The Palestinian Olives…Survival Battle

The Palestinians consider the olive picking season as one of the most important seasons because it symbolizes for them the concept of  durability. It is also considered a cultural matter expressing how Palestinians are bounded to their lands. Furthermore, for Palestinians, it is a symbol of land, people, memory, history, economy and resistance. Concurrently, Israeli colonists, spread all around the West Bank, consider it a sign for launching new vicious attacks on Palestinians and their trees and yields. Usually, colonists’ aggressions begin with the beginning of the olive picking season, nevertheless, they began earlier this year.

 

No tree in the history of man kind has suffered as much as the Palestinian olive trees. At the beginning of this year’s olive picking season starting  mid October leaflets  were distributed in various Israeli colonies in the West Bank calling for the disruption of the olive picking process in the West Bank. Moreover, the Leaflets  called for banning any Palestinian from working in their lands and prevent the ‘foreign peace activists’ from helping the Palestinians and disallowing them of taking pictures by stealing their cameras. More seriously, they called for stealing the olives even before they are picked up by the Palestinians.

 

The colonists’ actions are built upon religious beliefs or instructions from the Torah which are the reason of the brutal war against the Palestinian olive trees. Rabbi ‘Murdkhai Eliaho’ permitted the theft of the Palestinian crops; he said: ‘ we are free to harvest the Palestinian fields because they are planting on lands that belong to us, the Jews.’

 

Quoted from Rabbi ‘Yousuf Tilmeed’, one of the most important Jewish religious figures in Israel; ‘ Palestinians are aliens (not Jews) and our religion allows us to do whatever we wish to their properties’.

 

Evidently, Israel regards the Palestinian olive trees as a target, and aggressions against the trees are part of the ethnic cleansing policies that Israel has been carrying out since 1948.

 

No	Date	Governorate	Location	Violators	Victims	details
1	10/10	Jenin	At Tayba, ‘Anin	Israeli Army	The locals	Delaying the opening of the gates of the wall. Forbidding 300 farmers from reaching their lands behind the wall.
2	12/10	Jenin	‘Anin	Israeli Authorities	‘Anin Local Farmers	Not giving farmers the permits needed to pass the gates that lead to their lands.
3	21/10	Jenin	Faqqu’a	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Delaying the opening of the gates. Deliberately closing a gate for a whole day.
4	3/11	Tulkarm	Beit Lid	Israeli Army, Avnei Hefetz colonists	Local Farmers	Preventing the farmers from reaching the lands nearby the Israeli colony.
5	18/7	Nablus	Burin	Yizhar colonists	Local Farmers	Burning 300 olive trees.
6	29/9	Nablus	Burin	Yizhar colonists	Heirs of Abdul Qader As’ad Omran, Abdul Mo’een ‘Awad, Ahmad ‘Awad	Uprooting and cutting 160 olive trees (20-35 years old)
7	7/10	Nablus	Burqa, Bizzariya, Sabastiya	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Converting 400 dunums into a closed military zone and forbidding the farmers from reaching it
8	12/10	Nablus	Qaryut, Al Lubban ash Sharqiya	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Forbidding the farmers from reaching their lands despite the fact that they have the needed permits on the pretext of safeguarding the colonists’ security.
9	15/10	Nablus	‘Azmut	Israeli Army, Alon Moreh colonists	Local Farmers	Preventing the farmers from reaching their lands near Eli and Maale Labona colonies despite having the needed permits.
10	15/10	Nablus	‘Asira al Qibliya	Israeli Army, Yizhar colonists	Local Farmers	Colonists, supported by the Israeli Army, forbade the farmers from harvesting the olive trees and placed an outpost in the area.
11	17/10	Nablus	Qaryut	Eli colonists	Mufeed Jaber (72)	Assaulting the said farmer while harvesting olives, he sustained several injuries and a fractured shoulder.
12	17/10	Nablus	Salim, Kafr Qallil	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Forbidding the foreign advocates from helping the Palestinian farmers, also the Israeli Army threatened to fine any Palestinian who seeks help from foreigners.
13	18/10	Nablus	Burin	Israeli Army, Bracha colonists	Local Farmers including Mursi ‘Eid(35), Qasim Alnajjar(28), Jamal Alnajjar(24)	Tens of colonists attacked the farmers near the colony and threw stones at them in an attempt to prevent them from olive picking.
14	22/10	Nablus	Qaryut, Al Lubban ash Sharqiya	Eli colonists	Faisal Rasheed (5 dunums), Mohammad Rasheed (5 dunums)	Tens of settlers torched 10 dunums of olive trees.
15	25/10	Nablus	‘Iraq Burin	Israeli Army, Bracha colonists	Mohammad Qadus, Wa’el Qadus	Two farmers were shot while peacefully demonstrating against the colonists’ acts.
16	25/10	Nablus	Qaryut	Eli, Shilo, Shvut Rahel, Maale Levona colonists	Local Farmers	Colonists attacked the farmers to ban them from harvesting olives.
17	27/10	Nablus	Qaryut	Israeli Army, Shvut Rahel colonists	Mu’taz Ghassan (31), Isra’ Badawi (23)(sustained Injury in her eye), Jawad Albadawi, Jamal Kassab	Colonists attacked the farmers while harvesting olives despite the fact that coordination was made between the Israeli and Palestinian DCO to allow the farmers to peacefully harvest their crop. The Israeli Army did not interfere to stop the attacks.
18	12/11	Nablus	Burin	Yizhar colonists	Akram ‘Emran	Cutting down 80 olive trees.
19	9/11	Salfit	Yasuf	Taffuh colonists	Local Farmers	Preventing farmers from reaching their lands despite the fact that coordination was made between the Israeli and Palestinian DCO to allow the farmers to peacefully harvest their crop.
20	9/8	Qalqiliya	‘Azzun ‘Atma	Oranit colonists	‘Abdul Kareem Salamah	Setting fire to 100 olive trees located behind the wall.
21	2/10	Qalqiliya	Jayyus	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Preventing the farmers from using gate 979 to get to their lands and letting them use the further gate 943.
22	4/10	Qalqiliya	Jinsafut	Israeli colonists	Abdul Hafiz Kamel	Colonists beat a farmer and stole his crop claiming that the land belongs to them.
23	7/10	Qalqiliya	Sabastiya	Israeli Army	Local Farmers	Preventing foreigners from helping Palestinian farmers.
24	10/10	Qalqiliya	Kafr Qaddum	Kadumim colonists	Fo’ad Abdul Qader, Sadeq Eshtewi, Omar Eshtewi, Saleh Eshtewi	Burning 146 olive trees.
25	10/10	Qalqiliya	Amatin	Kadumim colonists	Sayel Ghanem, Ahmad Ghanem, Mohammad Ghanem, Abdul Raheem Ghanem, Basel Ghanem	Torching 144 olive trees.
26	20/10	Qalqiliya	Kafr Qaddum	Kadumim colonists	Mohammad Eshtewi	Preventing farmers from picking olives and assaulting one of them.
27	22/10	Qalqiliya	Amatin, Far’ata	Israeli Army, Hifat Gil’ad colonists	Local Farmers	Uprooting 8 olive trees, preventing the farmers from reaching their lands located near the colony.
28	6/10	Ramallah	Deir ‘Ammar	Nahalil colonists	Abdullah Odeh Family	Cutting down 250 olive trees.
29	14/10	Hebron	Dura	Israeli Army, Negohot colonists	Local Farmers	Forbidding olive picking.
30	21/10	Hebron	Yatta	Susiya colonists	Mohammad Hosheiya, Samir Hoshiya, Jamal Hoshiya	Cutting down 17 olive trees.
31	21/10	Hebron	Lands near the wall	Israeli Army, Israeli Civil Administration	Farmers who own land behind the wall	1500 families requested entrance to their lands behind the wall, the Israeli army considers the lands ‘buffer zone’ and nobody gets permits to reach it unless he proves his ownership of the land. Only 420 families applied for permits and only 212 families were granted them.

 

During 2009, 14125 olive trees were cut down, torched or uprooted, including 1455 trees that were burnt or uprooted during the olive picking season and about 7000 were uprooted for the purpose of expanding the existing colonies while the rest were burnt or cut down by colonists. Not only did the Israeli Authorities and colonists destroy olive trees but also they prevented the farmers from reaching their olive fields, especially the ones behind the wall.

 

No	Governorate	Number of Trees		Number of Violations
		Uprooted or cut down	Torched	Gates Closure	Shooting and Beating	Banned from reaching their land
1	Jenin			2		1
2	Tolkarm					1
3	Nablus	1540	4550		4	6
4	Salfit	5720				1
5	Qalqiliya	8	390	1	2	2
6	Ramallah	250
7	Hebron	1267	400			2
Total		8785	5340	3	6	13

 

According to Mr. Fares Aljabi, Palestinian olive oil consultant and member of the Palestinian Olive Oil Council, olive oil is a main source of income for many Palestinian families as there is 100000 Palestinian families who totally depend on olive oil in their living. Hundreds of factories and olive presses operate only during this season. The olive picking season is vital for development, unemployment rates become lower because olive picking requires a lot of workers and olives are considered vital income.

 

Usually, 12% of the agricultural income comes from olives, about $ 700 million, which measures 3-6% of the national income. The current season is considered unfruitful; this is because of the climate changes and factors related to the Israeli occupation’s actions.

 

970 thousand dunums in the West Bank and 25 thousands in Gaza strip are planted with olive trees. The olive trees are concentrated in northern West Bank area. There are 300 olive presses in the West Bank, 260 out of them are still operating.

 

Olive planting occupies an estimate of 50% from the total agricultural area of Palestine which equals 1.9% of the total area of the West Bank (970 thousands dunums are planted with olive trees). 85% of the trees planted in Palestine are olives, another 10-15 thousand dunums used for irrigated farming.

 

The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics stated that the total number of workers in olive presses last year was about 1100, 68% were paid workers.