'Settlers' Cutting Down Olive Trees?

No.

Arabs trimming them. Near Qaryut. Assisted by a solidarity activist.

Can you tell the difference?

^

The BBC As Palestinian Propaganda Instrument

If you review this audio/slide show story,  (Audio by Yolande Knell.Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 9 November 2012)

 Olive harvesting in the West Bank

The annual Palestinian olive harvest is an important cultural and economic event. Nearly half the agricultural land in the Palestinian territories is planted with eight million olive trees - and there are about 80,000 farmers, most of whom operate on a small-scale basis.  But many have difficulty accessing their olive groves, because they are located close to Jewish settlements or the barrier that Israel is building in and around the West Bank. Israeli soldiers are deployed in some areas during the harvests to try to prevent clashes with settlers...

You wouldn't know there is another side and that there are other facts and claims.

That: Jewish olive groves are destroyed and damaged.
That: not all the damage is the work of, as per suspicion, Jews.
That: not all the olive groves are owned by the people who claim to own them.
That: olive groves existed in the land, planted by Jews, over 2000 years ago and that some groves are occupied territory by Arabs.

Did you hear:
 

"Try to attack the families"?  

or perhaps Arabs are not acting in accordance with the new regulations that permits the IDF to provide security while also assuring there will be no Arab terror?  That olive groves have been used for cover for ambushes of shooting at Jews on the roads, or the trees used as cover for infiltration?

"Expanding into his village"?  

but no Jewish community actually move into an Arab village.

This would seem to be the narrator, Ms. Vivien Sansour, note: narration, no reporting:

Some of her biography:

Vivien Sansour is a life style writer and photographer. She is capturing the stories of the farmers of the Palestine Fair Trade Association for the wider world. Vivien was Communications Manager/Life and Culture Specialist at The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) prior to joining Canaan. Vivien is an activist and organizer...Vivien was co-founder and producer/writer for the Los Angeles based non- profit ImaginAction where she organized and led the wildly successful Olive Tree Circus to tour Palestine in 2008. The Olive Tree Circus used humor, play, music and art to help Palestinian farmers access their olive fields during the olive harvest. Vivien is a native of Beit Jala, Palestine where she grew up under Israeli military occupation. She has both a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Theatre Arts, and an M.A. in International Studies with a focus in Anthropology from East Carolina University. She is interested in Agriculture as a form of resistance.

Well, at least that "growing up under Israeli military occupation" didn't affect her ability to get an education and it didn't stultify her artistic talent..

The BBC just rolled over and thought of...Palestine.


This is not reportage or a journalistic effort.  It is propaganda, uncriticised, imbalanced, unchecked. 

^ 

The Medad Family Olive Tree Harvest

With my neighbor across the pathway, Rav Dov Berkovits

^

Olive Trees, Borders and the American Consul-General

Found (k/t=OS) here:-

Representatives from the U.S. Government and Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture Launch West Bank Olive Season

Salfit, West Bank - On Wednesday, October 24, American Consul General Michael Ratney, USAID Mission Director Mike Harvey and Palestinian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Zakaria Salawdeh joined farmers in Salfit to launch this year’s olive harvest as part of the USAID-funded ‘Olive Oil Without Borders’ project, an initiative implemented by the Near East Foundation that aims to build mutual understanding and economic cooperation between the Palestinian and Israeli olive oil sectors.

...During the event, the American Consul General commented, “Through the ‘Olive Oil without Borders’ program with the Near East Foundation, the U.S. Government is pleased to be able to bring together Palestinian and Israeli farmers, olive press owners, and traders to build trust, mutual understanding, and collaboration through economic cooperation.”  The 2012 olive season is anticipated to produce approximately 22,000 tons of olive oil from more than 8 million trees. Olive farming is...an important focal point for USAID’s economic growth assistance, as well as part of its Conflict Management and Mitigation Program.

Pictures:

Well,

if this is part of a "Conflict Management and Mitigation Program",

and, if this is an American-sponsored program and America supports democracy, etc.,

and, if the program is called "Olive Oil without Borders",

will Consul-General Ratney come out to Shiloh with over 1000 dunam of olive tree groves?

After all,

‘The Olive Oil Without Borders’ project works to foster cross-border economic collaboration between the Israeli and Palestinian olive sectors at all levels of the value chain.  Over the course of the project, USAID through the Near East Foundation will work directly with 1,428 Palestinian and Israeli olive producers...

and we are Israeli.

^

At Esh-Kodesh and Adei-Ad

This past Friday, I had occasion to visit two outpost communities in the Shiloh Bloc with a diplomat interest in seeing things "on the ground".

Among other sites, we were at Esh Kodesh, establish in 1999 and now with 26 families.  In the two pictures below, you can see, on the one hand, desolation from the previous decades and more, and on the other, two vineyards begun recently on the slopes of a hill that separates Esh-Kodesh from Kutsra.  Jewish development.

The first picture is further to the northeast from where we were standing at the community's synagogue:

and the second, is further to the west and you can also see older agricultural efforts in the wadi at the bottom which now, I heard, is recently the subject of a claim by a resident of another Arab village, Jaloud:

The next two pictures are of the olive tree orchard of Moshe Tamir, damaged last week, probably during Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah:-

You can see branches broken, etc.

^

125 Olive Trees Damaged and Branches Broken

No, not Arab olive trees.

Jewish-planted and owned olive trees.

Belonging to Moshe Tamir.

One-hundred damaged and 25 with branches broken.

At Adei-Ad in Shiloh Bloc area, east of Shiloh.
__________

P.S. According to this, the recent Arab tally is

250 olive trees in al-Mughayyir village;
120 olive trees on private Palestinian land in Nablus; dozens of olive trees burned at Beitillu
40 olive trees uprooted in Ras Karkar;
100 newly-planted olive saplings and at least 60 vine trees destroyed in Al-Khader village near Bethlehem.

Keeping track?

 ^

Down Come the Trees - Are You Counting?

Reported:

(BNA) Israeli settlers fell tens of olive trees from Palestinian farmlands at Qariot village in the south of Naples [that's Nablus; Arabs do not preonounce 'b' well] at dawn today. The official in charge of settlements' dossier in the north of the West Bank, Ghassan Douglass, said in a statement quoted by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) that Israeli settlers had fell down about 120 olive trees from vineyards in Qariot village. He added that the settlers might have come from a nearby village or another settlement. Israeli settlers have implemented daily assaults against Palestinian peasants in the provinces of the West Bank especially in the southern outskirts of Naples and escalated such attacks during the first days of olive crop harvesting season.

In another report

Ghassan Douglas, in charge of settlements file at the Palestinian Authority in the northern part of the West Bank, said that settlers...are attacking Palestinians throughout the West Bank almost on daily basis, which increased during the current olive picking season, especially in Southern Nablus.

Before that

A group of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in the Ramallah town of Beitillu on Sunday, burning dozens of olive trees, witnesses said. Locals told official news agency Wafa that settlers from nearby Nehaliel settlement attacked the farmers while they were picking olives and set fire to dozens of trees.

And before that:

Israeli settlers on Friday destroyed 100 newly-planted olive saplings and at least 60 vine trees on private Palestinian land in Al-Khader village near Bethlehem. The coordinator of the local anti-wall committee, Ahmad Salah, said he noticed the vandalism while he was on a regular tour monitoring the town’s fields on Friday.

And there's also this:

JNF olive orchard vandalized, nationalistic motives suspected Sixty-five ancient olive trees, located in a field near the village of Kafr Kara in Wadi Ara, were irreversibly damaged Saturday night by anonymous perpetrators • Defense official: "This is their gift for our Sukkot holiday."

I will not be keeping a daily or weekly count. The festival is upon us. Just don't take their claims without proof - pictures, for example, verifiable knowledge. October 10 -, it's now another 300!
Palestinian sources reported Wednesday that several extremist Israeli settlers uprooted around 300 olive trees that belong to residents of Al-Mogheer village, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
^

Trees - True or False?

Is this story true?

Jewish settlers destroy 200 olive trees in Aqraba (Nablus)
by occupiedpalestine

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Jewish settlers uprooted 200 olive trees near Aqraba village, Nablus, on Wednesday morning, local sources said. Hamza Deiriya, a member of the committee for the defense of Aqraba land, said that the settlers came from Etamar settlement and chopped off the trees planted in an area [...]

Official response:

Following the complaint, security forces traveled to the location to verify the charges, and discovered the claim was false.

^

Between An Olive Tree and a Boycott

MF sent me this excerpt from today's speech by Syria's Bashar Assad:

He reserved much of his criticism for Arab nations for not standing with Syria and for coming down on it for human rights abuses.

"Their situation is like that of a doctor who tells people not to smoke while he has a cigarette in his mouth," he said.

"We have been working for years to create an office to boycott Israel," he said, referring to the Arab League initiative against Syria. "But in weeks they did it against Syria. Are they swapping Israel for Syria?"

"Did the Arab League respect its own nations whose territory has been invaded or occupied? Have they prevented separation of Sudan, or stopped Sudan famine, or stopped the death of 1 million Iraqis, or re-planted any of the olive trees uprooted by Israel?"

UPDATE = and here is the official version:

Has the Arab league actually gained independence for its states, and consequently for itself? Has it ever implemented its decisions and removed the dust off its files and achieved only a fragment of the aspirations of the Arab peoples? Or has it contributed directly to sowing the seeds of sedition and disunity? Has it respected its charter and defended its member states whose land, or the rights of whose peoples, have been violated? Has it returned one olive tree uprooted by Israel or prevented the demolition of one Palestinian house in occupied Arab Palestine?...

...we say that with this attempt they don’t focus on getting Syria out of the League, but rather on suspending Arabism itself so that it becomes an Arab
League only in name. It will no longer be a league – bringing people together – or Arab. It will be a mock-Arab body in order to be in line with their policies and the role they are playing on the Arab arena. Otherwise, how can we explain this unprecedented and unreasonable tact with the Zionist enemy in everything it does and this decisiveness and toughness with Syria?

We have been trying for years to [re?]activate the Israel-boycott office; and we have been receiving excuses of the type that this is no longer acceptable; but, within a few weeks, they activate a boycott against Syria.

And comments: Good to see he has things in perspective.

meaning that if he can place Israel's supposed olive tree activity on the level of those major other matters, Assad has a problem copncentrating on the really important things in life, or is that death ("Thousands have been reported killed by security forces throughout the uprising. Death estimates range from 5,000 to more than 6,000. But the Syrian government has consistently blamed the violence on "terrorists.")?

And, incidentally, 'creating a boycott' is chronologically incorrect.  Here:

The [Arab] League was founded in 1944, and in 1945 began a boycott of Zionist goods and services in the British mandate territory of Palestine. In 1948, following the war establishing Israel’s independence, the boycott was formalized against the state of Israel and broadened to include non-Israelis who maintain economic relations with Israel or who are perceived to support it. The boycott is administered by the Damascus-based Central Boycott Office (CBO), a specialized bureau of the Arab League...

Oh, and "the present Commissioner General of the CBO is a Syrian national, Ahmad Khaza'."

So, it's all in Syria, by Syria.
 
What is the Bashar BS?
 
______________

More UPDATE

I found this in the full speech version:

The social structure of the Arab world, with its large diversity, is based on two strong and integrated pillars: Arabism and Islam. Both of them are great, rich and vital. Consequently, we cannot blame them for the wrong human practices. Furthermore, the Muslim and Christian diversity in our
country is a major pillar of our Arabism and a foundation of our strength...Defeat is not necessarily military and it might come true if they succeed in making us withdraw to international conflicts and forget about our bigger issues on
top of which the Palestinian Issue...

... but we can draw deductions about...the [anti-Syrian] conspiracy. It will end when the Syrian people decide to turn into a submissive people,
when we submit and abandon all our heritage: the heritage of the October war of liberation in 1973, when we abandon our pan-Arab positions. We defended
Lebanon in 1982, when it was the springboard of resistance which led to the liberation of Lebanon in 2000, when we stop supporting the resistance which
we supported in 2006 and 2008 in Lebanon and Gaza, when we give free concessions partially or fully in the peace process, particularly in our occupied land in the Golan, when we abandon our pan-Arab positions towards the Palestinian cause which we have adopted since 1948, when we accept to be false witnesses to the systematic and unprecedented destruction of al-Aqsa mosque.

Note: Jews/Judaism missing.

And despite this pro-Arabism bit below, still no Jews:

...who said that we are talking about an Arab race? Had Arabism been only the Arab race, we wouldn’t have had much to be proud of. The last thing in Arabism is race. Arabism is a question of civilization, a question of common interests, common will and common religions. It is about the things which bring about all the different nationalities which live in this place. The strength of this Arabism lies in its diversity not in its isolation and not in its one colordness. Arabism hasn’t been built by the Arabs. Arabism has been built by all those non-Arabs who contributed to building it and those who belong to this rich society in which we live. Its strength lies in its diversity. Had there been a group of non-Arabs who wanted to change their traditions and customs and abandon them, we would oppose them on the grounds that they weaken Arabism. The strength of our Arabism lies in openness, diversity and in showing this diversity not integrating it to look like one component. Arabism has been accused for decades of chauvinism. This is not true. If there are chauvinistic individuals, this doesn’t mean that Arabism is chauvinistic. It is a condition of civilization.

But he' still paranoid:

What is taking place in Syria is part of what has been planned for the region for tens of years, as the dream of partition is still haunting the grandchildren of [the 1915] Sykes–Picot [British-French Agreement]...The West is still colonial in one way or another. It is changing from an old colonizer to a modern colonizer and from a modern colonizer during the Sykes-Picot agreement to a contemporary colonizer.

^

It Seems We Have Female Lumberjacks

JPost reports:

Police arrested six female residents of West Bank settlements on Sunday on suspicion of carrying out a string of nationalistic crimes against IDF forces and Palestinian property in recent weeks.

The suspects, five minors and a woman, are suspected of vandalizing IDF property, interfering with army forces, and cutting down hundreds of Palestinian-owned olive trees near the village of Kusra, in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, police said.

This ought to be interesting - and even surprising.

What is Jewish feminism coming to?


P.S.

According to Walla site, it is 7 in all. And they were all arrested and held for a day just after the original "crime" was committed but released. it seems there's a newly formed unit and they decided to rearrest the suspects.

Here's Ynet:

The National Serious and International Crimes Unit has been holding a secret investigation of the matter for the past two months.

Settlers are claiming that officers arrested the suspected immediately after the alleged events and released them the next day on the condition they stay away from east Binyamin for one month.

"These are false arrests," claims Attorney Adi Keidar, who represents the suspects. "This happened two months ago and the girls were released with the police's consent. Now the Serious Crime Unit suddenly remembers to arrest them? It's a scandal.

"Moreover, they are suspected of very minor offences. How does such a case end up with a police elite unit?"

Associates of the suspects also leveled criticism at the investigation.

^

A Different Look at the Olive Tree Issue

Different and, well, quite wooden:-

'The Tree is the Enemy Soldier': A Sociolegal Making of War Landscapes in the Occupied West Bank

Irus Braverman, State University of New York at Buffalo, Law School, Law & Society Review, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 449-482, 2008, Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2008-28

Abstract:

War landscapes have a particular sociology; they are also formed through distinct legal technologies. By examining the genealogy of trees as totemic displacements in the occupied West Bank I demonstrate how the Israeli/Palestinian war is deflected onto the landscape and how this deflection erodes the boundary between law and war. Dealing with issues of colonization, nationalization, and the way that these implicate landscape as a "natural alibi," the article examines the intricate making of politics into nature. Further, it explores the ironic nesting of colonial processes from Ottoman, to British, to Zionist, and finally to the new Jewish settler society that seeks to unsettle the old colonial landscapes of this place. Utilizing a detailed interpretation of a range of interviews and participatory observations, the article unpacks the mutually constitutive relationship between law, technologies of seeing, and landscape, illustrating how this relationship is played out by various actors in the occupied West Bank.

You understood that, yes?

^

Olive Pits Story

A letter I sent off to the Montreal Gazette after reading this story, with a great headline pun:-

Olive war pits settlers against farmers

Palestinians say Israeli soldiers are failing to protect them from vandalism - assaults they see as attempts to drive them out

Your story via Reuters regarding claimed damage to olive tress owned by local Arabs (Nov.6) asserts that the UN body for Palestinian humanitarian affairs, OCHA, says 7,500 trees were damaged.

I should wish to point out that OCHA conducts no independent investigation. Their agents do not visit sites, photographs are unavailable, testimony is not recorded. All their information comes from Arab sources, either from the media or Palestinan Authority representatives. No Israeli sources are included. As such, the numbers are unreliable and should be suspect.

If it is published, I will let you all know.

^

'Price Tag' Crosses the Line?

The "Green Line", that is:-

Some 20 olive trees belonging to a well-known Arab-Israeli family were uprooted and destroyed by vandals in Jerusalem's Beit Safafa neighborhood in another 'price-tag' incident on Thursday...Among the uprooted olive trees that littered the grove adjacent to the house was found a large board featuring the handwritten words “Price tag.”   In response, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was quoted as telling Israel Radio, “No tolerance should be shown to violence of any nature. We will continue to maintain coexistence in the city."

“Price tag” is a term coined by extremist elements within the settler population in Judea and Samaria for acts of vandalism, intimidation and violence against Palestinians and their property in response to the government's removal of outposts, roadblocks, and other perceived anti-settler actions, or in reaction to Palestinian acts of violence. In recent months, mosques and even an Israeli military base have been vandalized.

I just hope it isn't an act of provocation.  That would be a terrible price for the anti-Yesha forces to pay.

_______________

UPDATE

On February 14, 1948, the Hagana "burned out of nest of rioters at the village of Bet Safafa, according to Davar:-

^

80 Olive Trees

Caught this (via WAFA) - The UN's OCHA report for this week, p 2 contains this claim:

...In three separate incidents this week, Israeli settlers set fire to around 800 olive trees in the villages of Bruqin in the Salfit governorate (680) and Ras Karkar in the Ramallah governorate (120). Also, settlers sprayed chemicals on around 80 olive trees in Turmus ‘Ayya (Ramallah governorate), damaging them.

This is the first I have heard of an incident in my neighborhood.

But 680 torched olive trees?

In any case, note this from August relayed from OCHA:

“In four separate incidents, Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to agricultural land belonging to the villages of Turmus ‘Ayya in the Ramallah governorate and Burin, Awarta and Jalud in the Nablus governorate, damaging around 400 olive and almond trees,” it said.

"Reported"? So, OCHA cannot confirm anything. They have no supervision or investigatory ability? They rely on the Pals.?

Do they see pictures?

What is going on?

Are the Pals. simply throwing out numbers? Moving from district to district with the same basic story, repeated in similar fashion?

This, of course, does not mean that official Yesha bodies, whether the Yesha Council or the various regional councils, can afford to ignore this propaganda warfare. A response unit needs be established.

Last year we had a "poisoning" story which went nowhere. The theme gets more and more outlandish.

I have written to Mai Yassin, a spokesperson at OCHA.

P.S.

Here is another weird claim:

Turmus Aya is known for its grapes [what grapes?]...On top of that hill, stood houses with red roof tiles and they were built with the same structure. There was a water tower for infrastructure in the middle. To the right of those houses, there was a big building, which is a public building. The trees in that area were not olive trees and they were different than the ones I saw in Turmus Aya. All of these characteristics are characteristics of settlements [modernity; variety]. I asked the people about the settlement and they told me its called “Shilo.” They told me there is another settlement on the other side, which is called “Shf [Shvut] Rahel.” The Israeli government confiscated 4000 acres [16,000 dunam?] of land, which was planted with olive trees, in order to build those settlements.

I have been in Shiloh for over 30 years. The number of olive trees in our village that were planted by Arabs was less than 50 and they were harvested for about a dozen years, annually. It became apparent, though, that they could not prove proper ownership and was obviously a rogue operation.

^

And Now The State Department Blames the Jews

(thanks to MB)

Well, even the State Department is on the matter of the olive trees:

Israel/Palestinians: Uprooting of Palestinian Olive Trees

Question Taken at the October 13, 2011 Daily Press Briefing
October 14, 2011

Question: Is the State Department aware of Israeli settlers uprooting Palestinian olive trees? What is the State Department’s reaction?

Answer: We are aware that Israeli settlers are again destroying Palestinian trees. The United States condemns and calls for an immediate end to such actions. We note the Government of Israel is working to address the situation. Those perpetrating these provocative acts should be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Unfortunately, attacks of Jewish agriculture are ignored even though I personally passed on the following information via diplomatic channels last November when this was sent around by the Yesha Council:

Yesha Council in cooperation with the Yesha Human Rights Organization.

Arab and Left-Wing Activists attack Jewish farmers in Judea and Samaria

The data presented in this paper outlines in detail the on-going suffering of the Jewish farmers in Judea and Samaria. These farmers, legally working their land, undergo severe abuse every day from their Arab neighbors who are supported, and even incited, by left-wing and farmers’ rights activists under a guise of nobly protecting unfortunates. Damage caused to the Jewish farmers is estimated to total hundreds of thousands of shekels yearly, in addition to the realization that their crops have been maliciously spoiled and destroyed which is simply immeasurable.

Many times, left-wing activists provoke the incidents. For example, on October 18th, 2010 Arik Asherman, a left-wing anarchic activist, came to Erez Ben-Saadoun’s field and started shouting at Erez that he stole olives from the Arabs, and immediately called the village mayor and demanded that he come down with residents to confront Erez. When the mayor arrived, he declared that the olives belong to Erez and not to the village, to the chagrin of Asherman, who began yelling at the village mayor. This event could have ended differently if the mayor had not backed up Erez’s claim.

The law of the State of Israel protects Arab olive pickers, yet does virtually nothing to protect the Jewish farmer. The media is almost never sympathetic to their pain and the troubles they have. In addition, during attempts to file a criminal complaint, the police often refuse to register the complaint without proof of ownership of the area by the complainant (e.g. following damage caused two weeks ago in Meshek Achia). Some of the plots have no official registration, and so the farmers who file the complaints expose themselves to the possibility of criminal claims against them by the state.

The following report is intended to shed some light on the absurd situation created in Judea and Samaria, where there is blatant discrimination in law enforcement between the two populations: over-enforcement, designed to protect the Arab farmer, and under-enforcement which abandons the Jewish farmer and his field.

Incident according to Date, Place, Farmer, Description of incident

2007
Bat-Ayin, Gush EtzionYehuda CohenBurning of 900 acres of pasture, stables, and 30 pomegranate trees.
2007
Ofra, Shlomi PuzakBurning of irrigation pipes, damage to vineyard, destroying crops, and uprooting vines.
Pnei Kedem, Moshe CohenUprooting of 500 olive trees.
Hebron, Menachem LivniBurning of 100 cherry trees, setting fire to agricultural buildings, and uprooting of 400 vines.
Har Sinai Farm, Har Hebron Herd stolen.
Har Hebron, Yaakov Talia Herds stolen 6 times.
2007
Neriah, BinyaminShlomi CohenUprooting of 5000 cotton seedlings during a demonstration of left-wing activists and Arabs.

14/8/10 Shiloh About 35 acres of vineyard burnt.
15/8/10 Shiloh Setting fire to 70 acres of pasture, vines burnt.
22/8/10 Shiloh Setting fire to 80 acres pasture, burning 200m of a main water pipe.
10/6/10 Hebron Natan Bar DavidSetting fire to a vineyard, burning of an agricultural structure.
21/6/10 Hebron Setting fire to an olive grove, 75 meters of water pipes and electrical cable burnt, and damage to vineyard crops.
18/10/10 Eli Erez Ben- SaadonDamage to 30 olive trees, branches cut.
10/2010 Shiloh Meshek Achia (Achia farm)Theft of fences and irrigation pipes and damage to olive trees
10/2010 Chavat Gilad (Gilad Farm) Uprooting of olive and fig trees, theft of agricultural tools in the Gilad Farm area.
8/2010 Chavat Gilad (Gilad Farm) Water pipe stolen, to the value of 60,000 shekel
2010 (throughout the year) Shavei Shomron, Kedumim, Itamar, Tapuach and Chavat Gilad Sheep stolen. In light of these thefts, many farmers have stopped raising herds.

Will someone alert the State Department that Jews suffer?

This year's report should be out soon.

^

More Trees Felled

No, not olive tress out here in Yesha.

Trees in Fairview, Oregon:-

"It's better than drinking."  That's what two teenagers told police when they were arrested for chopping down trees in a city park.  There were about a dozen trees that were chopped down at Fairview Woods Park and police say they’ve been working on this case for about a month.

At least the problem there was solved wihtin a month or so.

^

What Type of Clash? How Many Trees Destroyed?

Was this a physical clash or just verbal?

Itamar settlers clash with killers of Fogel family

Settlers in Itamar were outraged Sunday morning after Palestinians from Awarta arrived in Itamar for their annual olive harvest in the settlement. According to the settlers, among the Palestinians who arrived in Itamar were the family members of Amjad and Hakim Awad who brutally stabbed and murdered five members of the Fogel family six months ago.

The settlers claimed that the Palestinians shouted "We'll Fogel you" and drew their fingers across their necks indicating slaughter. Dozens of women and children from Itamar protested against the move, including Tamar Fogel who lost her parents and three siblings in the heinous terror attack

Another question:

So, Yitzhar allows Arabs to continue to grow olive tress and harvest their olives?

Aren't "settlers" immoral?

Oh, and besides the clash, how many trees were destroyed? And if none (see above), does that mean one need carefully trust Arab sources on tree destruction?


UPDATE

Seems residents were informed of the entry and now they are demonstrating against the army for allowing them in.

and an AFP report.

Mostly women, including Tamar Fogel, participated. Hebrew report.

^

What Happened to Those Arab Olive Trees?

The annual "Jews-destroyed/cut down/burned/chopped up/dug up-Arab-olive-trees" festival has begun.

But take a look at this picture:

You are viewing part of 1000 dunams under development by Jews in the Shiloh Bloc, just outside Shvut Rachel and south of Achiyah.

Six of those rows of olive trees belong to a resident of Jaloud.

Jaloud is an Arab village.

Every year, in the arrangement negotiated by the IDF, the owner comes and harvests his crop and also tends to his trees.

And every time, some Jewish-owned trees are found to have been damaged.

Another form of Arab terror.

Ingrates.

^

There Go - Or Not - More Olive Trees

First read (and when you've stopped giggling catch my comments below):-

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:.

______________________

And check out EoZ.


^

"All The News" Did We Read?

Yes, we're again concerned with the New York Times and Isabel Kershner.

Here's her report on yesterday's incident at Alei-Ayin:

West Bank: Clash Over Olive Trees Leaves 8 Wounded

At least seven Palestinians were wounded by gunfire and rubber bullets in clashes with Israeli settlers and soldiers in the northern West Bank on Monday, according to a Palestinian official and the Israeli military. One settler was reported wounded after being hit by a rock. Palestinians accused the settlers of having uprooted olive trees in the area. A military spokeswoman said that settlers and soldiers opened fire after being attacked by Palestinian stone throwers. Three of the Palestinians were shot by settlers, and four by soldiers, the spokeswoman said, adding that of the four, two were wounded by rubber bullets and two by live fire.

"Clashes", of course, is a false charade, a euphemism to whitewash Arab violence.

The incident of saplings uprooted supposedly occured on Friday.

But the Pal. news agency Ma'an spins it out this way:

...Witnesses said the trouble flared when a large group of settlers began uprooting olive trees near the village. The villagers started throwing stones, prompting a settler to open fire.

"We found a lot of settlers uprooting olive trees and when they saw us they started throwing stones at the children, then a settler brought out his M-16 and started shooting at us," said local witness Raed Awdeh. "We threw stones at them, then the army arrived and started shooting rubber bullets and tear gas bombs," he told AFP.

...A Jewish settler was also taken to hospital after being hit by a stone, settler spokeswoman Tamar Asraf told AFP, saying he had been injured by Palestinians who had approached the nearby settlement outpost of Esh Kodesh.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army confirmed troops had opened fire on what she described as "an extremely violent riot."

"The security forces were attacked by Palestinians with rocks, and in response, they fired directly at those who were throwing rocks," she told AFP, saying troops had used live fire and directed it towards the Palestinians' lower bodies.

"Six Palestinians were injured as a result," she added, saying the incident was under investigation.

Last week, settlers cut down around 500 young olive trees near Qusra which had been planted on the site of a former settlement outpost.

As I pointed out in a previous post, news reports published indicated that the day's event started with a mass attack by Arabs on the Alei-Ayin outpost even have done more than just throw stones, when "dozens of Palestinians wielding axes and clubs arrived at the Alei Ayin outpost," and "soldiers opened fire at six Palestinians after sensing their lives were at risk."

You can see pictures here.

Haaretz, typically, has it this way:

The Palestinians claim that the confrontation began when a group of 20 settlers marched onto land near the village of Qusra and began cutting down olive trees. Resident Eqab Hassan said locals began throwing rocks at the settlers, who responded by opening fire themselves.


The settlers say that the clashes began when a group of Palestinians armed with knives accosted them at the Eli Ayin outpost near the settlement of Shiloh, with the purpose of grabbing the agricultural land they had been tending.

But to return to my original concern of journalist ethics. 

Why no hospital/Magan David Adom/Red Crescent references as sources?  You see that at all other security-related events in Israel?  The Jewish boy, Eitan Zeev, is "reported" injured but the Pals. have an "official" on their side.  Kershner can't locate anybody on the Jewish side?

And the uses of "clashes", as if mutual recriminations were taking place instead of an armed mass attack that happened.  Arabs refuse to exploit normal legal avenues?  It's okay to engage in violence?

And those olive trees.  Were they really uprooted?  Were they trees?  Were they, perhaps, illegally planted? 

And what happened to the perpetrators of the scorched-earth act of last summer?

This is inadequate news reporting.


Background:

media slant

on Alei-Ayin with pics

on the recent January destruction

on last summer's field burning by Arabs

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