Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

A Palestinian farmer selects and sorts olive during the harvest

James Hider, Olive branch blossoms amid harvest of fear - Times Online, November 9, 2007

In an olive grove on the edge of Nablus, Fuad Amr and his sons keep one eye on the branches they are stripping and the other warily on the Jewish settlement that overlooks their land from a hilltop.

The settlers could descend at any time to intimidate them or even beat them and steal the fruit of their labour, as happens every year across the West Bank in the olive season.

The Palestinian farmers, however, have found unlikely allies - Jewish activists, some of them Orthodox rabbis, who risk violence to protect them.

“I am afraid,” Mr Amr said, as he flung black olives on to a plastic sheet, from which his wife gathered them into a sack. “I’m picking the olives and all the time I’m looking out for settlers. They come in buses, sometimes 20 or 30 of them.”

Last year one of his neighbours was hit on the head by a rock thrown by settlers, who cite the biblical-era Jewish settlements in the area as a claim to the land.

Every year, however, Israeli and foreign peace activists come to protect the Palestinians during the harvest and help them to pick their crops. Some of them have also been beaten by settlers, but they say that their presence prevents the Palestinians from being driven off their fields.

One of the Jewish groups is Rabbis for Human Rights, which aims to promote religion as a point of harmony and justice between Jews and Arabs.

B’Tselem - 19 Oct. 07: Hebron: The Israeli Settlement in the a-Ras Neighborhood

On 19 March 2007, a new settlement was established, in the heart of the a-Ras Palestinian neighborhood. In the months that have passed since then, despite the decision of the Defense Minister at the time to evacuate the settlement, the settlement has grown. Recently, the settlement was connected to the electricity grid, and construction and renovation work is taking place at the site.

Since the settlement has been established, the harm to the Palestinian residents has increased and they have suffered further infringement of their human rights. Palestinians suffer both from the settlers and from Israeli security forces who have been assigned protect the settlement.

Researchers from B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights found that establishment of the settlement and the failure to evacuate it, have led, for example, to the following:

* Extensive abuse and violence by settlers in the new settlement, carried out in front of the eyes of members of the security forces;
* Abuse and violence by security forces posted on or near the new settlement;
* Increased prohibitions on movement enforced by Israeli security forces.

Failure to enforce the law on violent settlers

During the course of the first six months of the new settlement, B’Tselem and ACRI documented scores of cases in which settlers attacked Palestinians in the area. The attacks include beatings, blocking of passage, destruction of property, throwing of stones and eggs, hurling of refuse, glass bottles, and bottles full of urine, urinating from the settlement structure onto the street, spitting, threats, and curses.

Issacharoff, Bitter olive harvest / Justice falls short in the West Bank - Haaretz, October 18, 2007

Abed Al-Fatah Al-Hindi, a resident of the Nablus-area village of Tal, reaches the main highway between the Hawara and Git junctions, near the Gilad Farm. An International Red Cross crew stands waiting for him. He is bleeding from a large scalp wound, and his left eye is swollen.

A paramedic bandages his head, and a volunteer from Rabbis for Human Rights cleans his face. “Every year there’s a mess,” the villager tells Haaretz. “It’s just the first day of the olive harvest, and six settlers attacked me. There wasn’t much we could do.”

Around seven in the morning, Al-Hindi, his sisters and four other men came to the family olive grove, just 200 meters from Gilad Farm, not far from Nablus, one of the dozens of illegal outposts spread across the West Bank. They harvested for three hours, until 10, when they noticed a group of settlers approaching from the direction of the outpost.

“They shouted, ‘This is our grove, you can’t go near it,’ and threw rocks at us,” says Al-Hindi. “One of them held my arm and another beat my head with a rock. I yelled ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, and they said, ‘I don’t give a shit.’ They beat me until they left.”

…Zakhariah Sadah, a resident of the neighboring village of Git and an activist who works with Rabbis for Human Rights, offers his services as a translator…. According to Sadah, after settlers threw rocks at olive harvesters at the nearby Farateh village, he and some Israeli volunteers guarded the groves….

Three days ago, three armed settlers came to the entrance of the village, attacked a group of harvesters and threw everything they had harvested in every direction.

The Israeli Right Has a Peace Plan - by Ran HaCohen, AW, October 16, 2007

While the world holds its breath in anticipation of the Mideast Summit in Annapolis – which, no doubt, will constitute a historic landmark, giving a most significant boost to the economy of that small town in Maryland – the Israeli right wing comes up with a new peace initiative, launched by MK Benny Elon, chairman of the National Union and the Moledet Party, as “The Israeli Initiative,” “a new way of thinking about the conflict, in learning from our mistakes, and in rereading the regional map toward a revitalized and genuine quest to achieve The Right Road to Peace.” Elon also praises his plan in the media as being “beyond Left and Right.” And it has already been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback….

To gain support for this ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories, Elon quotes “Independent polls indicat[ing] that half of all Palestinians are considering moving to a different country.” This might be true – thanks to Benny Elon and his fellow settlers. Years ago, when asked to explain what he meant by “voluntary transfer” of Palestinians, Rabbi Elon gave an example from Jewish law. According to the Halacha, a rabbinical court cannot impose a divorce on a refusing husband; but what it can do is use sanctions, including incarceration and even physical penalties, until the husband succumbs. This is what Elon meant by “voluntary transfer”: making Palestinian life in the Territories unlivable, to the extent that they would rather live somewhere else….

This review does not do justice to Zertal and Eldar’s book, which is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the settlements. However, to really understand the settlers and their treatment of the Palestinians, one should supplement this book by Haim Yavin’s extraordinary series of DVDs entitled Land of the Settlers, for which Zertal and Eldar were consultants. Yavin conveys a sense of the conflict as understood and lived by both settlers and Palestinians in their everyday lives. Zertal and Eldar’s book is less human. But it puts the unforgettable scenes filmed by Yavin in historical perspective.

Lords of the Land - Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar - Books - Review - New York Times, October 14, 2007

Across the Green Line, the West Bank, captured in 1967, is another country, neither Israel nor Palestine, but a lawless place, where the Jewish settler, rifle in one hand and prayer book in the other, is undisputed king. The settlers have their own roads, guarded by the Israeli Army, water, electricity, supplies and — occasional if well-publicized crackdowns aside — substantial impunity from the law. Much of the land on which their settlements stand, was, as Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar detail in this important book, simply stolen. The settlements are illegal, in contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to occupied territories. But for those who claim a divine mandate, the Geneva Conventions count for nothing. According to the United Nations, more than a third of the West Bank is now off limits to Palestinians. A web of Israeli Army checkpoints and obstacles further atomizes what is left of Palestinian society.

“Lords of the Land” is the first complete history of the settlement project. It provides a detailed narrative of injustice, and is profoundly depressing for anyone still hoping for a fair resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even hoping that Jews and Arabs will be seen as equal in the eyes of Israeli law.

The settlers’ great moment of joy: December 8, 1975. After nine days of resisting the Rabin government’s attempts to remove them from Sebastia in the West Bank, settlers hear that Rabin has blinked. Gush Emunim leaders Hanan Porat (right) and Moshe Levinger are hoisted aloft by their supporters. Photo by Moshe Milner, Israel Government Press Office.

Daniel Ben Simon, The return of the settlers, Haaretz, October 2, 2007

I have seen them at Homesh and on other hills, and there seems to be a new breed of fanaticism capable of deeds the previous generation of settlers regarded with awe and fear. Among the thousands of new fanatical youngsters there is no sense of national propriety or fear of the state’s authority.

I have seen them cursing security personnel and spitting at them and flinging racist epithets at Druze and immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia. They did this without the slightest hesitation or fear. This is the generation that follows the generation that achieved the revolution of faith in the territories after the Six-Day War. That same messianic faith that has changed the face of the country, never mind the face of the Middle East, for many years. The latest wildcat settlement attempts - even though they look like youthful actions - are a real challenge to the decision makers, a warning lest they dare follow in the despicable footsteps of their predecessors. The attempts are also aimed at making it clear that what happened in Gush Katif will not happen again.

The big mystery remains the settlers’ Yesha Council. Will it line up with the extremist voices? Will it try to moderate and lower the flames as it did at Kfar Maimon, for which it has paid a high price? After all, these young people have rebelled against its authority and have accused it of collaborating with a government that uproots settlements.

The international meeting in November, where Israel will play a crucial role, will apparently determine whether the Yesha Council will be swept up by the romantic vision of redemption in the style of settler activist Daniella Weiss, or try to reach an understanding with the government.

“CNN Comes Under Unprecedented Attack - Forward.com, September 6, 2007

The three-episode special, “God’s Warriors,” by CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, is being characterized by Jewish groups as equating Jewish extremists in West Bank settlements with Muslim jihadists.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Mahmoud Ibrahim, 10, center, and other Palestinian boys survive by selling goods salvaged at a West Bank dump, near Hebron.

West Bank Boys Dig a Living From Settlers’ Trash - New York Times, September 2, 2007

A l’est de Jérusalem, l’entrelacs de routes aménagées par les Israéliens compromet la viabilité d’un futur Etat palestinien, le Monde, le 1er septembre 2007
D’après un rapport de l’organisation pacifiste israélienne La Paix maintenant, publié lundi 27 août, 315 millions de shekels (55 millions d’euros) ont été investis cette année dans la construction de six routes destinées à relier au territoire israélien des colonies situées à l’est de la “barrière de séparation”, donc promises à la démolition dans la logique d’un accord de paix. L’un des chantiers prévoit notamment de connecter à Jérusalem quatre implantations du sud de Bethléem : Tekoa, Asfar, Maale Amos et Nokdim, lieu de résidence d’Avigdor Lieberman, le ministre des affaires stratégiques, chef du parti d’extrême droite Israël Beitenou. “Cette route doit lui permettre de rejoindre son bureau d’une seule traite, sans croiser le moindre indigène“, raille l’avocat israélien Dany Seideman, fondateur de l’association Ir Amim, qui travaille à une meilleure entente entre Juifs et Arabes dans la Ville sainte.

The police, security services and army are under the constant threat of active resistance on the settlers’ part, and they submit to that threat. The necessary monopoly over this power no longer exists. There are two states; one committed to a Western democratic government, and the other committed to extremist, messianic religious rule.

Bar-Ilan again forced to deal with the extremists in its midst | Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2007

Akiva Eldar, The “College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel” is now called “Ariel University Center of Samaria, Haaretz, August, 2007