Extremist Jews damage Palestinians' olive trees in West Bank as harvest begins

[MNeagle]

Extremist Jews damage Palestinians' olive trees in West Bank as harvest begins

By NASSER ISHTAYEH , Associated Press

Last update: October 9, 2010 - 9:15 AM


IRAQ BURIN, West Bank - Extremist Jews ripped off branches and cut the roots of Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank village of Burin, residents said Saturday, as the yearly harvest of the important crop begins.

The attack came at the beginning of the 45-day Palestinian olive harvest. It's traditionally a time of heightened violence, as a minority of extremist Jews tries to provoke Palestinians.

Some two dozen men from a nearby Jewish settlement damaged the trees in Burin after they tried to attack Palestinians bulldozing an access road to their fields, said Bilal Eid, who witnessed the incident.

"The settlers began cutting the trees, trying to kill the roots. They are trying to scare us," Eid said. The damage could kill the trees, which were meant to be harvested this week, he said.

A military spokeswoman said Israeli forces ordered the Jewish intruders to leave.

Spokespeople for Jewish settlers did not respond to telephone calls, most likely because it would violate Sabbath rules of work.

The olives are a staple of Palestinian cooking, used for food and oil. Palestinians are sensitive about any damage done to their trees, which can live for hundreds of years. The olive tree is also viewed as a symbol of the Palestinians determination to remain in their homeland.

Collectively, Palestinians own about 15 million olive trees, according to Salah al-Baba of the Palestinian Agricultural Ministry.

Underscoring the trees importance, the prime ministers of the rival Palestinian governments both turned up Saturday to be photographed picking the fruit.

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, donned a baseball cap as he plucked green olives. His rival, Salam Fayyad, wrapped a traditional peasant's scarf around his head and climbed a ladder to pick olives in the West Bank village of Iraq Burin — about three kilometers from the similar-sounding Burin village.

http://www.startribune.com/world/104628249.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUi D3aPc:_Yyc:aUvDEhiaE3miUsZ

[ShortJohnSilver]

Not a new idea:

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


.In 1997, years after Dayan died, an Israeli journalist, Rami Tal, published conversations he had with Dayan in 1976. In that conversation Dayan claimed that 80 percent of the cross-border clashes between Israel and Syria in the years before the war were a result of Israeli provocation (Dayan was not Defense minister at the time). He confessed[10][11]:

I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plough someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.

[hoarder]

This is nothing new. A few years ago some palestinian kids threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, using an olive grove for cover, so the next day the Jews came back with chain saws and gleefully cut down the entire olive grove.