Posted on 11/27/2005 12:27:01 PM PST by Alouette
NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Jewish settlers cut down and uprooted hundreds of olive trees on Palestinian farms near the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, residents and Israeli police said.
Settlers from the most radical enclaves in the occupied West Bank have often attacked farms since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000, in which settlers have often been targeted by militants.
Settlers say that the land, which Palestinians want for a state, is theirs by biblical birthright.
Residents of Salem said dozens of settlers from Elon Moreh chopped down hundreds of the town's olive trees, the main source of income for 5,000 residents.
"This is not the first time that settlers have cut down dozens of olive trees. Among them were trees more than 30 years old," said Adli Eshiya, a local councilor. Villagers said it was the sixth such attack this year.
Police said that at least 200 olive trees had been destroyed near Salem and that an investigation had begun.
A spokesman for Elon Moreh settlement, Benny Katsover, said he was not aware of the incident.
More than 245,000 settlers live in the West Bank, home to 2.4 million Palestinians. The World Court has said that all of Israel's settlements on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war are illegal. Israel disputes this.
Settlers' anger has grown more intense since Israel removed settlements from the Gaza Strip this year under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for breaking from conflict with the Palestinians.
Although Sharon has said he has no further plans for unilateral withdrawals, he has said that some isolated West Bank settlements would have to go under any eventual peace deal. Elon Moreh is one of the smaller settlements.
Thanks for the clarification in post #18.
Wow, this story is and has been bought for years by every (and I mean every) newspaper in the EUSSR.
Israeli papers report such stuff(Haaretz: olive tree chain saw massacre)
[...]
They especially remember the thick-trunked olive trees with the dying branches. In each of those branches they found a few small precise holes - clear signs of a drill that someone maliciously used on the trees. Krinis says none of the holes are bigger than a centimeter in diameter and there were no bullets in the trees indicating the holes were from stray bullets. Branches of trees elsewhere in the grove, whose branches were not pierced, looked healthy. Kirnis has no doubt that the Palestinian villagers did not make up the story. He is convinced that settlers are the ones with the drills, and that they poured some kind of chemical into the holes to kill off the olive trees.
At the start of the harvest at beginning of winter, when Krinis went with members of Ta'ayush to help farmers in the south Hebron area, he learned up close that there are settlers for whom the commandment of occupation includes using such means as destroying the harvests of local farmers.
For the last three years, the settlers populating the collection of illegal outposts around the settlement of Eli have been making the lives of the people of Assawiyeh miserable. Particularly good at that are the residents of the mobile homes at a place known as Hirbat a-Shuna. Apparently, they have their eyes on the Assawiyeh spring, the historical source of water for the village, and the source of its irrigation water.
They poison some trees here, they saw off some branches there, say the villagers; at night they set the trees on fire and during the day they charge at villagers in their fields, driving them off at gunpoint, sometimes with shots.
Lately, the settlers have come up with a new method to burn trees. First they saw off some branches and then they hang tires from the stumps, and set them alight. The burning tires set the tree on fire. When the villagers see the smoke, they run out to try to stop the fire, but the tires meanwhile slip down and burn the entire tree.
In the first week of February a group of settlers equipped with chain saws showed up on the land of Yasser Salah and cut down 15 trees. A few days ago, a settler claiming to be a security officer, held a gun to Salah's head and ordered him and his wife off the land and never to come back.
[...]
Oh heavens!!
That can't be true, there are no photos on Yahoo!!
It's called pruning. It is part of normal maintenance for olive groves.
All this crap about "settlers" and "destruction" is LIES.
Same reason why American settlers pushed/destroyed Indian tribes, or Poles took German lands or Germans tried to do this earlier to Poles and others, why Albanian Muslims are taking land from Serbs. Each time the invading side presents the losers in the worst possible light.
Both exploatation and the search for moral justification of it is in human nature. That is why an ancient Roman playwright Plautus wrote: "Homo homini lupus" (Man is a wolf to his fellow-man)
Hmmm, Haaretz, maybe not the most trustworthy source.
But I will be convinced by evidence, so I'm waiting for someone to do what Alouette asked for; post pictures of uprooted olive trees on this thread.
I am so glad, I do not have to take side in this conflict and I do not have to shill for either side.
"A Palestinian woman embraces the trunk of an olive tree "
I didn't know they had tree hugging hippies there too.
Am-Ha'aretz and Idiot Acharonot are extreme lie-ftist media outlets. They will publish anything that is defamatory of "settlers" or anyone else who does not hold their appeasement, socialist agenda. They are the first to "report" a lie and Roto-Reuters and AP then pick it up.
The photo would not be a proof. It could be done in other place, other time etc ...
In Kosovo and Bosnia the photos of murdered Serbs were described as representing Muslims and used as a "proof".
So why are you shilling for the Palestinians?
Ok, so now you are saying that the settlers are "helping" the Palestinians?
Out of the goodness of their hearts?
Please.
Whatever. I would not want to be a Palestinian living next to those settlers.
So basically, in context of this "olive tree" affair, you admit there is no proof any any destruction committed by "settlers" other than what was said by Palestinians and their extreme leftist cheerleaders.
NO!
I'm saying the Palestinians pruned their own trees and then told the media that "settlers" "destroyed" the trees.
Sheesh.
In Kosovo and Bosnia the photos of murdered Serbs were described as representing Muslims and used as a "proof".
True, but so far we have nothing....except a photo that if anything tends to disprove the story.
He, he. I can afford the luxury of seeing how things are over there. You MUST support your side, whitewash it and vilify the other. I do not have much preference for either side, although I prefer Israeli Jews as they are more civilized and predicable than Palestinian Muslims. It does not mean that I have to believe either.
Oh for goodness sake.
You're off your rocker.
I'm glad you're not taking sides.
Take a look at the following, from http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/defame.htm
On Nov. 3, the branches of hundreds of Arab-owned olive trees were found to have been cut down near the small Jewish community of Mitzpeh Yitzhar in the Shomron. Suspicions were immediately focused on the Jewish residents living nearby, and media reports and public officials took it for granted that they were responsible.
The Jerusalem Post Internet site reported on Nov. 7, "Last week, settlers from settlements in northern Samaria hacked approximately 500 olive trees belonging to Palestinians," and on the same day, a Voice of America report by Irris Makler went even further by opening, "Israeli settlers in the West Bank have destroyed olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers in several areas in recent weeks..."
Israeli officials were quick to respond. President Katzav issued a sharp condemnation, saying that the "struggle with the Palestinians ... must be conducted with good sense and integrity." Prime Minister Sharon said he views the matter with "great gravity" and added that he had ordered the security establishment to "take all possible measures" to catch those responsible for uprooting the trees. Even the Yesha Council of Rabbis fell into the trap, stating that that acts of vengeance carried out by individuals are forbidden and condemnable, and had "defamed the entire sector of Jews living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza." A headline in Ynet quoted Labor MK Ephraim Sneh as saying, "The Palestinians whose olive trees were cut down by settlers must be compensated."
The story has taken a dramatic turn, however, though the media have largely ignored it. Police now feel that left-wing Israelis and the Arab tree-owners may have manufactured the entire incident as a provocation and a way to besmirch the Jewish population. The police have requested that Rabbi Arik Asherman of the Reform Movement and an Arab who filed charges against Jewish Yesha residents submit to lie-detector tests - but the two have, thus far, refused to do so.
The investigation began its about-face when a Jewish National Fund expert brought in by the police concluded that no lasting damage was done to the trees, as the tree-cutters did not "cut down" the trees, but rather "pruned" them. The branches were severed such that they will begin growing back within 2-3 months. The police, who had previously received accusations from the Arabs and the left-wing activists against the Yesha Jews, thereupon requested that those who filed the accusations take lie-detector tests.
"Whoever cut these trees" the JNF representative said, "did so expertly in the specific manner which does not cause any serious damage whatsoever to the tree, whose branches will begin to grow back within 2 to 3 months."
"If it is determined that we are speaking about a provocation in which someone cut these branches and then filed a false accusation with the police, then we are dealing with false testimony, which is a serious infraction," police superintendent Doron Ben-Ami told IsraelNationalNews.
Residents of the village of Yitzhar in Northern Shomron and environs have published a statement denying any connection to the cutting of the olive trees. In response to MK Efraim Sneh and others, the residents wrote, "There is not one bit of truth in these accusations, which are simply baseless slander."
(source: Arutz Sheva (Internet), Nov 10, 2003)
http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/defame.htm
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