Mourning Uprooted Olive Trees in West Bank Villages
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129358.html
03:12 21/11/2009
Twilight Zone / Mourning uprooted olive trees in West Bank villages
By Gideon Levy
The old tractor sputtered up the hill, its engine seemingly about to
expire, but its big wheels bumping across the rocky terrain. We stood in
the back, swaying wildly, holding on for dear life. On the hilltop
loomed the big antenna of the settlement of Yitzhar, whose houses lay on
the other side of the hill. The very knowledge of their presence
inspired dread. It was a glorious sunny day, the spectacular valley
sprawling below. The houses of the Palestinian village of Burin lie in
this valley, which lies between two hills: on one stands Yitzhar; on the
other, Har Bracha, outside Nablus.
Burin is caught between a rock and hard place, between Har Bracha and
Yitzhar. We have visited Burin often, most recently after settlers
burned down some of its homes. Settlers once stole a horse from a
villager, torched fields, demolished a home in the village and uprooted
olive trees. We have frequently documented the uprooting of olive trees:
Less than a month ago, in this space, we told the story of the beautiful
vineyard belonging to the agriculture teacher Mohammed Abu Awad from the
village of Mureir, whose 300 trees were felled by intruders - probably
from the illegal outpost of Adei Ad - using buzz saws.
Here, clues left by the criminals suggest that they used handsaws and
ripped out the crowns of the trees with their hands, one crown after
another, one branch after another, rending and wounding the trees. In
Mureir, the agriculture teacher wrapped the stumps in sacks, giving them
the look of figures in shrouds. Here, in Burin, the stumps remain where
they were hurled on the ground, stacks of dead wood, branches withering,
until finally the farmer will use them as firewood to heat the village's
clay ovens, the tabuns.
But the feeling is the same, the affront is the same and so is the
grief. In October, the farmer Abu Awad said about the ruins of his
vineyard in Mureir: "What must you feel if you plant and tend and then
it's all cut down? What must I feel? If I had been there, I'd have told
them, cut off my hands, but don't cut down my trees - What did the tree
do to them, for them to treat it like this?" (Haaretz Magazine, October 16)
And now the farmer Ibrahim Imran tells us in Burin: "These trees are
like my children." Hands or children, the grief of those who tend their
olive groves is searing and deeply moving. The inability of the soldiers
of the Israel Defense Forces and of the officers of the Israel Police to
protect the groves of these farmers, to protect their property and their
honor, is the inability of all of us.
We stood on the rear fender of the tractor as it clambered its way up
the hill. Standing with us was Ruth Kedar, an activist from Machsom
Watch, which monitors checkpoints, and Yesh Din (Volunteers for Human
Rights). She has crisscrossed the territories in her private car for
years, documenting wrongs and injustice. Her husband, retired colonel
Paul Kedar, is also active in Yesh Din. It's worth lingering over his
riveting biography: Paul Kedar comes from a Revisionist family; his
father was one of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's secretaries. He himself was one of
the founders of the Israel Air Force and later served as air attache in
Paris during the period of the Sinai Campaign. He has been in the Mossad
and served as consul general in New York, among other state posts. He
was a friend of Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres. He too now devotes his
time to documenting the occupation and struggling against its abuses.
The Kedars, now in their eighties, will soon receive the Emil Grunzweig
Human Rights Award from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and
deservedly so.
Above the noise of the tractor, one of the Palestinian farmers tells us
that he heard that his neighbor, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, from Yitzhar,
has permitted the killing of all non-Jews. Indeed, Shapira, head of the
Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar (named for the biblical Joseph),
recently published a book, "The King's Torah," in which he states that
it is permissible to kill every gentile who constitutes a threat to the
Jewish people, even if he is a child or an infant.
When Imran arrived to work his land early Thursday morning, he was
appalled. It was, he says, "the height of frustration," and adds: "After
God, I rely only on my olive trees. These trees are no less than 70
years old. My great-great-grandfather planted them."
Imran called everyone he could think of - the District Coordinations
Offices, the International Red Cross, B'Tselem and Yesh Din - and also
filed a complaint with the Israel Police at Ariel. Investigators came to
the grove and took fingerprints, he says, but he has yet to receive
confirmation of having submitted a report. Yesh Din is now handling his
complaint.
An IDF jeep suddenly arrives to see what's going on - just the kind of
jeep that rarely shows up when the settlers go on a rampage.
A spokesman for the Shai (Samaria-Judea) District of the police stated
in response: "On November 12, a resident of Burin complained that he
noticed that 90 olive trees on his land had been chopped down. The
damage was documented by the criminal investigations department at the
site, and trackers scoured the area to find footprints. Testimonies were
taken from two locals: the owner of the land and his worker. The police
are conducting additional investigative activities, among them locating
suspects and witnesses. The Samaria District police are also operating
on the intelligence plane."
--
Dan Clore
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Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
Uprooted Olive Tree
Uprooted Olive Tree
It is sad to see the deteriorating situation in this area. We can be
sure about something, it helps create vocations and think about new
communication means and peaceful activism to stop this nonsens:
www.UprootedOliveTree.net
Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=209052443280&ref=nf