Settlers cut down W Bank olive trees

I wonder if these sociopaths we have as settlers ever think of the harm they have brought to their Palestinian neighbors during Yom Kippur. I doubt it!

Why does the world hate us? Duh!

Settlers cut down W Bank olive trees
Sunday 27 November 2005, 18:11 Makka Time, 15:11 GMT

Jewish settlers have cut down and uprooted hundreds of olive trees on Palestinian farms near the West Bank city of Nablus, residents and Israeli police said.

Residents of Salem said dozens of settlers from Elon Moreh on Sunday chopped down hundreds of the town's olive trees, the main source of income for 5000 residents.

"This is not the first time that settlers have cut down dozens of olive trees. Among them were trees more than 30 years old," said Adli Eshiya, a local councillor. Villagers said it was the sixth such attack this year.

Police said that at least 200 olive trees had been destroyed near Salem and that an investigation had begun.

A spokesman for Elon Moreh settlement, Benny Katsover, said he was not aware of the incident

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0B55216F-8756-47C7-8DAA-2614797615D4.htm

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this is a cowardly and roundable way of committing genocide. :cry:

And when the Palestinians react, it'll be "the palestinians are the wanton aggressors, as usual..."

x(

Both sides need to grow the fuck up or use REAL weapons and have it done. This shit is tiresome and they're acting like friggin' TODDLERS.


Israel does not want peace. I'm not sure Palestine does either, but I'm going to go off-topic and ask why does the US want to be on the behalf of Israel all the time when it ought to be neither? Or both, on a fair and objective level. You cannot be a "world's policeman" and be biased at the same time.

Clinton wanted peace, right? Wasn't Condi just there re the border crossing issue so that Palestinians could have a self-controlled border? When militants attack Israel, isn't the US very quick to call out that Israel use restraint against the Palestinian militants? I think you're factually incorrect on this point.

Our "selected leadership" - Bush (Harken Oil) and Cheney (Halliburton - oil field services company) do not want peace either - they are profiting from war from keeping the Arab proletariat's eyes off of OUR exploitation of their resources, and their kings and dictators wasting of their birth right in a most un-Islamic way - casinos, bordellos, un-Islamic extravagance (Islam is a religion of charity and propriety) -- another indication: , and still another indication: and, of course Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud.

I am not hijacking the thread - comment "Israel does not want peace. I'm not sure Palestine does either," was the hijacking. I am responding to the hijacking.

If somebody cut down my livelihood and it was an orchard, there would be bullets flying. Alot of them. I'd eventually get prosecuted and I'd get acquitted (but only because this is America).

Gyre

Monitor these areas and get the perps

or Sheriff Bull Connor - or Chaney and Schwerner and Goodman in Mississippi - or like they did to Emmitt Till.


Serious retaliation.

I read a link here yesterday that a different Jewish group was helping Palestinians to replant olive trees. It mentioned that the people in Elon Moreh had cut them down. I'm sorry, I can't find the link now.

On edit: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=105654

On further edit: It looks as if the settlers cut down the trees a month ago. This article sounds as if it just happened. That's why I was confused.

and it is somewhat to extremely unlikely you will find that type of story in AlJazeera.

Here it is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x105654

The Israeli Left hates the Israeli Right as much as we do, and they want peace as much as we want.

without a terminal lifespan-baring disease, injury or fire they can live forever.

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There is this documentary being played on the Discovery Military Channel, Off To War, that covers the 18-month deployment of the 239th Infantry of the Arkansas National Guard to Iraq. While the documentary focus on a handful of guardsmen as they serve in Iraq without taking a political position, it is obvious why the war is lost! In one scene the guardsmen are ordered to tear down a fence made of palms because it could offer cover to gunmen alongside a road. Despite the protestations of the farmer, the guardsmen just plow ahead, but in the process they also destroy the farmer's water main. The farmer was very unhappy!

In another scene, the guardsmen are ordered to go into homes alongside a highway to use them as lookouts for insurgents. In doing so, they get the families all upset, children terrified and crying, women in tears, and the men pissed.

The tearing down of Palestinian olive trees has the same effect as what the actions of the Arkansas guardsmen has had: they help foster an environment that gives rise to future terrorists. This is why we will lose the war in Iraq, this is why Israel has few friends left in the world.

Violence and injustice only leads to more violence and injustice. It is unfortunate that the good deeds of many are often buried by the bad deeds of the few.

Olive trees uprooted in Palestinian village

Private contractor uproots dozens of Palestinian village's olive trees before eyes of soldiers near security fence. 'If this is a security fence, how can IDF justify uprooting?' villager asks

<snip>

"The residents of the West Bank village of Bil'in were amazed to discover several weeks ago that dozens of olive trees had been uprooted from the village's orchards, tearing down the livelihood of dozens of families.

The village of Bil'in has become a symbol of the struggle against the construction of the security fence. Local residents and Israeli
and international peace activists rally near the village on a weekly basis against the erection of the fence.

Many acres have already been appropriated from the village in favor of the construction project, and now its residents lost their olive orchards for a project to develop infrastructure for the new neighborhoods of the nearby Israeli town of Modi'in."

<snip>

"The Defense Ministry told Ynet that "the incident in question was not related to the construction of the security fence, but was the work of a private contractor who was operating in the area. Once his activity was reported, the police intervened to stop it."

[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3174632,00.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/651690.html

<snip>

"The illegal outposts, which the government has refrained from dismantling, are home to lawbreakers who, in addition to seizing lands that do not belong to them, are in the habit of assaulting their Palestinian neighbors, and the Palestinians' property and plantings, on the assumption that the arm of the law is too short to reach them.

In recent years, the olive harvest season has become a time of delight for some outpost residents, and the amount of destruction that they manage to wreak - with no interference - on Palestinian olive groves is mind-boggling. In the village of Salem alone, some 180 olive trees were torched in May, while 250 trees were chopped down in July and another 200 in October. On Monday, village residents discovered a group of Israelis, whom they recognized as residents of an outpost near Elon Moreh, using an electric saw to cut down dozens more olive trees. In total, some 900 olive trees have been destroyed in Salem alone over the last half year.

The destruction of olive trees is not just a mortal blow to the livelihood of rural Palestinians; it is primarily an evil act that reflects a desire to assail one of the most prominent symbols of the Palestinians' hold on the land and an attempt to prove that the settlers indeed intend to inherit these lands and expel their inhabitants. But the destruction of these trees also symbolizes the apathy, not to say cruelty, of the Israeli occupation and the law enforcement agencies' criminal disregard for the settlers' actions. The harm done to the trees is just the tip of the iceberg of the ongoing abuse that the outpost residents inflict on their neighbors. Since April, the nonprofit organization Yesh Din has submitted 84 complaints to the Samaria and Judea Police, covering incidents of murder, physical assault and other forms of abuse against Palestinians. Five cases have already been closed. Not one is being heard in court, and nobody has been arrested."

<snip>

"If the government were interested in bringing the guilty parties to trial, if the prime minister spoke out publicly against the criminal violence being committed by citizens of Israel, it is doubtful that the outpost residents would be able to continue their assaults for even another week. The Shin Bet security service, which is capable of capturing a wanted man hiding in the heart of a populous Palestinian city, would surely have no difficulty locating a few dozen Israelis who chop down 200 olive trees in broad daylight, with no interference, and then pack up their tools and go back to their illegal houses in an illegal outpost. Evidently, no one is interested in putting a stop to these acts - just as no one gets upset over the establishment of illegal outposts in the first place. One crime leads to another, and violence leads to more violence. And disregard for all this is what makes the outpost residents omnipotent in the territories."

Police arrest two youths who bragged about sabotaging Palestinian vineyard

By Jonathan Lis and Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondents

Indictments were submitted Thursday against two youths suspected of cutting down 120 grapevines belonging to a Palestinian farmer at Givat Harsina in Hebron.

The youths, aged 17, residents of Be'er Sheva and Alon Shvut, were arrested on Tuesday after bragging to police officers that they had cut the vines from the Palestinian's trees.

Some 15 complaints have been filed with police through the Yesh Din organization against Israeli civilians for sabotaging Palestinian crops since April.

The latest such incident took place in the West Bank village of Salem on Sunday.

Some 200 olive trees were cut down only a day after the Kibbutz Movement sent volunteers to help the farmers whose groves had been earlier sabotaged by settlers.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/652678.html

israel has also managed to develope and "manufacture a society that combines 2nd century visions and beliefs with modern technology.

Though you only read whats in the paper, having met some of these people, the only solution i can ever come up with is something out of star trek/star wars

beam them up scotty and scatter their molecules in the "outer rim"

Yet another picture of what Israelis are doing to Palestinians.

I wonder, are they cutting down trees to fight terrorism? Or are they doing it because of the Holocaust? Which one of the ridiculous justifications will they use for this?

And also, imagine you and your family just lost their property and livelihood because of something like this. Would you want to fight back? I thought so.

Defense Minister Mofaz outraged by reports of uprooted Palestinians trees; orders investigation, says compensation possible

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3192234,00.html

<snip>

"If it turned out that Israelis were involved in the uprooting of olive trees belonging to Palestinians, the victims of the acts would receive compensation from the Israeli government, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Thursday.

The subject of uprooted trees came up at a meeting between the defense minister, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, and security officials."

<snip>

"In the course of the meeting, it was reported that over 1,000 olive trees were uprooted in Samaria, according to Palestinian reports.

Mofaz described the incidents as "scandalous" and said that it was unacceptable for a state guided by and morality to accept such a situation.

He then ordered the setting up of an investigations committee, to be made up of police representatives, the IDF, and the Shin Bet, in order to track down those uprooting the trees and harming the Palestinian economy."

(reminds me of the classic line from Casablanca.)

Mofaz described the incidents as "scandalous" and said that it was unacceptable for a state guided by and morality to accept such a situation.

What is scandalous and immoral is that the illegal settlement activity continues with Mofaz' tacit approval.

Israel backs settlement expansion

Wednesday, 14 December 2005, 12:20 GMT

Israel has approved the building of about 300 new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the government says.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz approved construction in Maale Adumim, the largest settlement in the territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

He also approved preparatory steps for the expansion of the smaller settlements of Bracha and Nokdim.

The decision violates the roadmap peace plan, under which Israel agreed to freeze all settlement building.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4527916.stm

But I'm too lazy, and you saved me the trouble.

<snip>

"Israel's Supreme Court has sanctioned the uprooting of a Palestinian woman's citrus grove on the grounds that it impedes security for Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz's home.

Mofaz lives in Kochav Yair, an upscale town on the Israeli side of the "Green Line" with the West Bank. Zuhriyya Hasan Murshid, 72, has orange, tangerine and lemon trees just 25m from the minister's property.

After the military issued an order in September to uproot the trees for security reasons, Murshid filed an appeal with the high court.

At the time, she said: "Why does Mofaz build his house near my land, and then decide to take away my land? If he doesn't like it, he can move."


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Shocked I tell ya'.