Pallywood: They've Been Faking Olive Tree Destruction & Damage

A special unit, "Tatzpit", near Halamish, a community north-west of Ramallah, had caught on film Arabs and left-wingers engaged in producing faked scenes of olive tree destruction and damage.

Hebrew story at Ynet is here.

Here's one picture taken by Ohad Amiton:

The trees were being sawed with an electric saw in an aggressive manner which indicates that the Arab was not simply trimming.  The photographer saw branches broken, started taking pictues but was warned off in a threatening manner.  The site was east of Bir Zeit, close to Highway 60.

I am thinking that it was done Friday close to Shabbat so that the bad news could take advantage of the Shabbat when we observant Jews do not hear the news nor can be respond and a whole day of domination would go by before we could try to find out what happened and then deal with it.

Evil people.  Devious, too.

(not yet up in English)

In the JC.


UPDATE

The English:

Settlers: Arabs, leftists staged 'price tag' act

Arabs and leftist activists staged an attack on Palestinian fields in a bid to accuse settlers of vandalism, an organization that claims to have documented the incident says.

The photos, taken by members of the Tazpit Unit, were shot on Palestinian land Friday, near the Neveh Tzuf settlement. The images allegedly show Palestinians and left-wing activists cutting down Palestinian olive trees using an electric saw.

Many so-called "Price Tag' acts targeting Palestinians were recorded in the last few weeks, and the settlers now claim they were staged by the Palestinians themselves and intended to harm the settlers' image.

Tazpit photographer Ehud Amiton, who documented the vandalism act on Friday, says that this is exactly what can be seen in his images.

"We are talking about an olive grove east of Beit Zayit, located near Route 60," Amiton said."I immediately saw that it was no ordinary pruning, it was done very aggressively...Some of the branches broke and other trees were cut off entirely. When I approached closer with my camera, the Palestinian man waved his saw at me threateningly. I felt uneasy so I backed off".

Tazpit unit director Amotz Eyal said that "during every olive harvest season, just like this one, there are many cases of Arab farmers cutting down olive branches, later blaming it on the settlers."

"Time after time photos prove that these Arabs are not holding back; they provoke in order to tarnish the image of Jewish settlers," he said.

Eyal vowed that Tazpit photographers will continue to document such activities in order to show the public actual events on the ground.

And this, too:

Arabs uproot and cut down trees in Netzer-Gush Etzion

...members of Women in Green received notice that twelve Arabs had come to Netzer with axes and saws in order to uproot the big olive trees that belong to the Jews and that had been planted last week. The plot of land where the Arabs came yesterday, had already been declared by the Civil Administration as being state land. Despite that the Arabs continue to come and try to steal it away from the Jewish people.

[last] Sunday, the Arabs came and uprooted the olive trees. Women in Green and the Netzer group came back that night, between Sunday and Monday, and in a complicated operation, with tractors, replanted the big trees.

Yesterday, Friday October 29th, some twelve Arabs came, with axes and saws and cut down three trees. The IDF came, the Commander in charge of the area and others. They saw the damage and promised to catch the Arab perpetrators.

Before the army arrived, some activists from the area had run to the place to defend the trees and thus managed to prevent the Arabs from cutting down more trees. The Arabs fled before the army came.

For the Hebrew article and pictures on Arutz 7.


^