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.
Yes, they may lightly prune a grove or perhaps drastically prune a row but unless they have many groves, they would not drastically prune their entire crop of "income" producing trees.
So by now they've destroyed, what, about 800% of the trees ever planted?
It has been documented completely and conclusively that the Arabs stage photo oportunities for the leftist press. While no party has a monopoly on truth, the Arabs have a whole production company designed to produce propaganda.
"Pallywood"
http://www.seconddraft.org/movies.php
LOL! Silly me for thinking there was actually a modicum of law behind their decision.
Is there no civil discussion with her/him?
So the police don't know the difference?
There have been plenty of documented cases (which held up in Israeli courts) of settlers destroying Palestinian property. The settler movement is not all lilly white, neither are all Palestinians evil terrorists.
Does it make sense to say they were expertly cut, while done at the same time as a provocation? No.
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Knock it off.
Where's your evidence that Alouette is indeed lying? You made the charge, so it's on you to back it up.
Please show us articles about Israelis living in Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank) who have been convicted in Israeli courts of destroying olive trees. Otherwise, your argument amounts to saying that since some of these Israelis have had trouble, therefore they must have destroyed these carefully-pruned olive trees.
By the way, the Yesha council (which acts as spokesman for the Jews who live in Judea and Samaria) denied any knowledge of so-called "settler" Jews being involved in destruction of these olive trees (which, as Alouette has shown, weren't even destroyed, but were pruned -- probably by the arabs themselves, as was the case in 2003).
I think they were expertly cut, and not done as a provocation.
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