West Bank farmers face ruin after trees uprooted

[ProgressiveMuslim]

IRIN, Apr 28, 2008


It was difficult for 87-year-old Jamil Khader to discover that nearly all of the 1,400 olive trees his extended family planted in February had suddenly gone missing, having been uprooted and stolen.

"He became very ill when I told him. He was hospitalised and was in bed for a week," his son Khalil, from the small town of Jeet in the northern West Bank, told IRIN.

The family reckon that the trees were uprooted in March but they did not find out about it until 16 April, when they got to the land, which they do not do regularly because of its proximity to the nearby Israeli settlement of Kedumim.

"We only go to work the land in coordination with the military. I am afraid to go alone, as the settlers have pulled guns on me in the past," Khalil said.

The family and aid workers blamed settlers from Kedumim for the missing trees.

"There have been many violent incidents against Palestinians in that area of the West Bank," said Emily Schaefer, a lawyer from the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, which specialises in such cases.

"In the three years we have been operating, not a single was convicted for uprooting or damaging Palestinian olive trees," she said, noting that from her research she was doubtful anyone had ever been brought to justice by the Israeli authorities for such crimes.


http://imeu.net/news/article008572.shtml

[Crunchy Frog]

1. I'm sure that there's some perfectly legitimate security justification for this.

:sarcasm:

[ProgressiveMuslim]

2. Anyone who would uproot an olive tree has no right to live in Palestine.

There is no action that shows more disregard for the place than that.

I wish the settlers would all go back to Brooklyn.

[oberliner]

4. Go back to Brooklyn? How about Tel Aviv?

Or is Tel Aviv part of what you consider to be Palestine?

[Vegasaurus]

5. It's the "all of Israel is occupied" meme nt

[ProgressiveMuslim]

6. Seems to me the most obnoxious WB settlers are from the USA, not Tel Aviv.

I'm hardly saying all of Israel is occupied.

I'm differentiating between Isareli "bedroom community" settlers and the asshole ideologues.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. My point stands however: anyone with that little respect for the land doesn't deserve to be there.

[oberliner]

8. Thank you for clarifying

I appreciate that, and I apologize for misreading what you meant.

There are certainly a fair number of hard-core settlers who recently moved to the West Bank from the USA.

[damntexdem]

3. Cowboys and Indians, all over again.

And again, and again, and again.