wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] As Israeli settlements expand,

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Note #8754 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05289
May 31, 2005

Battle fields

As Israeli settlements expand, Palestinian farmers harvest gall

by Alexa Smith

KUFR TULTH, West Bank - In a colorless city hall reception room, the mayor
talks and the rabbi takes notes.

	"Our problem is all the time with the settlers, the settlers," says
Mayor Husain Al Sarfy. "These people are ... stealing the land, legal or not
... Our experience is that the army only protects the settlers, not us."

	His audience of three Palestinian townspeople nod in agreement.

	There is Hameed deb Odeh, an aging Arab with a scruff of a beard who
wears a black-and-white-checked kaffiah. Settlers began parking house
trailers on his land four years ago, establishing an outpost that links three
large hillside settlements. A connecting road winds through the town's
orchards. The Israeli army has erected a military watchtower to protect the
settlers.

	The mayor says those same settlers have beaten Odeh twice when he
tried to tend to his olive trees. And there have been other altercations.

	"This must stop," he says, adding that he worries that the violence
may escalate into something worse than brawls. And that's a lose-lose
proposition.

	Now there are eight trailers - reportedly hooked up to a water line -
that are inhabited on weekends. A wooden shed houses sheep, geese and dogs.
The asphalt road has been razed by court order, but chunks of tar are stuck
in big globs to the dirt road that cuts through the orchard.

	The locals say the settlers still use the road and animal pens,
despite a court order to stop.

	Residents claim settlers tossed at least some of the asphalt into a
well on Odeh's property. He is awaiting the results of lab tests to see if
his water is contaminated.

	Ibrihim Rashed is also there. He is a middle-aged farmer with a
weather-beaten face, the father of seven. He says he also has been harrassed
in his field, like most of his neighbors. His land is the only inheritance he
has for his kids, and the thought of losing it makes him crazy with worry.

	Rabbi Arik Ascherman keeps writing, responding in Arabic, nodding as
appropriate. A blue kippah is pinned on top of his curly hair. Four other
Israelis who are with him are doing the same.
 
	They arrived early this morning to plant about 150 olive trees on the
sloping hillside where settlers have been chopping down trees,
systematically, row by row. According to the mayor, raids on the fields
usually come in the early morning. Local farmers arrive in their fields to
find them littered with broken tree branches and uprooted trunks.

	So far, five families have lost about 400 trees, according to one of
the Israeli translators. (The Israeli army says only "dozens" of trees have
been destroyed, and soldiers have replanted those.) The farmers say it's too
late in the season for the volunteers to plant more today.

	About a half-dozen more olive trees have rings etched into their
gnarled trunks by  someone wielding a saw.

	That's why Ascherman is here. He's the executive director of Rabbis
for Human Rights (RHR), a progressive Israeli movement that is trying to stop
home demolitions and orchard damage and ease settler violence, usually by
physically standing between settlers and Palestinians.

	On good days, Ascherman negotiates: Haggling with the army for
protected hours in the fields, or staving off hostile settlers until the
day's work is done. Sometimes there are army-tossed stun grenades to clear
from the fields. Sometimes he's caught in the shoving and pushing of settlers
armed with automatic weapons..

	Ascherman has been somewhere on the West Bank every day this week
listening to stories like this one, and worse - from the Hebron Hills to Kufr
Tulth, a West Bank hill town about 15 miles east of Tel Aviv.

	About 5,000 people live here, a world away from Tel Aviv's
cosmopolitan nightclubs, shopping centers and wide thoroughfares. Here,
rickety donkey carts plod along rutted roads carrying farmers into their
fields. Unemployment is about 35 percent, and it is immediately visible:
Young men sit at makeshift sidewalk cafes playing backgammon or smoke one
cigarette after another to pass the time. 

	Last year's olive crop turned a sorry profit. With farmers hesitant
about working in fields, the ripe olives were harvested late, in poor
condition. The situation was made even worse when the Israeli government
imposed restrictions on exports of olive oil. The financial situation is
dire.

	Kufr Tulth is a place where the olive branch - a universal symbol of
peace - is becoming an instrument of terror.

	"We all the time feel scared," says the mayor. No one goes to the
fields alone anymore, he says.

	So the latest question is: Who should accompany them? Israeli
soldiers, who are on-site but may need orders to respond? Rabbis like
Ascherman and his Israeli volunteers who can't be here 24 hours a day? Or
police officers trained to monitor settler unrest and quell violence as it
arises?

	Town leaders are still debating what to do. But everyone knows that
the trees need care, or else this year's harvest will be worse than last.

	THIS IS UNENDING WORK for Asherman, who is edgy about the settler
violence and the Israeli army's reaction. He says that the military opts to
keep Palestinians out of the fields - or restrict their access to their land
- but do little to deter the settlers' aggression.

	"Palestinians need to get to their land 365 days a year, and it is
the duty of the security forces to protect that right," Asherman says as he
drives past the settlements of Ma'le Shomron, Ginot Shomron and Karnei
Shomron, which all but surround Kufr Tulth and its fields.

	He thinks the Israeli army ought to protect Palestinian civilians,
and says he has "no problem working with the army guarding our activities."

	So far, he has enlisted the help of a sympathetic Knesset member, who
got financial compensation from the military for families whose olive trees
were chopped up by settlers while Israeli soldiers watched. Asherman is
hoping the case established a legal precedent.

	He has put Rashed in touch with the police and secured a commitment
from one officer to visit the village the next day. He says police often do a
better job than the military of protecting Palestinian civilians: The army
often assumes its role is to protect Israelis in the occupied areas, whatever
they do.

	"This year, we've seen - in place after place - no olives on the
trees, or olives in poor condition," Asherman says. "They're not stolen or
poisoned. But it is the cumulative effect of not getting out there year after
year to tend them. Farmers need to prune, to plow. And they can't."

	Asherman's organization built its reputation in Israel by
accompanying Palestinians at olive-picking-time and by planting thousands of
olive trees a year to replace the uprooted ones.

	RHR and several other human rights groups in Israel have filed suit
in the Israeli High Court, insisting that the army protect Palestinians in
the occupied territories and develop strategies that give farmers easier
access to their land.

	After a March 1 court hearing, the army has 45 days to propose other
solutions.

	"That's positive," Ascherman says. At least it appears that judges
understand the underlying issues, and that the army agrees in principle, he
says, "But we can't say that we've won it yet."

	So he's trying to add Kufr Tulth to the crammed schedule RHR is
creating for Israelis to help Palestinians plow and prune their West Bank
fields and to harvest teh fruit when it ripens.

	"We might be able to help here," he says. "I don't want to be
overconfident, but there is a reasonable chance, a small chance. ... The
problem is: We might be able to get some actions taken here, but we can't be
here 24 hours a day. The settlers can be here anytime they want to be."

	NO ONE IS MORE AWARE of that vulnerability than Odeh and his
neighbors, whose olive groves are surrounded by Israeli volunteers tromping
through the fields to survey the damage first-hand.

	Wildflowers are opening in the valley below, and the hills are deep
green.

	"They're taking food from us," one old man says, pointing to an area
where settlers have torn out crops, such as potatoes, turnips and squash, and
planted flowers instead.

	A Palestinian named Fuad says the Israelis "want to confiscate the
land, take it away."

	Odeh's eyes fill slowly, then he begins to cry. 

	"Where," he asks, "can I go?"

	It's the kind of conversation Benny Geffen, an Israeli volunteer, has
heard before, too many times. A retired Israeli government official with
expertise in agronomy, Geffen sees the stark reality facing the farmers. 

	That's why he's here.

	"We need to help these people," he says. "That's just human."

	During the picking season, he says, he'll be out every day. "Our
actions may throw a few drops of water on the flames," he says.

	He is angry about the unchecked behavior of five or six of the
settlers. "It's just an excuse to torture the locals," he says. "It's
horrible."

	Peace Now, a pacifist Israeli group that monitors settlement
activity, told the Presbyterian News Service that there are 145 veterans'
settlements and 99 outposts, or fledgling settlements. Fifty of the outposts
were established after March 1, 2001. Peace Now says all are illegal,
according to international law.

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