Posted on 11/29/2005 5:44:37 AM PST by SJackson
There is a current and perennial fight that happens every year in Israel, and if you don't know the facts, you may be lulled into the idea that it is simply an agricultural dispute. It goes way beyond agriculture. The annual "olive tree problem" is a significant issue, not just in the rural areas of Israel, especially in Samaria, but for every person who cares about the future of Israel.
Please don't believe the claims of clueless television reporters and bleeding-heart left-wing people. It is not a case of "those settlers" destroying the olive trees in a mean-spirited attempt to make the "poor Palestinian people" go without an income or food or a job. Anyone who believes those reports has not only bitten at the bait of the Arabs, but has swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The war of the olive trees is not about olive trees at all. It's about land and safety.
The olive branch may be an ancient symbol of peace, but today, it is more a symbol of an unchecked Arab land grab. This is how it works. An Arab comes upon an old olive tree near a settlement. The tree, they know, is evidence of how long someone has lived in a place and who owns the land. Most older trees near settlements were planted by Jews, but some of the younger trees may have sprung up from an olive that rolled down a hill.
A lot of people, when picturing this scene, think the olives trees are growing in carefully defined orchards in nice straight lines, but most are not. In fact, unless you know what an olive tree looks like, you might think it was part of the scrub that dots the land of Samaria.
A lot of the trees were planted just outside of small Jewish towns in Samaria in order to define the boundaries of the settlement areas, but some trees are much older - and have been passed down from family member to family member for generations. If you don't believe the Torah, or the thousands of architectural landmarks that dot the "territories" of Israel as places of constant Jewish habitation, you can turn to these living testaments of family ownership of the land - a fact that has not escaped the notice of the Arab population.
Some trees are marked in to show who owns them, but in many areas it is just a matter of local knowledge who owns the tree - after all, it is on that person's land, or in their back yard, or it is on the block of land where their grandparents used to live. This doesn't matter to the Arabs, though.
The Arabs are intent upon proving they own the land, even though they do not. They will mark every small stick of olive tree that pokes from the ground, and they will mark the trees that are the ownership of others, as well. If the tree is marked, they destroy or erase the mark. Slowly, they attempt to mark every tree near a settlement in an effort to show that the trees belong to them. The closer the trees are, the better, because those trees can be allowed to grow large and bushy, providing perfect cover for terrorist activity against the Jewish population.
Then, claiming the "orchard" is theirs, the Arabs use the stolen and newly marked olive trees as an excuse to inch close to Jewish neighborhoods where they begin the surveillance for terrorist actions. With easily duped Westerners and soft-hearted ignorant Israeli college students as their accomplices, the Arabs make harvests of terror, reaping Jewish lives and security along with their stolen olives.
They also use these "orchards" to claim ownership of land blocks in strategic areas near Jewish communities. If you have ever been to Samaria, you will see that the Jews live on the hilltops, and the Arabs live in the valleys. It seems strange, at first. After all, the Jews are leaving all the fertile, green land for the Arabs to farm, while they struggle to make rocky and thorn-filled hillsides bloom. But when you realize that the Jews are there to protect Israel, you understand.
Those who live in Samaria chose to live on the hilltops from where Arabs could launch rockets at large cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. When you understand this, you understand why these so-called "innocent" Arabs from the fertile river valleys would trudge up a rocky hillside to claim an olive tree next to a Jewish home on a hillside. They don't want olives, they want Jewish lives.
After they establish "ownership" of their stolen olive trees, they claim the land for their own. Next, they put simple stone structures there, then homes and then they build a settlement. The closer they can get to a Jewish population, the better. After all, the Jews are no threat to them, but they are a great threat to the Jews.
It is strange that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President George Bush and the UN are screaming about "illegal outposts", but never seem to see the huge explosion of Arab homes, communities and mosques suddenly growing up hillsides near Jewish neighborhoods - all foreshadowed by the stealing of olive trees.
This is why, when I hear that the "settlers are destroying the Palestinian's olive trees," or that the "settlers are throwing rocks at the poor Palestinians who are trying to harvest their olives," I shake my head in disbelief and anger that any news agency would listen to this fiction and believe it.
But, I guess if someone is sitting in an office in downtown Tel Aviv or New York or Chicago, and has never seen an olive tree in Samaria, he might not understand the significance of an olive tree, and he might think that this is just a petty squabble between neighbors. But it's not. It's deadly serious business.
When I hear that the people of Elon Moreh or Itamar or Kedumim have destroyed olive trees, I know they have done it out of desperation. It says in Torah that we cannot destroy a fruit tree. These are religious people. The only reason they would go against a Torah prohibition is to protect life. I know that when they choose to destroy an olive tree it is to protect the lives of Jews in those towns. This is not about preventing an olive harvest, it is about preventing a harvest of terror.
So, the next time you are approached by a well-meaning soul who wants to help "rebuild Palestinian olive orchards" in the name of "peace", or you hear of a mixed up group of people like the Kibbutz Movement thinking that planting olive trees for Arabs is a good thing, please pass on this lesson. I hope they may be educated into understanding what a dangerous thing they are doing. But, if they don't get the message, we can still offer them an olive branch, just to be sure.
Thank you for posting this. I learned something today. I have never heard about these disputes over olive trees, but when I do, I'll have another perspective on the situation.
..........................................
Settlers destroy Palestinian olive trees [Happens Every Year This Time]
***************
I had no idea. Thanks for posting this.
Me, too. Thank you for continuing my education!
I didn't reply when I read the article about the settlers cutting down the olive trees because it disturbed me but I was sure I didn't know the whole story. Thank you, now I do.
To most people, an olive branch is a symbol of peace. Just leave it to the Palestinians to turn it into a symbol of strife!
I believe you mean to ask these questions of SJackson, so I pinged him/her for you.
Great article. Planting and protecting trees sounds like a good thing, but who would have thought they would be used to shelter murderers. Thanks for the enlightenment.
As I understand, when the Ottoman empire ruled, uninhabited land could be claimed by planting olive trees on it. (Is this true?) You then could obtain what passed for a deed or title to the land.The deeds or titles however were written in a Turkish dialect which was spoken in court. Consequently, one had a deed to the land that one could not read. Only a few present day lawyers can read them leading to many interesting problems as the reader can imagine.
Land that you thought your family had owned for many, many years now has no ownership and becomes property of the state. The state then sells it to someone else. (Is this true?) This situation leads to tremendous resentment on the part of the person who thought that he owned the land.
As I understand it, under the Ottoman’s ownership agricultural and waste land was vested in the state. However an individual could “claim” an area through cultivation and payment of taxes on the crops. In theory it would revert to the state is cultivation ceased, but there was no real enforcement. A system of “deeds” was established in the mid-late 19th century, but I think it was used only sporadically, “owners” relying on tribal customs instead, and in any case the Ottoman’s hauled off the records before the end of WWI, leaving the Brits with little of no way of determining legal land ownership in the mandate. Post 1967, I believe Israel used old Turkish and British records to determine areas of private ownership, leaving uncultivated, unclaimed land a State asset. I don’t believe you can claim land through cultivation, nor “disown” it by cutting down trees, but obviously the custom still exists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.