Settlers destroy Palestinian olive trees [Happens Every Year This Time]

Reuters ^ | Nov. 27, 2005

[TheSpottedOwl]

Wow, this thread turned into a real mess. Lots of comments removed, but anyone knows that you have to prune trees periodically. Especially fruit trees.

[A. Pole]

Lots of comments removed, but anyone knows that you have to prune trees periodically. Especially fruit trees.

Well said, see my tagline.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Ever hear of someone, usually a adolescent, break something on purpose, then blame someone else? That's the Pali mentality. I remember what happened when my dad became too ill to prune the peach trees. One split in half. I wish I had lived closer to help do those chores, but that's the first thing that came to mind when I read the article. Also notice the sloppy job they did.

Did you read where the Pali's are using arson to further destroy the land? I've seen arson fires first hand living in Southern California, and it is a horrible waste. Not only that, the winter rains produce mudslides. They stubbornly refuse to get a life, destroy everything in their path, then blame the Jews. I wasn't too shocked to hear that they destroyed the greenhouses that were left for them to grow their own food.

[A. Pole]

Ever hear of someone, usually a adolescent, break something on purpose, then blame someone else? That's the Pali mentality.

Or maybe it is a Sunni Muslim way. Such things were routinely done in Bosnia and Kosovo to help NATO justify attacking Christian Serbs.

[TheSpottedOwl]

We should have never gotten involved with Bosnia and Serbia. We probably wouldn't have, if our fearless leader hadn't gotten caught with Monica Lewinsky...

[dervish]

You mean like this?


ARSON INTIFADA - Israel is facing a new wave of "arson terrorism" by Palestinians, Fire and Rescue Services Commissioner Shimon Romach said, after multiple, deliberately set fires destroyed dozens of acres of land this week, The Jerusalem Post reports. Several fires were set by Palestinian arsonists in the Ben-Shemen Forest in the Modi'in region and in the Nataf Forest near Jerusalem, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

http://www.icej.org/cgi-local/view.cgi?type=headline&artid=2004/04/22/506479486

Two Palestinians suspected of setting Negev forest fire
Police suspect two Palestinian men from the West Bank of setting fire to the Yatir Forest in the northern Negev also on Friday.

The blaze ravaged 70 dunams of land before four crews of Jewish National Fund firefighters managed to put it out.

Police chased the suspects, but gave up the search after they escaped to Palestinian villages in the southern Hebron Hills in the West Bank.

The suspected arsonists allegedly ignited six separate fires in the forest.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=578537

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Five Israeli Arab youths have admitted to setting fires in central Israel near an Arab village where police and residents recently clashed.

The fires were part of the four days of forest blazes that burned out of control in northern and central Israel last week, causing thousands of inhabitants to evacuate the area north of Haifa.

http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/9770/edition_id/187/format/html/displaystory.html

Also in Ha'aretz, veteran commentator Meron Benvenisti has a thoughtful piece about the torching of forests by Arab Israelis, as part of their violent campaign in support of the Palestinians. The arson attacks have caused outrage in Israel, but as Benvenisti points out: "Many of the forests that were set ablaze were planted to hide the remnants of the Arab civilisation that once existed in this land - villages, cultivated fields, plantations and cemeteries. The planting of these "camouflaging" forests was intended to bury an important stratum in the history of this land and to ensure the burial would not be accompanied by any gravestone or marker. Those who have picnicked in the forests ... and are shocked by the attempts to set those forests ablaze, should remember they are living in the same land with people whose homes have been covered by such forests and who consider the green trees a memorial to their disaster." [sickening leftist BS from Ha'Aretz]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,385214,00.html

[TheSpottedOwl]

Exactly like that. The last paragraph is indeed BS. Forests are important for many reasons. Whole civilizations have disappeared by nature reclaiming the land, and I really no longer consider Arab society civilized.

Now the only thing left to do, is stop them from doing any more damage.

[Osage Orange]

WOW...that is some radical pruning.

I've pruned many fruit trees...and cut them waaayyy back too. But...I've never seen that big of a tree pruned back like that.

Wonder if that's just how olive trees are done?

FWIW-

[dervish]

A Pole: "What is wrong with Hanan Ashrawi speaking and working on behalf of her people?"

"Ashrawi was born in Ramallah, on the West Bank, Palestine. Her father was a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization."

'snip'

"Her political work took a greater leap in 1988 during the Intifada uprising, when she joined the Intifada Political Committee..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanan_Ashrawi

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[justifying the Intifada]

And to the Palestinians, it [Oslo Peace Process] became a punitive instrument. It became extremely painful with ongoing settlement activities, ongoing land confiscation, ongoing state of siege, house demolitions. And so - and life under the peace process-- I wouldn't say peace, because it's a process-- became much more difficult and painful to the Palestinians than it was even before that.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec00/ashrawi_10-31.html

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hanan Ashrawi's Record of Extremism -- A Sampler:

* Supports Palestinian Arab Terrorism:

Asked in September 2001 for her comment on the latest Palestinian Arab murders of Israelis, Ashrawi said on the PA's Voice of Palestine (Sept. 9, 2001): "The only language Sharon understands is the language of violence." (Translation provided by Prof. Michael Widlanski of Hebrew University and the IMRA News Agency.)

In an interview on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on Sept. 3, 1993, Ashrawi was asked about the PLO's murder of hundreds Palestinian Arabs, some of whom were accused of "collaborating" with Israel. (The New York Times reported on May 31, 1992 that, in fact many of them were murdered because of clan rival or violating Islamic moral strictures.) Ashrawi replied that the murders were "a ticklish issue...they can't just be dismissed as acts of violence." Likewise, in an interview with The Progressive (June 1992), said that the PLO's murders of Arabs were caused by Israeli "brutality" and "the lack of achievements in the peace process."

Violence "is not what the uprising is about... it is essentially a human voice, a real cry from the heart ... There were, of course, individual acts of violence... Desperate people commit desperate acts." --Excerpt from interview with Ashrawi in the New York Times, Nov.17, 1991

In August 2000, Ashrawi said: "In a sense, the army of occupation and the settlers have become legitimate and select targets of Palestinian resistance." (Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 16, 2002) Palestinian Arab spokesmen regard as "settlers" any Jew who resides in any of the territories that Israel won in self-defense in 1967, including the Old City of Jerusalem. Thus a Jew who lives in an apartment near the Western Wall is a "settler" who, in Ashrawi's view, it is "legitimate" to murder.

When two Israelis were tortured and lynched to death by a Palestinian Arab mob (including Palestinian Authority policemen) in Ramallah in October 2000, Ashrawi justified the murder by falsely claiming that the Israelis were "undercover Israeli agents" who "were clearly infiltrated and planted into the midst of a protest march in the heart of the city." (In fact, the Israelis were driving near the city, took a wrong turn, and were stopped by PA policemen, who arrested them, brought them into the city, and handed them over to the lynch mob.) (Jordan Times, October 29, 2000)

* Lies About Palestinian Arab Responses to 9/11:

Ashrawi said in Portland in November 2001: "I understand America is a nation in mourning. As Palestinian, we share your pain and grief." (Portland Jewish Review, Nov. 15, 2002) ...In fact, the Associated Press reported on September 11, 2001, that "thousands of Palestinians celebrated Tuesday's terror attacks" by singing and dancing in the streets of Nablus (Shechem), Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and Palestinian Arab neighborhoods in Lebanon. Thousands of Palestinian Arabs also held rallies in support of Bin Laden in Gaza on September 14 and October 8, and in Ramallah and Nablus (Shechem) on October 12, 2001.

On October 26, 2001, the official PA radio station "Voice of Palestine" broadcast a sermon denouncing the U.S. military action in Afghanistan, calling America "heretics," "dogs," "imperialists," and "killers." The sermon was delivered by preacher Yusuf Abu Senan, an official of the PA's Ministry of Religious Affairs.

* Lies About Palestinian Arabs' Use of Violence:

In an interview with CBS in November 2000, Ashrawi falsely claimed that Palestinian Arab children were not being sent to engage in violence against Israelis. "Not even animals would send their children into battle," she said. (Jerusalem Report, Nov. 20, 2000) Similarly, in an interview with the Jordan Times, Ashrawi said: "The most blatantly racist slur is the Israeli theft of our humanity as parents. In an attempt to rob us of our most basic feelings for our children, we are accused of 'sending children out to die' for the sake of 'scoring media points'." (Washington Jewish Week, Feb. 22, 2001) ...In fact, Palestinian Arab terrorist groups frequently send teenagers to carry out terror attacks, and Palestinian Arab parents are frequently quoted in the international media praising their children who engage in violence against Israelis. [My Note -- she was a Palestinian Education Minister for several years after Oslo]

Ashrawi told the New York Times in 1992: "Only the voice of power works...We've been very reasonable and very gentle and nonviolent, and look what they got us: more suffering for our people..." (August 23, 1992

* Lies About the Holocaust:

In an interview with the New York Times (July 24, 1998), Ashrawi said that "she knew of no Palestinian officials who had made statements distorting the Holocaust." ...In fact, an article in the July 2, 1998, the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda published an article calling the Holocaust "a deceitful myth which the Jews have labeled the Holocaust and have exploited to get sympathy."

And in A Voice of Reason, a sympathetic book about Ashrawi (authored by Barbara Victor; published by Harcourt Brace & Co.), one of her own top aides, Suhair Taha is quoted on p.223 as saying: "I've studied the Holocaust in great detail and frankly, it's a big exaggeration. Maybe Jews were killed, along with a lot of other people, during the course of the war, but never any mass extermination. That's Zionist propaganda."

* Opposes Jewish Immigration to Israel:

Speaking at a conference in Washington, D.C. in 1997, Ashrawi said: "Any kind of Jewish immigration into Israel is going to take place at the expense of the Palestinians."

(Transcript of Conference on the Middle East Peace Process at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-Judith Kipper, Moderator; October 9, 1997)

At a speech in Detroit in 1995, "Ashrawi demanded...no more immigration by 'foreigners' [to Israel]." (Jerusalem Post, June 2, 1995)

* Calls for the Eventual Destruction of Israel as a Jewish State:

In a speech in November 1999, "Ashrawi ended her speech by discussing the idea of a bi-national state...Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will be able to permanently establish separate states, Ashrawi said. Ultimately, they will have to merge and form a one-person, one-vote democracy in order to survive." (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Dec.1999)

* Falsely Blames Israel for Lack of Democracy in Arab World:

Ashrawi said in Portland in November 2001 that the "threat" which she said Israel poses to the Arab world is the reason for the absence of democracy among the Arabs. "The threat to Arab national security became a very good reason for Arab states to reject democratic institutions to preserve the status quo," she said. (Portland Jewish Review, Nov. 15, 2002) ...In fact, the Arab states were dictatorships long before Israel even existed.

* Urges Israeli Jews to "Go Back to Brooklyn":

In a speech in San Francisco in November 2001, Ashrawi said (addressing herself to the Israeli people): "You should go back to where you belong; what right do you people from Russia and Brooklyn have to our land?" (Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, Nov. 16, 2001)

* Lies about Israel's Policies:

In a speech at Yale University on April 8, 2000, Ashrawi claimed that Israel is "carrying out ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem." (Jewish Currents, June 2000)

In a speech in San Francisco in November 2001, Ashrawi falsely accused Israel of "enslaving" the Palestinian Arabs. (Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, Nov. 16, 2001)

* Lies About Palestinian Arab History:

Ashrawi said in Portland in November 2001: "There was an attempt to cast the Palestinians outside of history. We are one of the most ancient peoples of the region.." (Portland Jewish Review, Nov. 15, 2002)

In fact, prior to Israel's creation in 1948, Arab residents of Palestine did not even consider themselves "Palestinians." They called themselves Arabs or Syrians and referred to Palestine as Southern Syria. It was the Jewish residents of Palestine who were commonly known as "Palestinians." The Palestinian Arabs are indistinguishable from the Arabs in surrounding countries; the have the same language, culture, and history. The idea that the Palestinian Arabs are an "ancient people" has no historical basis; it is a propaganda invention of the 1960s-1970s.

Ashrawi said in a speech in Washington, D.C. in February 2001: "Jesus was a Palestinian." (Washington Jewish Week, Feb. 22, 2001)

In fact, the New Testament does not even use the word "Palestinian"; it refers to the area in which Jesus lived by its correct historical name, "Judea."

* Whitewashes Palestinian Arab Terrorism Against Israel:

"In [Ashrawi's autobiography,] This Side of Peace, Ashrawi repeatedly denounces Israeli assaults on Palestinians, but in describing 30 years of Mideast history she never mentions a single PLO terrorist attack. There is no reference to the fatal attack on 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Or to the 1974 hostage-taking at a Ma'alot school in which 24 people were killed and 64 wounded. Or to the 1976 Entebbe hijacking in which four Israelis and seven terrorists were killed as Israeli forces rescued more than 100 hostages. Or to the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which 37 Israelis died after terrorists commandeered a bus on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway."

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/69

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=191&x_context=7

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A Pole: having Hanan Ashrawi is comparable to have a governments supporting you?

She was part of the Palestinian government and a powerful voice. She was a "great power." That she did nothing to help Christian Arabs against the Palestinians who opress them is part of the same appeasement stance some Christian Arabs take. They have made their bed with Arafat and now Abbas. Their numbers are dwindling by forced conversion and immigration.

In contrast Christian Arabs in Israel are not opressed, and their numbers are growing. What do you think that means?

Is it really so hard to understand. Throughout the Muslim world other religions are not tolerated. Jews do not have this tradition of religious intolerance, imposed conversion, and dimmitude, either by religious doctrine or custom.

[kenavi]

Thank you Alouette for documenting your contention that in the story about the olive trees, the Palestinians fabricated an atrocity by Jewish settlers.

However, the Israeli press has reported many other incidents of Jewish settlers' unprovoked violence against neighboring people.

I first read about the incident below in The Jerusalem Report (Nov. 28th, 2005). According to that columnist, the violence described was believable enough that the Knesset authorized a military escort for local schoolchildren to protect them from the settlers.

"IDF Vs. Toddler Throttlers: At noon, after the bell rings in the school in Khirbat Atwana near the West Bank settlement of Maon in the southern Hebron hills, ten Palestinian urchins make their way past the school gate and begin to march in the direction of a military jeep that is waiting for them. Not far away, an IDF soldier doing lookout duty on the road sees them and gives the word to his company commander, “They’re on their way in your direction.” The ten children, pupils in the first through fourth grade, live in Khirbat Umm Tuba, near Maon. They make their way to the road twice daily, once from home to school and then back home from school. Each time they are escorted by a military jeep, an officer, and a contingent of soldiers and police officers. Why? Without this escort, they would be unable to make their way down the 800-meter dirt road that connects their home to their school. Were it not for the “bodyguards,” the young pupils would suffer at the hands of their neighbors, the settlers from Maon.
The Maon settlers refuse to allow their Palestinian neighbors to use the dirt road that runs near the settlement, not even the first graders among them. The only way the children are able to exercise their right to go to school is if they receive the protection of the Israel Police and the IDF. When the children reach the twisty part of the road that runs right behind the settlers’ homes they decide not to take their chances and break into a run. Eight-year-old Tarek explains, “When the army is here with us there’s nothing for us to be afraid of. But without the soldiers it’s frightening, because the settlers beat us up.” “This isn’t a standard task—it’s an ethical-moral task whose purpose is to allow the Palestinian schoolchildren to get to school every day and back home,” explained Dep. Cmdr. Ali Zamir, the commander of the Hebron police station. “We view with gravity the behavior of a small handful of settlers who do not represent the majority, who harass helpless Palestinian schoolchildren.” Zamir said that the task of protecting the children came at the expense of other tasks." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 9/8/05) http://www.southwestern.edu/~kotarskj/peace.html

[moatilliatta]

Anyone know why the WC has said they're illegal?

At the end of the 1967 war a UN resolution was agreed to the effect that Isreal would withdraw from the territories it had occupied in return for peace and recognition of a right to existence from its neighbours. That never happened, so Israel never withdrew, and in the interim the World Court ruled that, as they were still 'occupied territories' and not sovereign Israeli soil, it was against international law for Israel to settle its citizens there.

[Alouette]

However, the Israeli press has reported many other incidents of Jewish settlers' unprovoked violence

While there have been a few instances of graffiti and vandalism, and some teenage fistfights, which I do not condone, most of the egregious atrocities are exaggerations and outright fabrications.

Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz are two leftist media outlets who can never pass up a chance to take a swipe at the settlers and the religious population. Jerusalem Post is more balanced, i.e. they will run a biased story but will issue a correction if they get enough reader feedback.

You can find stories of "settler atrocities" all over the Internet--the link you provided is from some leftist's homepage--long after they have been pulled from mainstream media.

Honest Reporting and Camera do a fair job of tracking bogus media stories bashing the Jewish communities in districts the Palestinians want for an ethnically-cleansed state. But even they can't always keep up with the sheer volume of bogus atrocity tales the fill the media 24/7.

[Salem]

'Ping!' on this thread again, to American in Israel's comments at post 197.

Making a few things real clear!  

---

If you'd like to be on or off this
Christian Supporters of Israel ping list,
please FR mail me ~
    
MikeFromFR ~
There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~

"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~

[kenavi]

But even they can't always keep up with the sheer volume of bogus atrocity tales the fill the media 24/7.

You are saying that all serious settlers-atrocity tales, including the one I cited that allegedly the Knesset believed, are fabrications?

If a settler believes that the People of the Land have no right to be there, it is a small step for him to kill their sheep, attack their school children on the way to school, and yes, uproot their trees. (I have heard a stalwart Zionist Rabbi cite this as a common tactic in the war to assert control of the land.) I wish it were not so.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Genesis 12:7 is pretty clear.
"7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring [a] I will give this land."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%2012&version=31

[Alouette]

You are saying that all serious settlers-atrocity tales, including the one I cited that allegedly the Knesset believed, are fabrications?

The story you cited does not cite any atrocity actually committed by Jews. A group of children were given military protection in order to protect them from "atrocities" that might be committed by crazed settler boogymen.

Israeli children have to ride in bulletproof buses not because Palestinians might attack them but because Israeli children have been murdered while riding buses

If a settler believes that the People of the Land have no right to be there, it is a small step for him to kill their sheep, attack their school children on the way to school, and yes, uproot their trees.

This is common "Peace Not" rhetoric every time another "settler atrocity" tale is shown to be false. "Well," say you, "according to their beliefs" they could have done it.

11 years ago Baruch Goldstein gunned down 29 Arabs in Hebron. That is the only authentic settler atrocity that I can think of. I do not believe that the actions of one lone maniac justify the demonization and expulsion of an entire population.

Of course there have been many hundreds of murders committed against Jews because the so-called "People of the Land" believe that a Jew has no right to exist on land that has once been ethnically cleansed.

[kenavi]

the so-called "People of the Land" believe that a Jew has no right to exist on land that has once been ethnically cleansed.

Don't be cute. The right claimed by the settler movement is not merely to "exist on land that has been ethnically cleansed" (are you saying that there is a "Palestinian" race?), but to assert that Jews have the right to live there and the People of the Land don't.

Answer the question: If the People of the Land did not attack Jews, do they have the right to live in their own way throughout what you call Judea and Samaria, and exercise political sovereignty over it?

[Alouette]

The right claimed by the settler movement is not merely to "exist on land that has been ethnically cleansed" (are you saying that there is a "Palestinian" race?), but to assert that Jews have the right to live there and the People of the Land don't.

Please provide a link to a "settler movement" site that asserts such a right.

The Palestinians are claiming the right to a Jew Free state, and the leftists actually want them to have it.

Answer the question: If the People of the Land did not attack Jews, do they have the right to live in their own way throughout what you call Judea and Samaria, and exercise political sovereignty over it?

You are asserting that NO JEWS can be "People of the Land," that only Arabs can be "People of the Land." Where do you come up with this stuff?

[Ciexyz]

I feel saddened when I see a poster like yourself flamed by another poster who uses comments like "You're off your rocker." It's totally inexcusable for someone to address you this way in public discourse.

[okie01]

Are you saying that this is the time of the year that the olive trees are pruned?

I know nothing of olive trees. But, if they are anything like pecan trees, then -- yes, now is the time for pruning. The trees are dormant during the winter months and aren't subject to insect attack because of colder weather, as well.

Further, radical pruning, such as the trees shown is not uncommon. It is a way of forcing growth into sturdier branches, creating a healthier tree capable of greater load-bearing. Such pruning is also done in the case of grafting to a different variety.

Uprooting trees, though, is a more-or-less permanent act (unless the rootball is retained undamaged and the tree is re-planted in short order).

Most trees are very resilient -- they live a long time and survive severe weather conditions. I assume olive trees are no different.