Category: Journals - Page 106 - International Solidarity Movement

Olive Harvest Reflections

by Jane Smith, December 10th

I have been back in Palestine for a week. Although the violence and tension is less than in the early years of the Intifada, the oppressive control of Palestinian life is worse than ever. People are losing hope.

Despite this, I feel so fortunate to be here during the olive harvest and have been welcomed with incredible generosity and open heartedness. I have climbed olive trees and experienced the beauty of harvesting; feeling ripe olives running through my fingers, and hearing them fall like huge drops of rain on the tarpaulin below. Resting in the shade of the olive groves I have shared much laughter and amazing picnics with Palestinian families, who despite hardship, danger and suffering retain their humanity and infectious sparkle.

The olive harvest is a crucial time of year and is part of the very fabric of Palestinian society. Many farmers have suffered huge land loss and with this, mounting poverty. Land has been confiscated to build the Apartheid Wall, to expand Israeli settlements (whose very existence is illegal under International Law) and to construct “settler only” roads. Many farmers have land which is virtually inaccessible, falling behind the Wall, and have to negotiate a punitive system of permits and locked agricultural gates. Internationals offer accompaniment to farmers who are in danger, from both the Israeli Army and armed Israeli settlers. We stand in solidarity in the struggle to preserve land and livelihood.

I have been working in the village of Aw Zawiya, in Salfit district, central West Bank . The Apartheid Wall is already complete on one side of the village, resulting in massive land loss. Over the coming months Az Zawiya will be imprisoned on a further two sides. Many Palestinian villages are being strangled by “Ariel finger” which cuts deep into the West Bank, forming a “land corridor” between Ariel settlement and Tel Aviv.

The village of Aw Zawiya will become isolated into an enclave, along with the villages of Rafat and Deir Ballut, inaccessible to currently neighbouring villages. The army can easily control the one road into the village – a tunnel running under a “settler only” road. Anyone who has any doubts about whether Apartheid is really happening need only take a look at the segregated road system.

The main problems the farmers from Aw Zawiya face are from Israeli settlers. Although the settlements in that area are not particularly radical, the gun is commonplace. Whilst accompanying one family we were forced to walk for 100 meters through a dark, claustrophobic drain which ran under the “settler only” road. Shortly after emerging from the drain we met the army, controlling a small break in the Wall. An elderly man, alone and trying to reach a hospital appointment, was turned away. He did not have the “right” ID. In fact he was trying to save time and money, taking a short cut along a route that would have been possible before the Wall was built. Internationals negotiated for 2 hours with the army to be able to join the Palestinian family we were accompanying, whose land was dangerously close to a settlement.

Another family we accompanied have land which now lies within an Israeli settlement. They had to pass through the agricultural gate at Mas’ha village in order to harvest their olives. Permits to reach this land are only given during limited periods during the year, and only to older people. The gate is opened and closed once a day, and does not allow for a full days work. Palestinians have no choice or control over when they go to their land.

We also harvested with a family from the village of Haris. Their land was overgrown and the trees had not been pruned, a result of the farmer being unable to safely access his fields. Revava settlement was built on their land, and their remaining trees (from the 500 which were cut down) are very close to the settlement. Revava is becoming increasingly radicalised, and there are growing numbers of attacks, intimidation and threats made towards Palestinian farmers. The first morning we were met by armed settlement “security”, who made veiled threats to shoot if we did not leave. They were joined by the Israeli army. Throughout the 2 days we had many more visits from both the army and “security”, but the harvesting continued. More than in other places we could feel our international presence making a difference. This, of course, is only possible because of deep seated racism.

In a village near Nablus, another group of Internationals accompanied a family to their land which now has an Israeli watchtower built on it. They had not stepped foot in these groves for 6 years, for fear of being shot. International accompaniment not only increases the feeling of safety for the farmers, but can make a concrete difference in negotiations with the army.

Recently I accompanied a family to their land in the village of Orif, near Nablus. The day before they had been stoned by settlers; one man needed medical treatment. In Occupied Palestine the parameters change. I feel relief that it was rocks and not bullets. There have been many times when Palestinians have been threatened by armed settlers, and occasions when this has resulted in serious injury or death.

The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in June this year that Palestinians have a right to property, and a right to enter and work their land. The army and police are legally obligated to take action to protect Palestinian farmers and their property from attack. This ruling is a victory for the recognition of Palestinian rights. What remains to be seen is its effects on the ground. There have been several occasions this year when it has made a difference, when adequate army protection was given to farmers to protect them from settler attacks. There is still a long, long way to go before farmers have free and safe access to their land. In the meantime internationals continue to offer accompaniment, armed with our international privilege, our cameras, our phones and a copy of the High Court decision.

Buying Palestinian olive oil is a concrete act of solidarity www.zaytoun.org

To join the olive harvest next autumn go to www.iwps-pal.org, www.palsolidarity.org www.zaytoun.org, www.rhr.israel.net

From the inside looking out: The Passion of Mordechai Vanunu

by Jerry Levin, December 3rd

A friend responding to my latest report on the trials of Mordechai Vanunu (See From The Inside Looking Out report-73, December 2, 2006: Mordechai Vanunu and the Perils of Speaking English) described his travails as a “pathetic little Kafka tale.” Down home in Alabama we have another way of describing those ordeals, You can’t win for losing.”

Take for instance his civil suit against the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharanot. It was launched while he was still in prison for revealing Israel’s secret atomic and hydrogen bomb making program through an article in the London Times. “The newspaper published stories about me saying I was sending information out how to build bombs to the Hamas,”said a still incredulous Mordechai. “When I came out of prison the trial started.”

“We bring to testify the head of the Shabak [Ed: aka Shin Bet, the Secret Service, equivalent to the FBI in the United States]. He said that he received the information from his people and that he didn’t check it. And we proved that I don’t know any information about how to make bombs. But a year ago they win in the court.”

“How? Why?”

“The judge decided that the newspaper has the right to publish the story because it received it from the Shabak. Shabak is like the voice of god.”

“So you lost.”

“Big.”

“What do you mean, “big?”

“Well, if newspapers publish lies about me, you would think I have the right to receive compensation from the newspapers and they would be denied to publish more lies. But the judge decided, no, I should pay Yediot Aharanot $10,000.00. How can a newspaper be damaged by publishing such stories about me? So we are appealing this decision. The hearing could be soon.”

Turning to the criminal charges against him for speaking to foreign journalists, I asked if his defense intends to call any more witnesses beyond the army general who signed the orders restricting his freedom of movement and speech.

“Yes, Peter Hounam, the reporter who in 1986 wrote the story I give the London Times about Israel’s nuclear bomb program. They have charged me that when I was released from prison in 2005, he was involved in a big interview which I gave to the BBC. But the allegation is not true because the interview was done by an Israeli journalist. But they deported him anyway. So we are negotiating about this,”

“About what?”

“Well, he has accepted to come, but the government wants to complicate the case by insisting to decide that they can refuse to let him come back. So they are saying he must have the same restrictions on him that they put on me. But he says that if they confine him to a hotel he will not come.”

“So what is being negotiated?”

“We accept not to bring him, if the government cancels this charge about the BBC interview. If they don’t take it out, we will bring him.”

“Do you see an element of persecution in all this governmental pressure?”

Unhesitatingly, Mordechai answered. “There is. It is my Christianity that they cannot accept. That is the source of my problems with my case.”

“All?”

“Yes, because even if they understand they need to make justice with me and let me go and let me speak, they have a problem with their people. What to do about a Christian man who was born a Jewish man who became a Christian and who received respect from all over the world. They don’t want this man to be receiving a good image especially with the young Israeli generation. So that is the first point.

“The second point is, because Israel is a Jewish State, the government believes they have the right to have the bomb. But I am coming and saying they don’t need to have the bomb. They need to make peace. And that is another source of the problem for them. But even with that I don’t understand why they are persecuting me. What are they afraid from?”

“But they say they know what they are afraid from. They say you have more secrets.”

“But they know that this is blah, blah, blah, because my secrets are twenty years old. All this nuclear weapons has continued to develop and all what I had was published twenty years ago. There is nothing new from me. And now North Korea has built the bomb. Iran is going to build the bomb. So what information can I contribute when it is twenty years old? Israel should let me go. They have had their revenge. Even killers murders in Israel are released after fifteen years, seventeen years. They let them go. Run away do what ever they want.”

“Are you hopeful?”

“I have my scenario that includes the hope that Israelis are also human beings and that one day they will wake up because they must wake up and become normal society. Because there still is danger that what they saw in the past one hundred fifty years, all those extreme nationalists, dictators, right wings that brought tyranny to Italy, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Russia all of them collapsed because they were not normal society. Their people woke up because they wanted normal society. But here we don’t have normal society. Here is Jewish religion society and even liberals here are speaking like they are dictators.

“Israel is not like the United States. People came from Europe to build new society in the name of freedom, liberty for all the human beings. But they didn’t respect the Indians in the beginning and the blacks. But then one day they woke up and start giving them rights. That is what normal society does. But here it is not normal society. It is about religion. So my scenario is when the Israel people who want normal society wake up it will be a total disaster for the Jewish
state.”

“Supposing five years from now when I’m eighty and you are fifty-five, we are still here talking about your situation; we are talking about how every year the government renews the restrictions and the courts agree; and we are talking about your scenario that has stayed just a
dream?”

“I hope when you are eighty I will meet you in Washington DC. But for that to be we need to do some extraordinary acts to get out from here.

“What kind of extraordinary acts?”

“I can tell you this way. Israel kidnapped me from Rome in 1986 and put me in prison. So I’m calling to the CIA and to all the world to kidnap me from Israel.”

“Kidnap you?”

“Yes, if some one, or any organization will help me to try to get out from here. I will do it. And the Israelis know it very well. I am ready to leave the country in any way.”

“Even being spirited out?”

“Yes, because I am not allowed to go to foreign embassies where I can ask for asylum. That’s why they watch me, because they don’t want me to get out from here.”

“You want the CIA, special forces, whatever to do a reverse Entebbe?”

“Yes,” he said with a big grin, “the Marines. But I don’t think your military your defense establishment like me. Otherwise they would have helped me long ago. But the real government of the United States is the Pentagon. That is the power behind Israel. They give Israel two billion dollars and military power in support. And so those military maybe don’t like me because I am speaking against nuclear weapons and I am speaking for peace. So they are worried.”

“What you want to do is dangerous.”

“Yes. But you have done it. So I will be happy for anyone to take me out from this prison.”

To receive CPT Hebron’s weekly reports, news alerts and other messages concerning its violence reduction activities, send your request to be added to its E-mail list to cptheb@palnet.com. And to discover more about Christian Peacemaker Teams, please visit the website at: www.cpt.org.

The olive doesn’t fall far from the tree

by Joey Weinberg

Photos by Pippi Lundgrensen

Today (Thursday, Nov 16) is definitely a good day to pick some olives; in fact, with the heavy rain from yesterday, it is even better that we are doing this as soon as possible. Too much rain makes problems for the harvest and for the olives harvested (I’m not sure why but too much water is no good), so it is good that we’re harvesting today. Full of early morning coffee and tea, we are going to pick olives with a couple of Faroun villagers in their olive groves, which lie across the street from the village (just south of Tulkarem). So, if you live in Faroun and have land that you want to get to, all you have to do is cross a street.

I rarely think of crossing a street as difficult, but our friend Yusef has to go through a lot of trouble to cross this street. Immediately on either side of the street is a tall fence loaded with electronic sensors; on either side of this fence is a wide pathway, then another fence, then a bunch of razor wire, and then a trench.

You see, like so many Palestinian villages, Yusef’s village, Faroun, is cut off from its agricultural land by Israel’s annexation wall. Just like Bil’in, Jayyus and many other rural communities, the main road through the village comes to a dead end at the annexation fence. Unlike the two other villages I named though, at the place where the main road through Faroun meets the annexation fence there is no gate through which to pass, so access is a bit trickier. So, early this morning, like we did yesterday morning, I, a few foreigners and our friend Yusef start our trek through the village of Faroun to Faroun’s agricultural land by walking around the village — yes, around the village.

The nearest point of access between Faroun the village and Faroun the agricultural land is off a road that goes around the village. This road around the village has a turnoff which comes to an end at an Israeli checkpoint. On the other side of this checkpoint is a road which goes directly to Yusef’s land, but the road is a restricted access road open only to Israelis and the few native Palestinians who hold Israeli work permits. To access the 4500 dunums (roughly 900 acres) of Faroun land which lie between the Green Line and Israel’s annexation fence, the Faroun residents must first get a permit from Israel, and those with permits must travel an additional 7-9km to the Jubara checkpoint to present their permit to the soldiers. Even with the permit, access ultimately depends on the discretion of the Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint.

For the first time in two years, Israel has granted Yusef access to his land, and he now carries a permit good for one month. Even with this permit, there are some additional barriers: the nearest point of access to his land, where the village road meets the Israeli road, is at this checkpoint through which, technically, he is not allowed to pass.

You see, Yusef’s land access permit is meaningless at the nearest checkpoint, as it only allows him access to his land, not to the State of Israel, and the road to his land is officially claimed as part of the State of Israel. However, this morning we decide that, since Yusef has four foreigners with him, we’d try to pass through this checkpoint, hoping that, in the presence of foreigners, the Israeli soldiers would let everyone through. We successfully passed through with Jawad yesterday, so why not try again?

This early in the morning there is no line. As we reach the checkpoint, the casual interrogation begins. “Why are you here?”, “Where are you from, etc.” Yusef hands over his permit, and, after another soldier arrives to debate the status of this permit, the first soldier turns to me and says, “You can pass here, but he cannot pass.” To which we ask, “Why? He lives here — his olive grove is just 100 meters up this road. Why can foreigners pass and this man can’t? We think it’s ridiculous that we can go to his land and he can’t. What is the problem?”

To this the second soldier replied, “It is complicated, but…” and explained that, as mentioned earlier, only Israelis or those who have a permit to work in Israel can pass. After about thirty minutes trying to get the soldier to change his mind –“this is silly, we’re only going 100 meters down the road, can you call your superiors, etc.”– a commander offers Yusef a compromise. “You can escort them to the land, then you must return here and go around to pass through the proper checkpoint.” This is just too stupid to be real. Yusef heads back to catch a ride to the Jubara checkpoint, and the four of us walk up the restricted road to his land.

We arrive in the grove to find Yusef’s cousin and his mother pouring the tea, so we have some tea and get started right away. First, we lay plastic tarp on the ground, then some of us start stripping the tree of olives ether by hand or with a small, hand-held rake, letting olives fall to the tarp beneath the tree. Cousin Raed –who has a 3-month permit– and a family friend get in the trees to show us foreigners how real work gets done.

Some of these trees are so loaded with olives that it takes a group of five people one hour to finish one tree, but some of them are underdeveloped and don’t have much fruit. For the small or underdeveloped trees, we don’t bother laying a tarp, instead plucking the olives by hand and catching them with buckets or aprons. We get a pretty good rhythm going: as some of us finish one tree, others get started on another. We clear away two years of undergrowth and scrub brush to prepare the area to lay a tarp down, then start plucking, yanking, raking, and picking olives. We spend the rest of the morning repeating the process.

Occasionally one or two of us collect olives from the ground, and occasionally we pass around a bottle of water. Occasionally one or two of us gets a bit winded from the work or squints a bit too much from all the sunshine, and occasionally one of us will make the others laugh by making monkey noises from up in an olive tree. My role is not only to harvest but also to periodically munch on partially-dried olives. Only once did I almost fall from a tree.

We stop for lunch at around 11:30AM; I don’t know where it came from; Um Yusef must have carried it with her, because one minute she’s putting olives in buckets and the next she’s telling us to sit and eat, which is probably my favorite thing to do here. Maybe harvesting olives is a close second, but eating ranks pretty high.

People here like their guests to eat, and in this I fancy myself an overachiever. If only my appetite matched my enthusiasm, I would be a Palestinian children’s story or some sort of Saint for food-eaters. But it’s not only the food but the sharing — the culture of collectivism I’m slowly getting accustomed to. Cooking Arabic coffee over a campfire, sipping tea under an olive tree, and keeping such great company make it quite easy to forget the utter stupidity, casual inhumanity and naked brutality of the circumstances which have brought us here. At the moment I see no soldiers, no police, no weapons, no racism and hate… and I am truly happy to be here. Should I feel ashamed for having such a good time with Yusef, Raed, and the rest of our hosts? It really doesn’t feel like work.

As the Palestinian olive harvest nears its end, I consider the persistence of these farmers who continue to defy the theft and expropriation of their land: these farmers are the last line of defense for Palestine’s very survival. In fact, the olive harvest itself may be the biggest roadblock to a seemingly impending erasure of a culture.

Of course you can discuss perhaps the economics of the olive, the olive tree, olive oil and the region, but this resistance act is not an economic act. The travel restrictions which make import/export unavailable to Palesinians renders any such discussion almost pointless. The economics? There are none. Israel has pretty much managed to sever the economic ties between the Palestinians and their most famous domestic product –the olive– through travel restrictions. Under this occupation, farming your olives is much less a profit venture than a necessary way to be what you are. It is no longer profitable to maintain your groves, pick your olives, and simply be what you are — an olive farmer. Hell, in some circumstances it is not even possible.

So why continue? Why do these people bang their heads against the wall? Why spend all available time jumping through Israel’s hoops to get permits, then walking one or two hours out of the way just to work as an olive farmer and not make a living? You could say that many of these farmers have nothing to gain and everything to lose. The very fact that these farmers continue to work in their fields and on their lands may be the biggest act of defiance and complete noncooperation I have seen: they simply refuse to disappear. These people are as solid and as strong as the hundreds-year-old trees they care for, as persistent as the thousands-year-old traditions they keep. As they refuse to let the occupation kill their traditions and their lands, they refuse to let the occupation kill their spirits.

You could say that the olive doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Streets of Hate: a journal entry on attacks in Hebron

by aspiringnomad, November 20th

His panic-stricken little face lights up when he receives the information that we’ll escort him home, sending him skipping merrily down the road on an errand to buy potatoes. This is the Palestinian Authority controlled area of Hebron, and as we cross through Tel Rumeida checkpoint to the other side in order to wait for the Palestinian boy’s return, we soon discover the source of his fear.

We are confronted by around 100 ultra-orthodox Jews, who are gathered in Hebron to mark ‘Hebron day’, one of whom shouts “You know that Jesus is gay?”. None of us really react to this arbitrary taunt, however it does serve to focus the crowd’s attentions squarely on our small group of human rights workers. Another shouts “What are you doing here?”

“Tourists” I reply, believing this to be the safest response under the circumstances. The crowd then begins chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — we are quickly designated the ‘other’. The mob mentality takes on an oppressive and ugly turn; now almost a single entity justifying almost any excess as long as it is directed towards the ‘other’. The crowd edges forward “You love Palestinians” one of them shouts, spitting in a human rights worker’s face.

The first stone had been cast: saliva rains down on us and people jump above one another to be able to deliver their contempt. We are shoved and kicked repeatedly, and even though it is apparent that events are spiraling dangerously out of control, the soldiers who are standing just a few feet behind us at the checkpoint choose to look on impotently as the attacks intensify.

A man lunges from the crowd, smashing Tove, a 19 year old Swedish girl across the face with a bottle. She immediately collapses to the ground clutching her bloodied face in horrified terror. At this point the soldiers come forward and motion at the settlers, in a “ok… that’s enough guys…” motion, amid clapping, cheering and chanting from the crowd.

As Tove lay on the hard concrete floor, blood oozing from her wounds the crowd re-groups, fed by curiosity and growing in energy “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” I now felt a growing sense of apprehension as awareness dawned of the mob’s evil intent and the soldiers’ unwillingness to intervene in any meaningful way.

A religiously dressed Orthodox Jew then adds insult to injury by posing with a thumbs-up gesture over Tove’s bloodied face. The sight of this was so obnoxiously contemptuous I never gave the guy the satisfaction he sadistically craved by taking his picture. The decision as to whether I should have taken that picture has been discussed over and over by people I know, though I feel the impact of sharing that disgusting image I have etched in my mind, can serve no purpose other than that of breeding hatred.

The police arrived and an American girl who witnessed the event was taken into a police van and asked to identify who had attacked our group. Meanwhile the remaining police were telling me and another Englishman that if we didn’t move away from the scene we would be arrested as we were blocking the street. We remained.

A Jewish settler medic came to the scene about 15 minutes after the attack and immediately began asking us why we were in Hebron, telling us pointedly we had no right to be there. He refused to help Tove as she lay bleeding in the street .

Eventually Tove was helped onto a stretcher by some soldiers, amid jeers and clapping from the crowd. We escorted the stretcher through the jeering crowd to a military vehicle in which Tove and a close friend were transported to the hospital in Jerusalem.

As I walked back down the street I witnessed the police open the door of a van and release one of the attackers. Upon seeing this the crowd then began jubilantly celebrating his release. We were later told by the police that they had not even taken the names of those who were identified as having attacked us, and that one of the main assailants had simply told the police that he was due at the airport in two hours to fly back to France.

Two Englishmen and I then spent another half an hour or so escorting Palestinian women and children from the checkpoint to their homes. In doing so it is our aim to protect the Palestinians in such situations by deflecting the attention and hate away from them.

It was getting dark but the streets were still busy. We escorted one group of three boys, the oldest of whom was 9 or 10. We were followed closely along the street by a dozen or so Orthodox Jews who hissed and berated the Palestinian boys in Arabic with obscenities I am grateful of not understanding. “You like protecting the animals?”, they taunted us in English — “Nazis!”.

We reached some steps and turned off the main street and began to climb, the little boys nervously glancing back to see if we would be pursued. A couple of hundred metres further on the older boy made it clear they were OK to continue alone now. I asked the oldest boy if they were sure, he forced a smile and shrugged his soldiers in defiance as if to say “no problem this stuff happens every day”. He seemed so strong, but as I put my hand on his shoulder and looked into his teary eyes they gave out another message and I saw pain and fear.

I wanted to tell him that the world wasn’t really like this. But for him and the people of Tel Rumeida it is.

Earlier in the day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year old child, were injured by Jewish settlers, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli “Defense” Force, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the settlers.

See this ISM Hebron report on these events.

Stef’s Blog: settler road block temporarily becomes Israeli law

by Stef, Friday, November 10, 2006

On Wednesday I harvested in the village of Qaryot with another international volunteer and 2 Israelis, assisting 80-year-old Salimon, his brother Aziz, and his 27-year-old son Ahmed. We were greeted in the morning with a hearty “Buenos dias!” and warm smiles from the elder men. Both Salimon and Aziz spent 20 years working in Brazil, and during that time were unable to come home to see their children grow up. Between them they have a very large family and over 1,000 trees in the area, which is sandwiched between a few relatively new Israeli settlements. One is called Gilad — an extremist outpost that is illegal even by Israel’s standards.

Salimon and Aziz are friendly men of few words. We spent the day communicating through a bit of Arabic and also Spanish and Portuguese, which both men and some of the volunteers happened to speak. Salimon, whose hospitality is in true Palestinian style, watched us carefully and often re-lit the cigarettes he handed out, which must have gotten damp at some point. Aziz spent the day pruning the trees silently with his small saw, occasionally saying “Aaaiiii-wwaaa, tamam” (yes, good) and “Bueno” (good), when he cut a branch down and volunteers began to pick olives from it.

Earlier in the week Israeli settlers hiked down the hill to throw rocks at Palestinians harvesting in Qaryot, sending one man to the hospital with a head injury. Many families were afraid to return to finish picking, but the brothers who have land in the most dangerous area, were determined to finish.

The road-block made by the settlers.

We began the morning picking close to the settlement road. Within 10 minutes we were approached by three Israeli soldiers and three Israeli border policemen, who told us that we needed to stop for the day. Although we asked to see a court order that stated so, we were offered no explanation except “someone is coming with a map”. The brothers returned to picking and the volunteers attempted to join them. The soldiers demanded that we stop and not touch any olives until more of them arrived with answers to our questions.

Eventually more vehicles of soldiers, border police, and a military lawyer showed up. They also could not answer our questions, and as we stood around waiting and wasting precious picking time, they pulled out a map and started arguing over what to do. The founder of an Israeli human rights group with experience in the area showed up after our phone calls. He negotiated with them over an apparent land dispute that began recently when settlers created a dirt mound roadblock in order to claim some of the land as their own. One soldier even said: “It’s obviously Palestinian land, let’s just let them stay,” but it was decided that we were only allowed to harvest on the other side of the roadblock for the day, closest to the village.

Following the lead of the elders, we agreed and moved to an area that was not claimed by the settlers to continue picking. This felt frustrating since the trees are hundereds of years old like the village, and the settlement is only about 20 years old. Even though some of the soldiers and police disagreed with each other about who the land belongs to, the message this situation sends is pretty clear: it is possible for a simple mound of dirt placed in the road by Jewish extremists to throw legal borders into upheaval, effectively blocking the rightful owners from accessing and harvesting it.

The next day we met Salimon and Aziz again. After a successful negotiation on behalf of the human rights group, we spent the day picking olives beyond the roadblock, on the “disputed” land directly next to the settlement road. This time we brought more volunteers due to the high risk of attack. Throughout the day about two Humvess or jeeps full of Israeli soldiers and police watched us from a short distance. They claimed it was for our protection, but were clearly facing us and watching us with binoculars, not the settlement.

Eventually Aziz picked up his tarp and bucket and walked right over to the settlement entrance road, a couple feet from a guard dogs fence and about 200 feet from the nearest home. This is the closest to a settlement that any family I’ve been with over the last week and a half has dared to work. I get the impression that Aziz is not scared of anything, even though he said that most of his children are afraid to come harvest the land with him. The soldiers and police pulled their vehicles up right next to us, but we ignored them and continued picking until the brothers decided they were finished with the area for the day.

We returned to the village piled onto a tractor with large bags of olives. Aziz’s kaffiyeh blew in the wind as he smiled and waved to greet neighboring farmers. Salimon rode ahead on his donkey. Ahmad reported that we had picked a few hundred kilos of olives, and thanked us warmly for our presence. In the following days we will continue to have an international presence in Qaryot, until all of the olives are picked.