Tag Archives: palestine

Arboricide in Palestine – olive orchard destroyed Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills awoke last Friday to find that 36 olive trees had been cut or seriously damaged during the night, probably by Israeli settlers.

The 25 year-old trees, owned by the Hushiy family from Yatta, were located near the village of Qawawis in the South Hebron Hills, between the Israeli illegal outpost of Mitzpe Yair and the Israeli settlement of Suseya, beside Bypass road 317.

This is the third incident of Israeli settler ‘price tag’ vandalism against the Palestinian inhabitants of the South Hebron Hills in the last two months.

On 9th January 2015, in the same area between the Bypass road 317 and Suseya settlement, Palestinians discovered nearly 200 olive trees cut on their property as well as established almond trees. Some days before, on 31st December, two settlers threw a Molotov cocktail into a Palestinian house in Ad Deirat village.

Palestinian residents of the South Hebron hills have suffered from the presence of Israeli settlers since the 70s. Ongoing settler violence deprives Palestinian families of security in daily life and restricts their freedom of movement. The violence and vandalism is also aimed at undermining the basis of their subsistence on the land.

By occupying Palestinian agricultural lands and destroying Palestinian olive trees, crops and property, Israeli settlers seek to deprive the Palestinians of their main livelihood. Olive trees are also of huge symbolic, cultural and historic significance to Palestinains, and represent their ‘rootedness’ in the land. As reported by Electronic Intifada in 2007:

“Universally regarded as the symbol of peace, the olive tree has become the object of violence. For more than forty years, Israel has uprooted over one million olive trees and hundreds of thousands of fruit trees in Palestine with terrible economic and ecological consequences for the Palestinian people.

“Their wilful destruction has so threatened Palestinian culture, heritage and identity that the olive tree has now become the symbol of Palestinian steadfastness because of its own rootedness and ability to survive in a land where water is perennially scarce.”

An illegal attack on Palestinian history, culture and livelihood

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal, despite Israel’s refusal to accept their application.

Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are also considered illegal also under Israeli law, but even these are mostly tolerated by the authorities and protected from attempts by Palestinians to reclaim their land.

The destruction of the olive trees is also a specific violation of Article 54 of the 1977 Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”. It states:

“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.”

In the West Bank an estimated 100,000 Palestinian families depend on olive sales, and the olive harvest provides farmers with 25-50% of their annual income. Indeed for many it is essential to their survival.

Given the olive trees’ cultural value to Palestinians, along with the festivities and communal work that accompanies the olive harvest, their destruction also violates Article 53 of the 1977 Protocol, which prohibits “acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples” and “to make such objects the object of reprisals.”

Despite their international obligations, Israeli police and army personnel rarely intervene when settlers cut down trees or commit other acts of vandalism.

Forbidden to plant olive trees on their own land

Indeed they carry out their own attacks on Palestinian civilians and their international supporters, as they did about a month ago on 23rd January when a group of Palestinians from Susiya village in the South Hebron Hills tried to plant olive trees on a plot of village land between the Israeli army base and the Israeli settlement of Suseya.

First the Israeli army declared the area a ‘closed military zone’ then they attacked the procession of about 150 people as it made its way towards the land, using stun grenades, tear gas, water cannon and physical and verbal violence. During the action, the Israeli forces arrested four Palestinians.

In spite of this most of the demonstrators reached the land and started to plant the olive trees. Immediately, Israeli soldiers and policemen pushed the crowd back towards Susiya village, again deploying stun grenades, tear gas and waer cannon, pushing and attacking the people, and arresting another two Palestinians.

A few days before, on 19th January, soldiers killed a sheep in the Tuba village area, while they were chasing away a flock owned by Palestinians. A day later Israeli soldiers arrested a 14 year-old Palestinian boy while he was grazing a flock near Maghayir Al Abeed village, and demolished four structures in the Ar-Rifa’iyya village.

“Despite attempts by settlers to force them from the area through violence and intimidation, the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills remain strong in their commitment to nonviolent popular resistance against the Israeli occupation”, reports Operation Dove.

 

 

Action: Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004. It is a project of Italy-based Operazione Colomba, a project open to all people, believers and nonbelievers, who believe that nonviolence is the only way to get a true Peace, based on truth, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. Its principles are:

  • Nonviolence: an active and creative strength which comes to life through various actions such as interposition, accompaniment, mediation, advocacy, protection, reconciliation, animation …
  • Sharing life: volunteers share their lives with the victims of both parts of the conflict, no matter the ethnic group, the religion or political view …
  • People involvement: the few requirements to be a volunteer are: the will to live in a nonviolent way, the ability to live in a group, to be of age and finally to take part in the training course.

 




390771

Palestine: occupied or annexed? Israel must end the ambiguity Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Like most people, I was horrified by the devastation of the recent Gaza war. But I cannot say I was surprised.

I have been closely engaged with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on both sides, for nigh on fifty years and feel a strong affinity towards both peoples.

If I have learned anything, it is that peace is dependent on the imperatives of mutual acceptance and equality. As long as either of these fiercely proud peoples dominates the other, there will be conflict.

In a Jewish Quarterly article in the summer of 1977, following Likud’s first election victory in Israel, I proffered the following thought:

“Once the remaining hope of Palestinian self-rule is finally extinguished, the West Bank is likely to embark on a permanent rebellion – mostly simmering and periodically erupting … When the fire starts to ignite, next month or next year, let no-one register astonishment … “

The vibrant democracy that practices tyranny

It took another ten years for the first intifada in the West Bank and Gaza to erupt (to the astonishment of myopic Israeli policy makers). Further eruptions have periodically marked the landscape ever since and doubtless will continue to do so until both peoples are finally free to exercise their self-determination in neighbouring, interlinked, states.

Occupation brutalizes the occupier as well as the occupied. It breeds enmity and produces other deleterious effects. Hamas, founded in 1987, is a product of the occupation. Like Israel, it stands accused of war crimes, but were it to be eradicated, something else-possibly a lot worse-would take its place.

For over 47 years, vibrantly democratic Israel has ruled most undemocratically – by military fiat – over millions of people. This and the intensive bombardment by a technologically advanced state of an impoverished, entrapped people would never be tolerated by the custodians of Jewish values if they were perpetrated by any other country.

Israel’s misguided policies have been very damaging. Apart from the death and destruction delivered on Gaza, they have generated new waves of hatred against the Jewish state and global calls for its isolation. They have fanned anti-Jewish sentiment in other countries and fostered deep divisions within the Jewish world.

Israel’s suicidal slide towards apartheid must be halted

If the Israeli government is not prepared, of its own volition, to end its blockade of Gaza and suffocation of the West Bank, the international community would be entitled to challenge it to decide definitively by a firm date whether its rule over the Palestinians is or is not an occupation.

Until now, it has argued both sides of the case, enabling it to cherry-pick the Geneva Convention.

If it is an occupation, its – supposedly provisional – custodianship should be brought to a swift end. If it not an occupation, there is no justification for denying equal rights to everyone who is subject to Israeli rule.

After nearly half a century, it is surely past time to end the ambiguity before it really is too late for a genuine two-state deal and to halt Israel’s suicidal slide towards a home-grown version of apartheid.

 

 

Tony Klug has written extensively about Arab-Israel issues since the early 1970s: his doctoral thesis was on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank between the wars of 1967 and 1973. Former co-chair of the Council for Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue and vice-chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum, he worked for many years as a senior official at Amnesty International. Currently, he is a special advisor on the Middle East to the Oxford Research Group and an international board member of the Palestine-Israel Journal.

This article was originally published in the Autumn/Winter edition of the Jewish Quarterly, as one of 16 short reflective pieces on the Gaza war, and comes to us via Open Democracy where it is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

Creative Commons License

 

 




387800

Liberation is our birthright! Palestine stands with Ferguson Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Police brutality, oppression and murder against Black people in the US, and against Latinos, Arabs and Muslims, people of color and poor people, has never been merely ‘mistakes’ or ‘violations of individual rights’ but rather are part and parcel of an integral and systematic racism that reflects the nature of the political system in the US.

Every time a crime is committed against Black people, it is explained away as an ‘isolated incident’ but when you see the massive number of ‘isolated incidents’ the reality cannot be hidden – this is an ongoing policy that remains virulently racist and oppressive.

The US empire is built on racism, colonialism and genocide

The US empire was built on the backs of Black slavery and the genocide of Black people – and upon settler colonialism and the genocide of indigenous people. The people of Ferguson are resisting, in a long tradition of Black resistance, and we support their legitimate resistance to racist oppression.

As people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab World see the brutality of the United States outside its borders, these communities confront its racist and colonial oppression within the borders of the US. The two are inextricably linked.

We also see US exploitation and plunder of people’s resources around the world. And inside the United States, Africans, Latinos, Filipinos, Afghans, Arabs who have suffered war and imperialism at the hands of the United States outside its borders are the same communities who face criminalization, brutality, exploitation, isolation and killings and murder at the hands of the state.

We see the targeting of migrants and refugees inside the US after their countries have been ravaged by imperialism, war and exploitation by the same ruling forces.

The mass incarceration of Blacks and Palestinians

Mass imprisonment and incarceration has been a central tool of racist control in the United States. One out of every three Black men in the US will be imprisoned. Every 28 hours a Black person is killed by the state or someone protected by the state.

Palestinians know well the use of mass imprisonment to maintain racist domination and oppression and breaking the racist structures of imprisonment is critical to our liberation movement. We salute Mumia Abu-Jamal and all of the political prisoners of the Black liberation movement in US jails and call for their immediate freedom.

Since the earliest days of the Black movement in the US, from slaves revolting for freedom to the civil rights movement and beyond, Black people, organizations and movements have faced severe state repression, targeting, incarceration and killings at the hands of the state.

US domestic intelligence agencies such as the FBI, who target Palestinian and Arab communities for state repression, have for years focused on attacking Black movements, leaders and communities as a central project.

In Ferguson and the West Bank, we are living under siege

Racism, poverty and oppression are the predominant scene faced by oppressed nations and communities in the United States. Black people in the United States are in fact under siege.

And just as we demand the end of the siege on our Palestinian people, in Gaza and everywhere, we demand an end to the siege of institutionalized racism and oppression in education, jobs, social services and all areas of life, and support the Black movements struggling to end that siege.

When we see the images today in Ferguson, we see another emerging Intifada in the long line of Intifada and struggle that has been carried out by Black people in the US and internationally.

The Palestinian national liberation movement salutes the Black liberation movement, and has learned so much from the experiences of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, the Black Panthers, Sojourner Truth, and generations of Black revolutionaries who have led the way in struggling for liberation and self-determination.

The struggle inside the United States is an integral part of the struggle against imperialism – in fact it is central, as it is taking place ‘in the belly of the beast.

A single movement: Blacks, Indigenous peoples, Palestinians

This is also the case for the struggle of Indigenous peoples and nations throughout North America, where settler colonial powers have been built through land theft and genocide, yet where indigenous people have always resisted and continue to resist today.

Every victory inside the United States and political achievement by popular movements and liberation struggles is a victory for Palestine and a victory for a world of human liberation.

Those who think that the fate of people in the United States lies with the ruling class parties, the Republicans and Democrats, until the end of time, are living in an illusion. So too are those who believe Palestine can find freedom by seeking alliances or guarantees by those who oppress Black people.

The Black struggle is leading the world in the struggle for an alternative political system that will bring US empire to defeat. We know that this will happen only through struggle, through organization of people, emerging from uprisings and communities rising in anger against injustice.

The anti-racist movement and anti-Zionist movement are not and cannot be separated. Fighting against racism means fighting capitalism. Fighting against capitalism means fighting for socialism.

We must extend and deepen our solidarity

In light of the police murder of the martyr Michael Brown and the ongoing struggle in Ferguson, Missouri, in the United States, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes and stands firmly with the ongoing struggle of Black people and all oppressed communities in the United States.

The Front encourages all Palestinians, and especially our Palestinian community in the United States, to continue and intensify their efforts in support of the Black liberation movement, from joining actions in support of Ferguson and in honor of Michael Brown, to long-term and sustained joint struggle and mutual solidarity with the Black movement.

There are long histories of this work, and it is critical for all of our communities to expand and deepen our links of struggle and solidarity.

The PFLP sends its revolutionary greetings, its solidarity message and its salutes to the struggling people of Ferguson on the front lines confronting US empire, and to the generations upon generations of Black struggle.

Our Palestinian liberation movement is part of one struggle with the Black liberation movement. This has been a position of principle for the Front since its founding. We reaffirm this stand today and will always do so until both of our peoples – and our world – are liberated.

 

 

Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian writer and activist whose voice is frequently heard via the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

This article is based on an interview with Khaled Barakat published by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: ‘PFLP salutes the Black struggle in the US: The empire will fall from within‘.

 




383430