Israeli settlers uproot over 500 trees in Palestinian village
SALFIT (Ma’an) -- Israeli settlers uprooted over 500 olive and fig trees in Deir Istiya village in Salfit on Monday morning, witnesses said.
Onlookers said residents of the Revava settlement chopped down trees using a chainsaw in Qarawat Bani Hassan village near Deir Istiya. The village mayor said the field belonged to Daoud Yousef Harb, a resident of Deir Isitya.
Farmer Harb Rayan, who worked on the land, told Ma'an that over 500 trees were uprooted and the 23-acre field was completely destroyed.
Rayan blamed settlers from the nearby Revava settlement, noting that tire tracks from settler jeeps were left in the dirt.
More horror.
1. A resident of one Arab village has/had 500 olive trees (and more: the field was "destroyed") in another where onlookers saw...
2. In Jordan, olives trees grow 30 - 40 per dunam. Four dunams to an acre so, 23 acres equals, then, 92 dunam and therefore, that field could have been growing 3680 trees? So only 15% or so of the field was being used? That sound right? In Hebron area, it's 26 per dunam. In the Galilee, 28 per dunam. And even less in northern Samaria. Have you any idea how much effort and time goes into "destroying" 500 olive trees? Even young ones?
4. These stories are routine for this time of year. Always ask to see a picture. After all, they photograph everything else. Why not trees?
UPDATE
60 more claimed today.
More:
A colleague did some research before the turmoil in the area started. It is amazing to see how this is used in the cognitive war against Israel
One example of what was found:
14.000 trees uproted in 2009 !!
and
7000 trees were uprooted in 2009
From another collegaue:
Who needs 14000 when you can have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS!
Or how about over 1 million and this.
And I have been informed:
A number of NGOs have falsely accused Israel of "ecocide" -- yes, they actually use this word and it goes with the other libels and wider political assault. Here is a 2005 NGO Monitor report:.
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And check out EoZ.
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3 comments:
Frankly, that's one of the most ridiculous claims I've ever heard. How many settlers were on the job -- 1500? 2000? Because that's how many it would take to chop down and uproot 500 mature olive trees "on Monday." (In fact, they couldn't even do it because they'd get in each other's way.)
There are olive groves all over southern and central California. If you've ever seen a tree removed, it takes hours for 2-3 men to remove one. ONE. Olives put out shallow roots in an extremely wide radius (homeowners who have them on their property have had to reroute driveways and install new root barriers every decade or so), and anything that's left of the roots will put up a new tree in a matter of months. A grower who wants to fully remove a tree, so that nothing will come back, brings in a backhoe and turns up more than a meter of soil to ensure destruction of the entire root system.
Absolutely fricking ridiculous. If the trees were small and newly planted, it's conceivable for a squad of, say, 70-80 men to dig out 500 of them in a day. A really motivated group of 50, who were all under the age of 25, could probably dig up 10 apiece. It's hard work. But, as you say, the Palestinians would surely mount some resistance to an operation like that.
This is a regular claim against Jews almost yearly in Oct-Nov. (olive harvest season) I believe that part of the harvesting process involves chopping off branches. So after the harvest Palestinians bring over credulous reporters and say, "look settlers destroyed my trees." And it gets repeated regularly. No one ever bothered to ask why settlers destroy trees only in the fall.
Yes, the growers here thin the branches and chop off ends to stimulate new growth. Olive trees do get very thick if not pruned, and deliver less fruit.
They also live for half a millennium and are very hard to kill. Quite a few of the ones in California have literally been here producing since the Spanish brought them in the 18th century. Their production peaks at around the age of 300-350. There are several growers who offer "mission olive" stock from the original trees. They implant themselves like crazy and grow wild with no help at all from human hands. After the harvest each year in Central California (generally late-Oct to early Dec), you see the backhoes out up and down Highway 99 churning up the root packs of unwanted olive "volunteers" in the commercial growers' groves.
Just some ammo if anyone wants to point out the facts about olive trees.
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