Olive harvest and visit to destroyed Palestinian 48er village

Despite the fact that the Gaza offensive continues, my past week to 12 days has been relatively peaceful, however, our minds are never far from what is happening just a mere hundred or more kilometres away from us.

October is olive harvest month and the IWPS, along with other international solidarity organisations such as the ISM and Israeli peace groups spend much of the month working with Palestinian villagers and their families to try and ensure that the crop is harvested safely.

Helping to co-ordinate olive harvest for the IWPS (and our three international brigades from the USA, Great Britain and Austria/Germany) is one of the main assignments I have agreed to take on here. While we do assist in a hands on way by participating in the actual picking, this is not our primary task. Our main task is to work with the villages to help coordinate an international presence to try to help ensure that Palestinian farmers and their families not harassed or attacked by settlers or the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) while they are trying to harvest their crops.

Much of the land on which the olive groves are located has either been expropriated by the illegal settlements, which means that the families need to try and gain access to their land which is now inside the settlements or located just outside the settlements fences and gates. In addition, huge swaths of olive groves have also been lost behind the illegal Apartheid wall and farmers need to gain access their land, which is either behind the wall or located near it.

To gain access to their land, Palestinians have to apply for permits from Israel, however, even if they do this and are granted permits there is no guarantee that they will be able to pick. The IOF may decided, for reason often only known to them, not to open the gates, or to deny them access to their land or they may only issue permits to one member of the family and not the rest.

So far this year, the IOF have been reasonably well behaved in the Salfit region, at least compared to previous year, however, in the Nablus area they have been extremely belligerent and declared today that the farmers now only have 3 days to complete their harvest (many farmers have not even started). Yesterday, five internationals, including RC and NH were detained for 5 hours for the ‘crime’ of assisting with the olive harvest in a closed military zone. They were, however, released unharmed and on the condition that they would not enter what the Israeli’s call Samaria (the northern part of the West Bank) for the next two weeks.

In Salfit (where we are located) it has been a different story so far and our primary problem with the IOF here has been bureaucratic, with them not always opening the gates at the assigned times or they have closed them early. On our first day of picking in Mas’ha they tried to stop Israelis or Internationals from entering the settlements as well as entering back into Palestine, but after several phone calls and an hour of debate, we have been able to get through. While the IDF tend to take bureaucratia to a new level, it is often the settlers who pose the most danger, particularly those in the more ideological/religious settlements.

Settlements, like Israeli society, are divided into religious settlements and secular settlements. Many of the secular settlements are made up of poorer Jewish immigrants and workers who primarily move to the settlements to take advantage of the huge monetary incentives and subsidies provided by the government. The religious settlements are those populated by the fundamentalist right who believe that the land was given to them by god and the Palestinians must be driven out so as to ensure that Eretz Israel (greater Israel) is established.

Picking in settlements has its problems, but it is picking near the religious/ideological settlements is the most dangerous, especially for Palestinians, as well as the Israeli activists (as they seen as traitors by the settlers). Yesterday, I received a phone call from one of the villages we are working with telling us that they had been attacked by settlers and their harvesting equipment stolen and some of their groves had been burned by settlers. We later heard that 3 settler youths had been detained, but Israel is much like the old American south before the civil rights movement, where whites could basically do what they like to Negros, including murder, and get away with it.

In Israel settlers or Israelis are rarely charged with assaults, attacks or the murder of Palestinians or if they are they receive minor penalties. Just last week, a settler shot and murdered a Palestinian taxi driver, his sentence – if you can call it that – was house detention. The reason for the proclamation of the 3 day only period for harvesting in Nablus is because settlers (or some reports say the soldiers) attacked and shot a Palestinian farmer in the neck, killing him and now the IOF in that region has declared that the olive season "threatened the lives of Israeli settlers".

Today, I picked in the village of Marda, which comrades may be surprised to hear has a small Venezuelan community. Apparently, they are Palestinians who had immigrated to Venezuela but returned after the first intifada with Venezuelan citizenship. I have not had the opportunity to discuss Chavez with them yet, but it is definitely on my list of things to do. When there are no hassles from the IOF or the settlers like today, picking can be quite fun and can be quite therapeutic as it can be, as one of our team members put it, almost "zen-like". You are usually quite dirty by the end of the day and exhausted but you get to hang out with ordinary Palestinian families and talk with them, joke and share meal with them.

One of the other great experiences that I got to be part in was when a number of us from IWPS spent the afternoon with an Israeli activist group called Zochrot. Zochrot means, "Remembering" in Hebrew and they work to raise awareness about Al Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) amongst Israelis. Their hope is that by trying to raise awareness amongst Israelis of what happened to the Palestinians that they can broaden public awareness and support for the Palestinian right of return. They do this by documenting what happened, by working with Palestinians to teach and commemorate the historical injustices committed against the people of Palestine, including conducting commemoration tours and documenting the history of the destroyed villages.

Along with around 100 Israelis and Palestinians we visited the remains of the village of Al Lajun (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=168). The land on which the village of Al Lajun existed is now occupied by the Megiddo Kibbutz. The tour of the village was conducted by refugees from the village who told us how Al Nakba had affected their families and their lives. The tour was very moving, we visited the residential area of the village, as well as the market areas. The only evidence left of this once thriving Palestinian village was overgrown stones, as well its graveyard and mosque. After the destruction of the village, the state of Israel moved quickly to plant trees to disappear the existence of the village. In the 80s, the Kibbutz started to use the graveyard to dump rubbish and the villagers mounted a legal action to stop it (which they won). The only standing building left is the mosque but it is located inside the kibbutz and permission to visit it is genera! lly denied, just as it was denied on the day we visited.

The Megiddo area has been the site of many historical battles between the tribes and nations of Assyria, Egypt, Canaan, Hittite, Judea, Rome, Greece, Persia and Babylon. The fields of Megiddo which surround where the village once existed is the location for, according to the New Testament of the bible, the site of Armageddon or where the masses of troops will gather for last battle between good and evil.

Today, Megiddo is also the site of the Israeli military prison where Palestinians from the West Bank are housed. I had not realised that the prison was directly across the road from the remains of the village and words cannot really describe the complete shock I felt as the prison suddenly came into view as we passed it in the bus on the way to the village.

My first thought was that it looked exactly like the Nazi concentration camps that Jews and political prisoners were murdered in during WWII and I wondered how the majority of ordinary Israelis could not see that this and be disturbed by it as much as I was.

My second thought was for the prisoners inside the camp, many of them like Rabia, the 19 year old son of our neighbours, who was being detained in the prison under horrendous conditions. Rabia was arrested just before I arrived, as he was crossing from Palestine into Jordan to go to a conference in France. When he was detained, the Israeli authorities accused him of working with terrorists. When he told them he work with Israeli peace activists, apparently the response from the military was "that is even worse"

Just a little way up from the prison at the Megiddo Junction, however, there was a much more inspiring and positive site. Bat Shalom had erected their annual Sukkah for Peace to mark the Sukkot holidays, which is also known as the Feast of Tabernacles and is the Jewish holiday, which celebrates peace and happiness. For three days, the Sukkah or peace tent play hosts to Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and organisations and includes educationals, movement discussions, action planning and a vigil. We briefly visited the tent, but were unable to stay for more then 15 minutes unfortunately, but it was great to see so many people there.