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    

Ruins of the Abu Khadra complex for civil adminstration following an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 6 2012 (IPS)

Whenever the Security Council (sporadically) or the General Assembly (more frequently) lambastes Israel, the reaction from the Jewish state is highly predictable: either launch a military strike on Palestinians or announce new settlements in the occupied territories.

Since the Israelis last month exercised the first option, causing devastation in Gaza, they opted for 3,000 new settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank immediately after the 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution last week elevating Palestine from an “observer” to a “non-member state”.

The settlements were condemned not only by the United States but also by the European Union and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Paradoxically, the retaliation followed even after Israel disparaged the General Assembly vote as “insignificant”, according to a New York Times editorial.

The final vote count was an overwhelming 138 in favour against nine, with 41 abstentions.

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francicso, told IPS, “Yes, there has been a long tradition of Israel retaliating against Palestinians when a vote at the United Nations has not gone their way.”

Regardless of the appropriateness of U.N.’s actions, it is ordinary Palestinians who tend to suffer, said Zunes, who has written extensively on the politics of the Middle East.

He recounted a cartoon in a U.S. newsmagazine in the 1970s which showed Palestinian refugees huddled under a tent as Israeli Phantom jets (since replaced with sophisticated U.S.-supplied F-15 and F-16 fighter planes) rain fire on a refugee camp.

The quote attributed to the Palestinian family in the cartoon read: “Looks like Israel had another bad day at the U.N.”

The United States and Israel, which unsuccessfully lobbied against the Palestine resolution, found themselves in the company of Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Panama, Canada and the Czech Republic.

In at least five other resolutions adopted by two U.N. committees last month, the United States and Israel had the backing of only Canada and the four tiny Pacific island states, who are politically insignificant at the United Nations.

The total population of all four member states, Marshall Islands (population: 55,000), Micronesia (106,000), Nauru (9,400) and Palau (21,000), amounted to a paltry 191,400 compared to the 138 countries that voted with Palestine, which accounted for about six billion out of the world’s total population of over seven billion people.

The resolutions adopted by the two committees, which will be endorsed by the General Assembly later this month, are expected to reflect the same voting patterns.

And the five resolutions against Israel highlight the continued human rights abuses and violations of international law in occupied territories; a reaffirmation of the Geneva conventions protecting the rights of civilians during war; and the right of all persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 hostilities to return to their homes in the occupied territories.

Mouin Rabbani, contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report and senior fellow at the Institute of Palestine Studies, told IPS the outcome of a General Assembly vote on Palestine was never in question.

“Those who openly opposed the vote can be counted on the fingers of an amputated hand: Israel; the United States, which is more pro-Israel than Israel itself; Canada, which is more pro-Israel than even the United States; and the Pacific islands, who cast their final U.N. votes since they will be rewarded for their efforts by further North American carbon emissions and an attendant rise in the sea level,” he said.

Rabbani said this is about “quality not quantity”.

With the outcome never in doubt, the real question is whether the Palestinian U.N. bid will gain significantly more support, and garner significantly less opposition, than the 1988 proclamation of independence.

There are already very encouraging signs in this respect, he said.

France is leading a very respectable group of European Union member states who voted in favour; Germany, which is no longer the determined obstructionist within the EU it has been in years past, abstained, and so did Australia.

Of particular interest is the British position (the UK abstained on the Palestine vote), Rabbani said.

“They have conditioned Palestinian commitment to return without conditions to a peace process that does not exist, and a Palestinian pledge to ensure Israeli impunity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) with respect to its war crimes, as conditions for supporting the bid,” he said. “They got neither, and abstained rather than vote against.”

In the U.S. Congress there are threats to cut U.S. funding to all U.N. bodies that accept Palestine as a member, as it did last year when the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted for Palestine to be one of its members.

Asked about ICC membership, Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS, “If we’re looking purely at the question of accession to the Rome Statute (which created the ICC), the issue of a cut in funding is less important, since the U.S. is not a state party and so doesn’t really contribute financially to the ICC.”

He said the U.S. and others could seek to make Palestine – and perhaps the ICC -pay a political price, but that could incur a big cost as well, for the whole world.

“I want to think that helping to gut international justice just to protect possible Israeli and, incidentally, Palestinian, war criminals is too high a price to pay,” he added.

Rabbani told IPS, “The real issue is what comes next.”

Anyone familiar with the position of Western governments knows that what this issue is really about for them is not the U.N. or the General Assembly but rather the ICC, he said.

“They desperately don’t want to have to make a choice between Israeli impunity and support for the ICC.”

That has worked so long as the ICC only goes after Africans, said Rabbani, who is also a senior policy advisor to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

“They’re mortified this may now change. Not only should they make that choice, they should be forced to make that choice in full public view… We need a real court, and a willingness to prosecute Israeli war crimes is for many the litmus test in this respect.”

Ovad Arad, sitting before one of Regavim's aerial photography maps. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ROAD 60, OCCUPIED WEST BANK, Jul 30 2012 (IPS)

Sitting in an airconditioned car along Road 60 in the heart of the occupied West Bank, Ovad Arad explained how he goes about his job: driving unannounced into Palestinian towns and villages, taking photographs, having coffee with families, and leaving almost as quickly as he arrived.

“I don’t lie. When they ask me what I’m doing there, I say I’m doing research into the area. I try not to go into deep conversation. I do the work and go,” Arad told IPS. But he adds that he doesn’t reveal who he works for, or the real reason he takes photos.

A resident of the Israeli settlement Mero Horon, Arad is head of the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) division of Regavim, a right-wing Israeli organisation whose work focuses primarily on using legal channels to have demolition orders on Palestinian homes and other structures carried out.

Asked whether he feels bad when a Palestinian family has their home destroyed as a result of his work, Arad responded: “No. Really, no.” And what about Israeli settler homes being destroyed? “I don’t feel good. It actually hurts me when I see Jews being thrown out of their house. But I’ve never seen Palestinians thrown out of their house; I’ve seen Jews being thrown out of their house.”

Regavim works mainly in the Negev desert in southern Israel and Area C of the occupied West Bank, which covers approximately 60 percent of the territory and, according to the 1995 Oslo Accords, is under complete Israeli military and administrative control.

Approximately 150,000 Palestinians and 300,000 Israeli settlers currently live in Area C. Israeli settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and settlement outposts are illegal under Israel’s own laws. Under international law, Israel – as the occupying power in the area – is also responsible for providing for the needs of the population living under its control, namely the Palestinians.

For Regavim, however, the applicability of international law to Israel’s control of the West Bank is up for debate. “The position of Regavim (is that) there is no (Israeli) occupation,” said Ari Briggs, director of Regavim’s International Department.

Regavim relies on the legal framework of the Oslo Accords in carrying out its work in the West Bank, Briggs explained. He said that Regavim gets most of its information through freedom of information requests submitted to the civil administration.

Using geographic information systems (GIS) software and detailed aerial photography, Briggs said Regavim can map out virtually every inch of Israel – which, he said, encompasses both Israel proper and Area C.

“Hundred percent of Jewish illegal building will get a demolition order; only a third of illegal Arab building will get a demolition order,” Briggs, a native of Australia who has lived in Israel for 18 years, said. He added that the Civil Administration often retroactively legalises Palestinian construction, something that, he said, isn’t done for Jewish building.

“There are too many lies flying around that actually there’s discrimination against Arabs, and (that) the government and the civil administration is fully pro-Jewish. And we’re saying actually it’s the opposite.”

On its website, Regavim describes itself as “a social movement established to promote a Jewish Zionist agenda for the State of Israel” that “protect Israel’s lands and national properties.” Despite this mission statement, Briggs told IPS that Regavim’s work isn’t politically motivated, but rather guided by “moral and ethical” considerations.

“Regavim is not using the law for political purposes. We’re using the law to try and bring a rule of law and put a rule of law in place. Our opponents are using the law courts to make political gains and political points to an ideological point of view that they have,” he said.

Not everyone is convinced.

“We are concerned about Regavim’s involvement because we see them as a very, very political organisation,” said attorney Tamar Feldman, director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) department of human rights in the occupied territories.

“They are not concerned about human rights. They’re not concerned about international law. They’re just out to promote their political agenda and of course this is very worrying when one is trying to promote human rights within the territory.”

Feldman explained that Regavim petitions have sped up legal processes and awakened cases dealing with Palestinian building and planning in Area C, in particular in the South Hebron hills, one of the poorest and most disadvantaged regions in the area.

While Briggs was unable to provide exact data about the number of demolitions executed as a result of Regavim’s work, the organisation recently appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to carry out 162 interim orders on Palestinian constructions, which have been frozen since 2008.

One of the most prominent cases of Regavim’s influence has been in Susiya, a Palestinian village in the South Hebron hills, which, after Regavim appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to carry out demolition orders, now faces the prospect of being completely razed to the ground.

“They portray the situation in Area C as if Palestinians don’t have any rights there, they are just stealing the land, it belongs to Israel and the Jewish people and (the Palestinians) are outlaws. This has very little to do with reality,” Feldman said.

“The Palestinians in those areas, (like the) South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley, have been sitting there for many decades, and for generations on.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) in the occupied territories, the Israeli Civil Administration rejected 94 percent of Palestinians’ building permit applications in Area C between 2000 and 2007.