THE OLIVE HARVEST: SEASON FOR SETTLER VIOLENCE

An Israeli volunteer assisting Palestinians from the village of Jayyus harvesting their olive trees. People who call such as me an anti semitic, that useless word, do not seem to "get" the fact we are against criminals who slide by posing as Jews not those like this young Jewess who is defying her state and most likely family and friends to counteract evil.

October 13, 2010

By JoUsef

PERMISSION TO NARRATE

There are somethings we can be certain of. The sun will come up tomorrow. What goes up, must come down. But it is safe to say we can add to these reliable astronomical and physical certainties the fact that Israeli settlers will attack Palestinian civilians and their olive groves during the annual fall olive harvest. Sadly, like clockwork, we are witnessing this again.

The New York Times and the Washington Post both ran stories about this today. Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, is quoted in both articles. Here is an excerpt from the Post piece on what he said:

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said that the damages and theft of olives were "not a phenomenon" that was widespread and that there had been similar complaints by settlers reporting property damage by Palestinians. He said that investigations had been opened and several suspects questioned and released, but that no one had been charged.

Rosenfeld's suggestion that such attacks are not a widespread phenomenon does not jive with the recorded facts. I've have authored a few posts on settler violence recently. 

Earlier this month I wrote about the use of arson as a settler tactic after a mosque was set on fire. Then, only last week when video surfaced of two Palestinian children being hit by an Israeli settler in a car, I wrote this post on how often Palestinian civilians become victims of vehicular assault. Our settler violence database allows us to also take a closer look into attacks around olive trees, the harvest and civilians during the harvest.

When I first presented the data in September, I mentioned how a spike in the violence occurs during the olive harvest and expected similar increases in violence this year. Below is a graph which shows this spike in the period just before to just after the olive harvest in 2009. 

What you are looking at is the number of attacks per week across the different governorates. 

Week 1 on the X-Axis corresponds to 9/15/2009-9/21/2009 and Week 9 corresponds to 11/10/2009 - 11/16/2009. The spike, which looks like a mountain in this instance because it is increased violence over a protracted period of time, reaches its peak during week 4, (10/6/2009-10/12/2009) almost exactly one year ago today. 

Also, you can clearly see that targets are located in various areas throughout the West Bank, with the heaviest volume occurring in Nablus and Qalqilya. Clearly, to say this is not a widespread phenomenon is to ignore reality. It is in fact a systematic, predictable, widespread phenomenon.

But I'd be wrong to suggest that settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians and their olive treas or other crops only occurs during the olive harvest season. Rather, attacks by settlers on Palestinian olive trees occur year round. What we see during the olive harvest is increased attacks against Palestinians who are out in the groves collecting olives. 

Often in vulnerable, rural areas where Israeli settlers can attack with little fear of being caught or stopped, Palestinian civilians fall prey to settler attacks more in this period. 

But when we look into attacks on the crops and trees themselves, we see that this is not limited only to the period of the harvest. In fact, when look at our data which covered 18 months from Jan. 2009 to Aug. 2010, only about 30% of attacks on olive trees and groves occur during the harvest (late Sept to early Nov). 

The rest of the attacks are distributed across the remainder of the year with a remarkable concentration in June and July, when 40% of attacks occur. Approximately 10% of all acts of settler violence captured in our database are against the olive trees and occasionally other forms of agriculture. 

With over 100 attacks on trees in an 18 month period, this comes out to an average of approximately 5.5 attacks on trees per month.

The attacks on the trees, a source of pride and livelihood for Palestinians, are perpetrated using different tactics. Arson is one, and it is involved in nearly half of the attacks on the trees. The other half is dominated by uprooting, which involves physically removing the trees from the earth using bulldozers.

Here are some examples:

On June 22rd, 2009, as the sun was coming up, Israeli Settlers from the Bat Ayin settlement set fire to land belonging to the village of Beit Ummar that was filled with fruit bearing trees. They also cut an additional 150 trees. This was one of three different settler attacks that day.

On October 3rd, 2009, at about 1P.M., settlers entered the land of the village of Qaryut in the Nablus governorate and set fire to land with fruit bearing trees. When Palestinians came to douse the flames, the settlers opened fire, preventing them. As a result, 150 trees were destroyed. This was one of two different settler attacks that day.

On Feb. 8th, 2010, at about 4P.M., settlers entered the area of Al-Baqa'a east of Hebron, cut down 80 trees and destroyed wiring and shacks on about 5 dunums of land belonging to a Palestinian civilian. This was one of four different settler attacks that day.

We know settlement of origin in about 43% of these cases. Settlers from the settlements of Ariel, Bat Ayin, Bracha, Eli, Elon Moreh, Hagai, Halmish, Havat Gilad, Kedumim, Kfar Etzion, Kfar Tappuah, Maon, Ma'ale Levona, Negohot, Sassia, Shavei Shomron, Shilo and Yitzhar have been involved in destroying Palestinian olive trees during this period. Those in bold have been most active against Palestinian olive trees.

The trees in or around 46 different Palestinian villages have been targeted during the period we analyzed, and they are too many to list here, but Jit, Khirbet Safa, Qaryut, Burin and Luban Ash-Sharqiyya are among the most targeted. A chart below shows the distribution of settler attacks against olive trees and groves across governorates.

So anyone who is trying to tell you that these attacks are isolated incidents, like the spokesman for the Israeli police, is probably trying to hide the fact that they are failing miserably, perhaps intentionally, to do their job in protecting Palestinian civilians and their property by preventing settler attacks. 

Settler violence prevents Palestinians from reaching significant portions of their most important agricultural product, and continues to be a threat to Palestinian civilians on each and every day of their lives.