Mohammed Samaana Informed Coment
Israeli squatters in the Palestinian West Bank have intensified their violence towards the Palestinians during the current annual olive harvest season. The attack on the harvest comes on top of the squatters’ increased attacks on Palestinian hamlets, their animals, and crops in the West Bank, especially since the Gaza genocide started over three years ago.
According to the Palestinian Bureau for Defending Land, the Israeli settlers and soldiers carried out over 500 attacks against Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives during the month of October including 150 incidents of theft. As a result, the olive oil production is expected to be down by 50% producing 10,000 – 11,000 metric tons instead of 21,000. Furthermore, the cumulative loss for the olive farming sector since the year 2023 is estimated to be at $157 million. It is also estimated that 286,000 olive trees were damaged in the West Bank since 2023 including 100,000 trees in 2026 while 90% of Gaza’s two million olive trees have been destroyed over the past three years. Olive trees take ten years to mature once planted, and can remain fertile for 150 years, so they constitute generational wealth. Some of the trees being targeted were planted before there was an Israel, and some before there were any Jewish settlers in Ottoman Palestine. Burning them or chopping them down is an attempt to further impoverish the Palestinians and to sever their most essential link with their land. Even before 2023, the Israelis were estimated to have destroyed one million Palestinian olive trees. The total is now three times that.
Just as with the genocide in Gaza, the squatters’ violence was streamed to our phones. Their attacks ranged from physical assaults on Palestinians, including firing on them, to burning trees and homes. This year, they added to their tactic of economic warfare, including stealing livestock and other animals, by targeting the olive harvest. Not only that, but this year for the first time, they have acquired their own olive press machines so that they can produce oil from the olives they usurped, and sell it at a competitive price on the market.
During my last visit to the West Bank in July of this year, I saw Palestinian olive groves burned by the Israeli squatters. I witnessed the way their illegal outposts are scattered in many different locations, on land stolen from Palestinian owners. They also erected Israeli flags all over the main roads with no more than 20 meters distance between each flag and the next, as if they are declaring it their territory. The man sitting beside me on the bus told me that in his village of Jaloud, which has been subjected to a great deal of settler violence, the Israeli army does not allow them to so much as air dry their clothes on the terrace claiming the clothes block the view of the soldiers.
The squatters’ brutality is supported by both the Israeli religious and political authorities. Prominent Rabbi Dov Lior issued a religious ruling that allows the squatters to steal the Palestinian olives, claiming that this theft serves as a practical demonstration of the Jewish ownership of the land.
Moreover, as if it is not enough that the army often accompanies the squatters so that they can get on with their violence and theft with an armed guard, the outgoing Israeli government, which had a number of illegal Israeli settlers in its cabinet, allocated a budget for the settlers “Hilltop Youth” movement who are well known for their violence. Each member gets about $16 a day worth of vouchers for food and clothes. Additionally, the outgoing Israeli far- right security minister started handing out guns to Israeli squatters in Palestine, with 120,000 firearms distributed by October 2024.
Make no mistake about it, the squatters’ violence is well orchestrated and part of a wider strategy that involves the Israeli army and the government to force the Palestinians off their land and ethnically cleanse them. The olive harvest is targeted for different reasons. First, the olive is a source of food as olive oil and olives are a classic part of the Palestinian cuisine, especially breakfast and the famous Palestinian mosakhan dish. Second, its wood and pressing residuals are a source of fuel, especially for home heating. Third, it is part of some industries such as the traditional olive oil-based soap making, some artisanal crafts, and others. In fact Palestinian political prisoners made beads from the olive stones. Fourth and probably most important is the important place of the olive tree in the Palestinian culture and identity, as well as family life and society. As part of the Palestinian culture, we have always used the olive branch as a symbol of peace.
Therefore, Israel and its settlers’ attacks on the olive trees symbolize an assault on peace itself. It is also a form of cultural appropriation, especially last year when Israeli squatters posted videos trying to copy the Palestinian way of life. They imitated the way we eat and prepare our food and drink when in the olive fields, as if they are impersonating us.
Personally, I remember as a child planting olive trees with my late father. Seeing them again always reminds me of him. I also feel that trees connect different generations together especially when I’m near trees planted by my grandparents, whom I never knew.
The squatters’ violence is carried out under the protection of the Israeli army. Palestinians are left on their own without any protection. Even their own factions, referred to as the resistance factions, are satisfied with statements of condemnation and calling on the civilian population to defend themselves. In fact, all the Palestinian factions from the right to the left and from secular to Islamists have all failed to organize even one peaceful protest against the settlers’ assaults.
It is, therefore, important for the international community to step in, especially the genocide enablers. Sanctions imposed on the Israeli settlements by Canada and 11 European countries, including the UK, Ireland, France and Spain, are symbolic and ineffective. This is evidenced by the fact that they were imposed well before the olive harvest season but did nothing to stop the settlers. Countries whose official policy is the two-state solution, like the UK, EU, US, Russia, India and China must impose sanctions not only on the settlements but also on Israel, until it dismantles its illegal squatter-settlements in the West Bank, ends its genocide and siege of Gaza, allows the Palestinians to return to their homes and complies with International Law and UN resolutions.
Juan Cole’s Informed Comment delivers independent, expert analysis of war, the Middle East, climate change, and U.S. foreign policy. Help sustain this work
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.