Olive Harvest: A Dangerous Resistance

"Why do you think the Israelis continue to destroy this beautiful land by building up so many monstrous checkpoints and dropping so many bombs?" I asked our Palestinian driver, a long-time nonviolent activist leading our caravan of over 60 internationals, Israelis, and Palestinians heading to the olive harvest. Despite a life-time of activism, this man has been more careful lately with his resistance after having recently spent an unimaginable six months in Israeli prisons, suffering untold abuse.

"They want to make us all leave," he responded. "They want to make it so unbearable for us here that we choose to leave, so they can take all the land for themselves."

 

We were on our way to Beita, a Palestinian village north of Ramallah, (read about Beita's amazing history of organized resistance here) to assist families in harvesting their olives. A joyful family event that takes place for about a month each fall, olive harvesting has become a major symbol of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. Every year, Palestinians risk arrest, injury, and even death by harvesting olives on their own land. Soldiers prevent Palestinians from harvesting by randomly declaring large tracts of land "closed military zones," arresting and disappearing anybody who enters their own fields. Illegal Israeli settlers viciously attack Palestinians and international observers, beating them with metal pipes and shooting at them with live fire.

The area's Popular Committee (the name given to the multiple Palestinian grassroots networks organizing the nonviolent resistance to the ethnic cleansing) had coordinated the international support for day. The hillside where we would be harvesting was full of hundreds of trees, and close by were several new illegal settler "outposts" - groups of trailer homes used by ideological Israelis to stake claim to land. Though the more than 225 settler outposts are illegal even by Israeli law (all Israeli settlements, even the 134 Israeli sanctioned ones, are illegal according to international law), continue to be defended and protected by the Israeli military.

Upon our arrival, we learned that three Palestinian villagers had already been beaten by illegal Israeli settlers and taken to the hospital. About seven soldiers brandishing automatic weapons - their fingers on the triggers - met us at the top of the mountain. Aggressively, they barked out their declaration that Palestinians were now "forbidden" to access certain tracts of land where they could harvest their own olives. Though we stayed where they told us to, the soldiers soon unleashed sound grenades and tear gas upon our group anyways as a form of intimidation, and stood watch as a menacing group of seven illegal settlers harassed our group. One journalist with our group was shot in the foot with a tear gas cannister, and needed medical attention.

Throughout the morning, as we warily harvested olives, several military and settler security vehicles continued to drive around us, demonstrating how the Israeli military is in collaboration with the movements of illegal Israeli settlers. More soldiers arrived to let us know of new areas of land that were now also "forbidden" to harvest from.

After a few hours, chaos broke out. On a hill across the way, illegal settlers firebombed a Palestinian vehicle - a new land rover - that was being used to cart olives down the mountain.

Large flames and plumes of smoke consumed the car as a group of about 30 masked illegal Israeli settlers carrying clubs and pistols began attacking Palestinian harvesters with stones. About half of our group moved toward the harvesters and the burning car to offer protective presence while the other half stayed back to stay with other harvesters, to film, and to take cover. As we watched more illegal Israeli settlers move along the ridge, we heard live fire and shouts of "Get down! Take cover!"

"Yalla! Let's go!" shouted our Palestinian organizers with urgency, as they ushered us down the steep, rocky hillside. We ran from the live ammunition for about 15 minutes, helping one another slide down breaks in the rock terraces, until Palestinian vans picked us up and brought us to our vehicles parked safely at the bottom.

Members of the Palestinian Popular Committee who had been interacting the most closely with the settlers brought us hot sandwiches that they had prepared for us in advance. We counted our numbers to make sure all were safe.

A total of twenty were injured, eleven Palestinians taken to the hospital. A Palestinian suffered a gunshot wound by an Israeli settler; and one solidarity activist was evacuated to a hospital after having been beaten with batons by Israeli settlers, breaking her arm. A total of eight cars were set on fire, and one ambulance was flipped over.

"This is what they have to experience every day," remarked one stunned international volunteer. Most of us were at a loss for words. Later that evening, we read the news dispatches of similarly violent olive harvest events around the West Bank. (See full list of injuries at Beita, as well as attacks from around the West Bank on that SAME DAY here.)

As we were driving to the next site where we would harvest the next day, I asked our driver if the day had gone as he had expected. "Yes," he replied soberly. "We expected the violence. But it was good to have so many of us. It gives the villagers courage to continue."

And continue they have. The very next day, the villagers of Beita returned to the hillside to harvest and show that they would not be intimidated.

Unfortunately, as it has happened in almost every harvesting location around the West Bank in the last couple of days, the military prevented the harvest from continuing.

Given such a violent start to the olive harvest season, it is looking like this year harvesting olives will be a dangerous form of resistance for Palestinians. Those who choose not to harvest because of fear of violence will lose their groves due to Israel's absentee property law.

Many people here believe that the ceasefire Israel was forced to sign in Gaza, while a relief for so many, will now cause the Israeli military and illegal settlers to focus their attacks on the West Bank, and speed up their plan of ethnic cleansing. It has already begun.

The Beauty of Life

I have lived in Ingham County, Michigan for 55 years. I love my community, the familiar spaces, sounds, smells, people, and routine.

At this time, I have been traveling in the Middle East for 3 weeks and I am so happy. I am overwhelmed by the peace, beauty, friendship and hospitality of the people. They are connected to the earth, seasons, ancestors, towns, traditions, and God. 

The experiences that are familiar to them are similar and different from those in my life. 

In my home when company arrives, I offer them tea varieties from a box. Last week I was walking to a home to provide overnight accompaniment with my buddy. We got mixed up and arrived at a home where 8 young men were sitting in the garden. Spotting us as Americans they called to us: “Welcome, come up, welcome, come sit. Have some tea.” We were expecting to arrive at the home of a mother with two daughters; we suspected we had made a mistake. I looked in my notebook and asked if they could help us find the correct family. It was the next farm over. Again these young men offered tea, rest and help.

Walking with my traveling companions to the corner store, we noticed that school had been let out. Many children in the store had change for a “sweety” (candy). The public school teaches English and a few children practiced greeting us with basic phrases. It worked! We replied back and now began chatting. Something I have noticed here is the deep love the children have for each other. Young boys aged 10 to 14 walk along the road often holding hands or walking arm in arm. The sounds of laughter during soccer matches, singing, and call to prayer soothes the ears and fills the heart. It's amazing to think that Jesus walked these same roads.

The olive harvest begins up North this week and everything is in bloom. 

early olive harvest

Figs picked from a tree, lemons, limes, cucumbers, tomatoes, pomegranates, guavas, persimmons, apples, bananas, and grapefruits overflow from boxes and bins.

cucumber plants

Everywhere around me is teeming with life. Even the rooming house has adopted a kitten and a puppy. It can feel overwhelming to care for these abandoned animals, except taking care of a little life helps comforts our souls. We are human; we are peace.

Every morning Palestinian families wake with the dawn and do chores. The farms are self-sufficient. Solar panels face the sun, water containers on the roof, filled weekly to provide fresh water. The family will feed, water and milk the goats, bake fresh break, brew tea, feed chickens and sheep. Then the children clean up, put on their uniforms and walk to school. They walk with handfuls of warm bread and hugs and kisses from their parents. They sing and chat. They love.

So much beauty in the routine of daily life. I start to cry when I think about the day we have to leave this ancestral land.

Olive harvesting as experienced through our eyes this season; part I : Burin

“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.”

― Mahmoud Darwish

As the olive harvesting season nears completion our team felt there were a lot of things worth sharing from our days immersed in the olive picking. We didn't happen to witness any of the violent settler attacks that took place this year. They happened but not where we were picking. Were we in the wrong place or were we the reason it did not become a problem area. Who knows? Sometimes the less dramatic stories need to be shared and it’s precisely those that we’ll try to relate in this blog entry as seen through our eyes.

Burin – amidst the settlements

The olive harvest this year started in early October and timed perfectly with our team’s arrival in Huwwara. Neighboring Burin was the first village where both picking and our work as team started.

Because of its location between mountains topped by two Israeli settlements Yizhar(with the Yitzar outpost) and Bracha, Burin falls completely into Area C of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control. Ytzhar is at the forefront of the so called "price tag" policy or campaign which calls for attacks against Palestinians in retaliation for actions of the Israeli government against West Bank settlements (for more information please visit: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/yitzhar-extremists-all-settlers-must-fight-construction-freeze-1.287512)

Yitzhar settlement

Those who own olive grove land must receive “prior coordination” from the Israeli Civil Administration (a part of the military administration) in order to be able to tend to their land. Many Palestinians cannot prove land ownership as customary traditions saw land being passed down from one generation to the next without the necessity for formal land registration. Others refuse to apply for “permission”, or if it is given, will only pick on days without it. We accompanied some families who had chosen to pick without permission from the Israeli army. The first day we picked a hundred meters away from Bracha. We saw the olive trees bordering the settlement that had been set on fire earlier in June this year along with about 1500 other trees were reported to have been burned in a single settler’s attack. The total number of trees reported to be destroyed in Burin this year goes up to 4000 and this number seems to be only going up every year. (http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=3412). (NOTE: We are unable to verify the accuracy of this data. 4000 seems extremely high given the data in the UN report of our previous blog.)

The second day we accompanied another family who chose to harvest without permission from the army. Despite our visibility from and proximity to the settlement of Yitzar, we could not help but be awed by the fact that these were obviously days devoid of fear. Farmers sang songs and joked around with internationals under the strong sun. This seemed as much of an act of resistance as picking without permission.

After a couple of days of picking with different families in Burin, we started to see familiar faces and in turn villagers also started recognizing us. While waiting at the village’s center for our work assignmetn, we were the object of unexpected gestures of kindness. A man selling flowers once approached us and merely handed a flower without saying a word, then went back to his morning duties. The small falafel shop sent a kid carrying some tasty sandwich for our second breakfast of the day. It felt good to be connected to these incredibly nice people and receiving these small but deeply appreciated tokens.

MPT Returns to Palestine: Checkpoints, Training and the Wall

Seeing the segragation wall in person, it is bleak and grey and unexpectedly huge. In the areas we have travelled so far, it is much more than a “security fence” (an Israeli term). It is 25 feet high, made of thick slabs of cold, grey concrete and it is as much a barrier to the livelihood of the Palestinians as it is a physical borderline. In fact, this "border" continues to creep further and further into Palestinian lands as Israel expands.

As you travel along the wall you can see graffiti and art that has been created on the Palestinian side. In one of the pictures below, you can see a representation of one big hand with five of the world’s religions, each an equal “finger.” We also saw some other notable art and commentary on the wall, including the message “ctl+alt+delete,” and a drawing of Gandhi. Both are near Ramallah (pictures above). There is controversy over art on the wall; many Palestinians question whether it is good to make such a thing “beautiful” in any way.

Outside the Gilo 300 Checkpoint at 7:00am... hundreds in line...

At their first crossing from Palestine into Israel proper (at Gilo/Checkpoint 300) on Monday, Martha and Nicole waited in a terminal to cross from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for 1 hour and 20 minutes, along with hundreds of Palestinians. Many Palestinians must do this daily to get to work or family. The Israeli guards noticed the international team members and motioned them up to cut to the front of the line. From what Palestinian men waiting at the checkpoint said and the experience of previous teams, it is common to allow internationals to skip the line—or allow them to cross even when Palestinians are being held back. (MPT team members declined the invitation and waited in solidarity, refusing to accept the Israeli military supervisor’s invitation—while timing the hold-up and documenting the situation as best they could.)

On Wednesday and Thursday, the team completed a two-day training in Ramallah given by Palestinians and Internationals. The training reinforced our commitment to Palestinian-led action. We received good information about current situations and ongoing actions, had a chance to review nonviolence techniques, and met several dedicated people.

There are over 600 checkpoints, including those at the wall, fixed military roadblocks, are also “flying” roadblocks which can pop up at any time and place. At least twice on our trip between Ramallah and Bethlehem, our service (group taxi) joined lines of cars stretching as far as we could see. There was no way for the team to know for sure what the hold up was, since traffic was moving again by the time we got close enough to see the military jeep (and once we saw an ambulance, so there may have been an accident). However, checkpoints often result in long unexpected delays in the area and are another impediment to the movement of Palestinians in their own land.

Also on the ride to and from Ramallah, the team saw several Bedouin tent and shanty villages (pictured above) with sheep, goats, donkeys, and poultry. One effect of Israeli illegal settlements/expansion is that the historically nomadic Bedouins are forced off their traditional grazing land, and their nomadic travel routes are cut off. There is concern over a particular lack of provision for schooling, job training, electricity, water, sewage, or housing for these displaced people. International peaceworkers have been taking action to do what they can to support some Bedouin groups.


Finally, the trip also allowed us to see acres of devastated olive groves, some stretching far into the distance. (You can compare the devastated fields in the picture below with the ancient preserved olive tree shown above.) As shown in the movie Bil’in Habititi, Israeli forces have cut down countless olive trees on Palestinian land, destroying the livlihood of families who rely on olive oil harvests—as well as an important environmental, historical and agricultural resource.

Of course, since our arrival we have also been thoroughly cleaning the apartment, settling in, and learning to get around by group taxi and bus—oh, and of course on foot! We’ve also been meeting some of the Palestinians we work with, as well as our neighbors. Grocery shopping is a great chance to learn about Palestinian food, take advantage of lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, use some of our Arabic words, and get familiar with the money and prices. Here in Bethlehem, Israeli goods dominate the marketplace (perhaps in part due to the checkpoint at Jerusalem limiting any influx of Palestinian goods). We are doing our best to support Palestinian products, brands, and shops! The picture below is a busy shopping area in Ramallah, a much larger and busier area than the small town near Bethlehem where we live.

Check back in a few days for a report on our first demonstration as a team, and more...