Sounds peaceful and pastoral – and yes some of it was. And it’s also become much more complicated and political.
This morning I left my apartment early to join a bus load of volunteers with rabbis for human rights to help Palestinian farmers with their olive harvest. The volunteers were mostly Israeli from all over the country with a few foreigners too. Rabbis for human rights has been helping with the olive harvest for 17 years and they’ve already had 500 volunteers go out with them since the harvest started in October.
So what is the big deal with olive harvesting that help is needed and so many Israelis are giving of their time to volunteer? There are many Palestinian farmers who are either being forbidden to reach their lands (bc the army declares it a closed military zone) or are getting attacked by settlers from nearby hilltop settlements or by soldiers or having their olives stolen or the trees burnt. There are many, many days they’re prevented from getting to their trees and unable to pick their olives before the harvest is over. There is a feeling of constant fear and never knowing what will happen. The volunteers come to help with the harvest and to help protect the Palestinian farmers and their rights as they usually face less intimidation and violence from the settlers and from the soldiers when Jewish Israeli volunteers are present.
We were supposed to help pick olives near the settlement Izhar and were met by Muhammad the farmer we were supposed to help. We walked through some areas where we could see remains of burnt olive trees.
For the first hour, we picked our olives quietly and efficiently with soldiers watching us from slightly up the hill. Then the soldiers descended and started taking our pictures. Then 15 minutes they announced this olive grove had just become a closed military zone and we had to leave immediately as well as Muhammad and no one could pick any more olives even though it was his land. No reason was given for declaring the land a closed military zone. And then arrived a few young male settlers walking through the fields, with no reason to be there. It’s not clear to me if the soldiers notified the settlers or the settlers requested the soldiers declare a closed military zone or the two were independent of each other.
We left peacefully but know that a couple of weeks ago, masked settlers attacked the volunteers (including an 80 year old volunteer) with crowbars. Leaving the fields I overheard one Israeli volunteer commenting that his son was starting the army in a year and the soldiers chasing them out could be his son. There was both anger towards the soldiers and sadness that this was also their children and that they too were trapped and being hurt by the jobs they’ve been ordered to do.
One of our volunteers was a settler from a nearby settlement and pointed out that the main highway we were on had exits for all the jewish settlements but almost not entrances and exits for the Palestinian towns and cities. And also, while some Palestinians have documents that let them be in Tel Aviv and take Israeli buses, they can’t be in some of the settlements so have to get off the buses on the side of the highway before the buses enter the settlements and make their way home from there.
And I, not only picked olives for the first toms but also bought local homemade olive oil in a sprite bottle.