quotations from AP itself show, the officials actually used the terms “terror” and “terrorists”:)Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in the Gaza Strip have insisted the deal is not final, while Israel and the United States are skeptical about its value, saying Palestinian security forces must quickly disarm the militias..."The [U.S.] president is interested in real progress on the ground, in the dismantlement of terrorism, and in an end to the killing," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said..."If they will stop their terror attacks, we can stop the activities against them ...," he [Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid] told AP. (Emphasis added. "Arafat says formal cease-fire announcement coming soon," Karin Laub, June 26, 2003
Palestine Media Watch has called her professionalism "shoddy".
Karen was most impressed that Hamas is doing a good job administering Gaza and how it treats female reporters in this recent story:
Gaza City's streets are cleaner and safer than before the takeover. Despite budget shortages, Hamas has fixed traffic lights, paved some streets and opened a new children's hospital, and claims to have imposed law and order after the chaos that often dogged Fatah rule. It has also been careful not to push an overtly Islamic social agenda. For example, officials have suggested to female reporters covering Gaza's parliament that they wear head scarves, but those who don't are not shunned.
Already in 2000 she was troubling in her reporting:
Karen Laub of the Associated Press first asserted plainly that: "The trigger for the violence was a visit by Israel's hard-line opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, last week to a bitterly contested Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews."22 Shortly thereafter, however, Laub acknowledges that the question of what started the riot was actually a matter of dispute: "The argument is part of the overall debate over whether the riots are a spontaneous outburst of Palestinian anger or are orchestrated to some degree by Arafat to extract concessions from Israel in the negotiations."23
22. Karen Laub, "Twelve Killed in Second Day of Clashes; Worst Violence in Four Years," Associated Press (September 30, 2000), International News.
23. Karen Laub, "Israel Says Arafat Lures Protesters with Money; Palestinians Say It's Compensation," Associated Press (October 9, 2000), International News.
And another attack on her here.
Maybe it's just incompetency?
(Kippah tip: RH)
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