NEW YORK, 14 April 2006 — A month and a half ago we celebrated the Jewish New Year for Trees to reinforce our appreciation of nature and God’s gifts. The olive tree in particular is associated with peace ever since Noah sent the dove out of the ark and she came back with an olive branch.
There are biblical laws against cutting down trees needlessly. Mankind is compared to the tree of the field, growing slowly, producing and nourishing yet easily cut off in an instant.
Vandals have been destroying Arab olive trees in occupied territories. It’s part of a hidden war of attrition on both sides. Just as some Muslims on the West Bank make it tough for Christians in the hope they will leave, so settlers try to deprive local Arabs of a living in the hope that they will move on. Each side always finds justification and provocation. But I had thought the army had it under control. So it was with great sadness that I read the following recent report in the Israeli press:
“Over the past year there have been dozens of sabotage incidents of Palestinian-owned olive groves by settlers. As recently as last month more than 1,000 olive trees have been cut down on six different occasions. Judea and Samaria District police told Haaretz that 672 investigation files were opened in 2005 for ‘disruption’ of order by Israelis against Palestinian property.”
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the Cabinet that Israel should give monetary compensation to Palestinians whose olive trees have been cut down. The excuse that there is a lack of resources is unacceptable,” said Mazuz. “This is a matter of priority.”’
In a second story, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz noted he has ordered the establishment of a special team to investigate the destruction of over 2,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank:
“Mofaz said in the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday that, following the findings of an investigation into the matter, he ordered security forces to increase their presence in areas where trees have been destroyed, to carry out a policy of quick and effective arrests and to compensate the Palestinian tree owners.”
The Jerusalem Post, not at all left-wing, had the following report on Jan. 13:
“While the army plans to launch special operations to catch the perpetrators, officials on Thursday slammed what they called the police’s constant failure to arrest the suspects. On Tuesday, head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Yuval Diskin criticized the police’s failure to effectively prevent settlers from vandalizing Palestinian olive orchards.”
Who are “settlers”? It’s a general term that is applied to anyone living beyond the old 1967 armistice borders. But it covers a range of people from religious to secular, economic settlers to ideological ones, aggressive to spiritual, pacifist mystics, criminals to law-abiding innocents. Sadly, amongst them are to be found those who resist the democratic process in Israel and refuse to try to live amicably with anyone who disagrees with them. They include no small number of “Hill Top Kids” — delinquents and petty criminals, dropouts from society who use the cover of “ideology” to indulge their own antisocial neuroses.
Whenever I read irrational, vituperative attacks on Zionism or Israel that are so totally lacking in any proportionality, I always determine to resist writing articles that are in any way critical of Israel. But then I pick up the “Jewish Press” in New York and see such ill-conceived apologetics that I think, “To heck with our enemies; let’s just try some home truths.” If I had seen an article excusing the work as the result of a few sick minds amongst the settlers I would have accepted it as at least an explanation. But this is what was written in a prominent article in the Jewish Press by Steven Plaut from Haifa University (the Alma Mater of the notorious Ilan Pappe — clearly extremes breed extremes):
“The simple answer is that the accusations are baseless. It would be hard to find another set of baseless rumors turned into ‘news.’ Not a single Israeli settler has been convicted of damaging Arab trees (That’s like saying no one in Europe has been convicted this year of anti-Semitic attacks and therefore there have been none. — JR) and several more plausible explanations for the cutting of the trees have been provided. A small number of trees have been cut down by the Israeli Army because they were being used by Palestinian snipers. The Israeli government has been paying compensation to Palestinians who claim their trees have been vandalized and that is why more and more complaints are being made!”
As if tight-fisted Israeli exchequers under economic pressure are going to dole out compensation for no good reason!!! Sadly our world is full of irrational fanatics. We need to remember that we have our own.
— Rabbi Jeremy Rosen is professor and chairman, the faculty for comparative religion in Antwerp, Belgium, and director of YAKAR Educational Foundation, UK. (GGNS)
