Israeli settlers are hacking down Palestinian olive trees in an act of environmental terrorism “aimed at intimidating their Palestinian neighbours and economically crippling many Palestinian farmers who rely on harvesting olives to make a living”. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
AL SHUYUKH, Southern West Bank, Apr 6 2015 (IPS)

“Exactly which olive trees do you want to see? The Israeli settlers have cut down thousands. Can you be more specific?” asked the taxi driver, telling IPS that he wished to remain anonymous.

About a week ago, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Mezad, in the southern West Bank near the city of Hebron, cut down approximately 1,200 Palestinian olive trees in an act of environmental terrorism, a vindictive act aimed at intimidating their Palestinian neighbours and economically crippling many Palestinian farmers who rely on harvesting olives to make a living.Israeli settlers are hacking down Palestinian olive trees in an act of environmental terrorism aimed at intimidating their Palestinian neighbours and economically crippling many Palestinian farmers who rely on harvesting olives to make a living

Not only is the harvesting of olives a major part of the Palestinian economy, supporting over 80,000 families, but it is also central to Palestinian culture and lifestyle.

Olives and olive oil are regularly served with Palestinian meals. The fruit and its oil have affectionately been called “green gold” by Palestinians, while ancient olive trees are incorporated into Palestinian art including paintings and embroidery.

As IPS attempted to take pictures of the remaining carcasses of the 1,200 olive trees hacked down by the settlers, bordering Mezad settlement, Israeli soldiers guarding the site started to approach.

We quickly left as the taxi driver, and an elderly Palestinian farmer who had shown us the way, did not want a confrontation.

This was the third attack on the olive trees, which belonged to Muhammad al Ayayadah, over a period of several months.

Mezad settlement is built on Palestinian land that was confiscated by Israel and the settlers appear to be trying to take over more land for expansion of their settlement.

The regular cutting down of olive trees, and the prevention of access to these trees by Israeli security forces, often forces Palestinian farmers off their land as crop losses can cripple them financially.

According to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ), approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Following the farmers’ eviction, Israel settlers can argue that the land has been abandoned and then move in and take it over with Palestinians having little legal recourse.

“No action will be taken against the settlers by the Israeli police. The police will say they are coming to investigate but most times they don’t even show up,” ARIJ spokesman Suhail Khalilieh told IPS.

“Even if they do show up, they will say there is no hard evidence that settlers were behind the attack or they will say that the attack was in retaliation for Palestinians throwing stones.

“Moreover, most of the settler attacks take place under the guard of the Israeli military who do nothing to stop the vandalism,” added Khalilieh.

Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property have also included the burning of homes and cars, the killing of livestock, stone-throwing attacks, running school children over and poisoning water wells.

One of the more serious acts of vandalism, in the eyes of a conservative and religious Palestinian society, has been the numerous arson attacks on mosques throughout the West Bank.

IPS visited one mosque which had been set on fire by the settlers where the settlers had placed piles of burnt Korans next to the bathroom in a concerted effort to offend.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 324 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property were reported during 2014 alone.

While Palestinian farmers are struggling to survive, a simultaneous development in East Jerusalem has Palestinians concerned.

The Israeli authorities plan to build a construction waste site on land in occupied East Jerusalem.

The construction of the facility involves further expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land in the Shuafat and Issawiya neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem.

Thousands of tonnes of construction waste from all over Jerusalem will be brought in to the site over the next 20 years.

The land grab will also see the eviction of Bedouin families living in an encampment between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

The area between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim is a controversial corridor known as E1. Israeli settlement expansion and construction there has caused friction between the U.S. administration and the Israeli government because the West Bank has effectively been cut off from Jerusalem.

Legal action taken by a number of Israeli rights groups on behalf of the Palestinians in Israeli civilian courts has so far not helped.

“The Israeli courts have not ruled against the construction in the E1 corridor as they have no civil authority over the West Bank which falls under Israeli military jurisdiction and this military rule is behind the continued expansion of the E1 corridor,” Khalilieh told IPS.

“Even if the Israeli civilian courts had ruled against this land expropriation and settlement building, it could not over ride decisions taken by Israel’s civil administration, or military rule, which will always justify its action under security or state needs.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Unarmed Palestinian confronts Israeli soldiers during protest near Jelazon refugee camp, north of Ramallah, West Bank. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Mar 17 2015 (IPS)

As soon as the truck carrying Israeli dairy products entered Ramallah’s city centre it was surrounded by Palestinian activists who proceeded to remove and trash almost 20,000 dollars’ worth of mainly milk and yoghurt.

The driver of the truck, a Palestinian from the nearby Qalandia refugee camp, and an Israeli employee fainted after watching helplessly.

The goods, already paid for by Palestinian shopkeepers, were smashed up and stomped on before they were spread all over the street in front of the Palestinian police stationed at the traffic circle.

Activists from the Palestinian Authority (PA)-affiliated Fatah movement are behind a boycott of Israeli goods throughout the West Bank.“The strength of the grassroots organisations’ action against Israel is not going to go away anytime soon and will only continue to grow in strength internationally” – Professor Samir Awad of Birzeit University

The boycott follows the withholding by Israel of millions of Palestinian tax dollars in retaliation for the PA advancing plans to take Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged Gaza war crimes and abuses in the West Bank.

“We have entered the second phase of the campaign which is confiscating and damaging these goods,” said Abdullah Kamal, who is the leader of the campaign.

Several weeks earlier, the campaign had involved Kamal and his associates making the rounds of shops in Ramallah and ordering shopkeepers to rid their stores of Israeli produce and being warned not to purchase any more. Similar moves are under way in other cities of the occupied West Bank.

Although the Palestinian territories are not a huge part of Israel’s domestic market, the move is part of a number of grassroots campaigns of defiance by Palestinians against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its siege of Gaza.

“The local boycott by Palestinians is peaceful and a way of exerting some pressure on Israel even if it not very strong,” Professor Samir Awad, a political scientist from Birzeit University near Ramallah, told IPS

“The least Palestinians can do is not finance the occupation.”

A more serious development, from Israel’s point of view, was a recent vote by the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) executive committee in favour of discontinuing security coordination with Israel’s intelligence and security services.

Palestinians have long accused the PA of being Israel’s sub-contractor to the occupation and the Israelis rely on this security coordination to prevent another Palestinian uprising and control armed resistance.

A final decision on breaking off security coordination lies with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

“The situation on the ground is getting serious and it is possible that Abbas could make this decision before the end of the month,” Fatah member Murad Shitawi told IPS.

“We will not accept the continuing occupation with its economic and security implications,” said Shitawi, who is the coordinator of protests in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddoum, and who was recently released from an Israeli jail.

Every Friday, dozens of villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza take part in protests against Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land and the occupation despite the huge toll this has taken on Palestinians in terms of the number wounded and killed.

Shitawi pointed out that four or five years ago there were only a few villages taking part in regular protests on a weekly basis.

“Now there are many and the protests are not limited to Friday.”

Another act of Palestinian defiance has been the repeated building of protest tents and villages in Area C of the West Bank, 60 percent of the territory, in protest against Israel’s forced removal of Bedouins and other Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Israel has designated Area C off limits to Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers, which is illegal under international law.

One of these protest camps near the village of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem, has been rebuilt 10 times after Israeli security forces rased it, confiscated equipment and arrested and assaulted activists who had encamped there.

Furthermore, Palestinian grassroots activists are also working in conjunction with their international supporters, and with Israeli peace groups, to up the pressure on Israel as the international Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign continues to strengthen.

A growing number of global businesses, church and university groups and artists are either refusing to visit Israel, do business with Israeli companies involved in the West Bank, or are boycotting Israeli institutions operating abroad.

Israel Apartheid Week, “an international series of events that seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and to build support for the growing BDS campaign” was held in a number of capitals across the globe during March.

Israeli peaceniks and grassroots activists have been among some of the most vocal critics of their government’s policies towards the Palestinians, spawning a number of organisations which take part in the weekly protests.

Groups such as Ta’ayush, Breaking the Silence, Ir Amim and Rabbis for Human Rights seek to educate people about the realities of life under occupation.

Some of them also accompany Palestinian farmers trying to cultivate their land under continued settler harassment.

“The strength of the grassroots organisations’ action against Israel is not going to go away anytime soon and will only continue to grow in strength internationally,” Awad told IPS.

“The PA will also continue with its plans to take Israel to the ICC and should Israel continue to withhold Palestinian tax money indefinitely, the PA could collapse and the result would be chaos.” (END/2015)

Edited by Phil Harris