The Olive Tree Campaign Has Begun in Earnest

I just yesterday had to deal with that "poison chemical" story, and now the New Yoor Times weighs in with a big piece.

Before dealing with Kershner's hatchet job, let's see what the Int'l Red Cross thinks about the situation after last year's harvest:

25-11-2009 Interview

Harvesting olives in the West Bank: not as simple as it sounds

In the occupied West Bank, an estimated 10 million olive trees help some 100,000 families to make ends meet. For a number of years, the harvest has been hampered by restricted access. Tom Glue, who coordinates the ICRC's economic security programme in the territory, explains.

...What can you tell us about this year's harvest?

The harvest took place without major incident, which is an improvement on previous years. The Palestinian and Israeli authorities jointly coordinated Palestinian farmers' access to restricted areas around settlements and behind the West Bank barrier. The ICRC monitored the harvest but never had to take action as it did in previous years, for example when gates leading to olive groves remained shut.

It has to be said, though, that it was marred by the fact that thousands of trees were cut down or burned earlier in the year by settlers. In addition, Palestinian farmers in some areas were required for the first time to apply for permits to enter their lands behind the barrier. About 400 such applications were made for the southern part of the West Bank and fewer than half were approved. In most cases where applications were denied, the Israeli authorities argued that the farmers did not hold valid land-ownership documents.

I would suggest that "thousands" is not only an exaggeration but simply untrue. Nevertheless, the IRC is not concerned about "major" problems.

But the NYTimes is, or is making a major problem. They dealt with the area around Shiloh which has been in the center of this theme ("settlers destroy/burn/cut down/poison Arab olive trees" - and you rarely hear the reverse which happens often - "Arabs destroy Jewish olive tree saplings") for over 20 years now. Same Arabs even. And same old stories.

Here is the entire NYTimes' story

October 12, 2010
In West Bank, Peace Symbol Now Signifies Struggle
By ISABEL KERSHNER

TURMUS AYA, West Bank — Palestinians from villages like this one in the West Bank governorate of Ramallah still remember when the olive harvest was a joyous occasion, with whole families out for days in the fall sunshine, gathering the year’s crop and picnicking under the trees.

“We considered it like a wedding,” said Hussein Said Hussein Abu Aliya, 68.

But when Mr. Abu Aliya and his family from the neighboring village of Al-Mughayer — 36 of them in all, including grandchildren — drove out to their land this week in a snaking convoy of cars and pickup trucks with others from Turmus Aya, they found scores of their trees on the rocky slopes in various stages of decay, recently poisoned, they said, by Jewish settlers from an illegal Israeli outpost on top of the hill.

Branches drooped, the once lush, silver-green leaves were turning brown and the few olives still clinging on, which should have been plump and green or purple by harvest time, were shriveled and black. Dozens of trees nearby that Mr. Abu Aliya contended were similarly poisoned with chemicals last year stood like spindly skeletons, gray and completely bare.

Religious Jewish settlers consider the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war, as their biblical birthright. For the 2.5 million Palestinians of the West Bank, it constitutes the heartland of a future independent state. While the Americans and Palestinians wrangle with the Israeli government over continued Israeli construction in the West Bank settlements — an issue that has stalled the embryonic peace talks — the competition for control of each acre of land here is being played out day by day.

And the olive tree, an ancient symbol of peace and plenty that has also long been a Palestinian emblem of steadfastness and commitment to the land, has increasingly become a symbol of local, almost intimate, struggle and strife.

Husniya al-Araj, 60, said she was born in a cave nearby, in an orchard of olive and almond trees. But when she reached her family lands this week, she cried out in shock. She pointed to a newly plowed field in front of her that she said was part of her family property, but that seemed to have been taken over by the settlers. It was now surrounded by a shiny new barbed-wire fence and planted with young vines.

Mahmud Ahmad Hazama, a relative who takes care of the Araj family property, said the barbed-wire fence went up in July. Folded in his wallet was a handwritten record of every change and every complaint Mr. Hazama had made to the Israeli Army and police since 1995.

“They ask me for documents,” he said. “We have all of them. The last thing they asked for was a topographic map.” He said he had received no answers so far.

Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said the police were aware of the problems. Every complaint is investigated, he says, but sometimes the culprits turn out not to be settlers, and sometimes there is not enough evidence to know. In some cases, the complaints do lead to arrests of settlers, he says.

Tamar Asraf, spokeswoman for the Binyamin Council, which represents the settlers in this region, said that for the most part the olive harvest passes peacefully, but that there were Palestinians and settlers who cause damage to one another. “We condemn them both,” she said.

Mr. Hazama’s relatives, like many other families, found their olive trees intact but empty of fruit. They argued that the olives must have been stolen by settlers, though they had no proof.

In other villages to the north, like Yanoun, Jit and Imatin, olives were stolen from hundreds of trees in the past few days, according to Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli organization that helps Palestinians farm lands in trouble spots year-round.

This was the first time the villagers of Turmus Aya and Al-Mughayer had been able to have access to their lands in six months. To do so, they need permission and protection from the Israeli Army, for a few days for plowing in springtime and a few days for picking in the fall. In the past, unprotected visits to the land ended with many stories of attacks by extremist settlers and burned cars.

This time, soldiers were guarding the villagers from the hilltop where the outpost, Adei Ad, sits. Three soldiers in khaki uniforms were sitting under one of Mr. Abu Aliya’s trees, almost camouflaged among its iridescent leaves while mountain gazelles sprang across the hills.

Adei Ad was established in the late 1990s on state and private Palestinian land, according to Israeli records. Though it was established without any official authorization, the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction provided financing for some of the infrastructure.

About 30 families live in trailers at Adei Ad, which has been scheduled for removal for seven years. The settlers have now put up an “eruv,” an elevated string on poles that encircles a community and allows observant Jews to carry objects within the proscribed area on the Sabbath. Mr. Abu Aliya has no idea what the string is for, but he says it runs right through his land.

This year, the harvest was less of a celebration, and more a show of perseverance. The Palestinian Authority governor of the Ramallah district, Laila Ghannam, joined the olive pickers and ate breakfast with the mayor of Turmus Aya under a tree.

“Our presence here is proof that this is our land and we will never give it up,” she said.

Members of a new unit from the authority’s Ministry of Agriculture were also out in the fields with notebooks, documenting the villagers’ complaints and counting the poisoned trees. They took samples of wilting branches to send to an Israeli laboratory for testing in the hope that the results could be used as future evidence in an Israeli court.

Mr. Abu Aliya, who has lost about half of his 300 olive trees, made a promise. “The moment the settlers leave,” he said, “I’ll make a big celebration. I’ll slaughter a buffalo.”

My comments, concise and even terse:

a) A buffalo? That I'd like to see.

b) if trees were poisoned, if, then that's stupid. the soil also would be tainted and noe trees could be grown there. why do that?

c) if she had spoken to me, I would have gotten her a reaction from Adei-Ad. As it is, there isn't balance in the story, especially and she herself writes in quite a circumspecy manner.

d) yes, land ownership is a problem. proof not only of ownership but of taxes paid, of evidence of tilling, etc. is hard to come by. the Arabs just took over and expect everyone to believe, that as conquerors and occupiers, they have more rights than the Jews to whom the land was guaranteed by international law in 1922.

e) olive trees are not only a "Palestinian emblem". Kershner could have started with the Bible and the uses of olives and olive oil for Jews for over 3000 years. that also is steadfatedness.

f) she doesn't mention the Achiyah Olive Press Factory. Too bad. They've planted over the past few years more than 5000 saplings, new, that were partially damaged by our Arab neighbors and are producing close to 10% of all Israel's olive oil. That story isn't fit for the NYTimes news department.

g) the land upon which Adei-Ad sits is the land that in 1982 was assigned to Shiloh, Greater Shiloh if you wish. The same for Givat Achiyah, Keidah, Esh-Kodesh and Shvut Rachel.

h) one more point: the villages of Turmos-Aya and Al-Mughyer have been a source of terror including murder, shootings, fire-bombs, rockthrowing, destruction of property, theft and more.  Just you should know.

Same basic story appears in the Washington Post. There, at least Joel Greenberg spoke to two reps from the local Jewish revenants although unlike Kershner, who only had Rabbis for Human Rights included, he also included a statement from Yesh Din.


(Thanks to SoccerDad for the referral)

Oh, and here's the NYTimes map at that story, minus any Jewish community:

P.S.

I might be updating this if I get more info.
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UPDATE

I forgot the fire that Arabs caused recently that destroyed some 60 dunams of agricultural land.

And I have been informed that over this past weekend, some 150 kilograms of olives were stolen, presumably by Arabs, who also destroyed many branches from an olive grove owned by a Jewish supporter of Shiloh from New York.


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