CPT An Unsuccessful Olive Harvest

An Unsuccessful Olive Harvest
2008 October 18

We had been picking about an hour when, suddenly, we heard cries behind us. Abed (not his real name), a Palestinian photographing harvesters in a tree 20 meters away, had just been attacked by four tall settlers wearing their kippas and long white shirts. They had knocked him to the ground and were kicking and hitting him savagely.

Jan, a petite but tough Scotswoman, and I, the two CPT members, rushed over and up the steep terrace. As Jan arrived, one settler had taken Abed’s large professional camera away. She asked him to return it. As he swung the camera away behind himself, its strap swung all the way around. Just as I snapped a photo, Jan grabbed the strap. The settler instantly swung his right fist into her cheek, full force, knocking her off her feet. Then he hurled Abed’s expensive camera as far as he could down into the rocky terrace behind and below me, apparently hoping to damage or destroy it.

About that moment, several IDF soldiers arrived. Jan shouted, “That man attacked me. Detain that man!” But the soldiers made no effort to detain the attackers. I walked over to retrieve Abed’s camera. Thankfully, it appeared to be unbroken. One soldier later said to Jan, “We stopped the fighting. Don’t ask for anything more.”

When the Israeli police arrived, they declared Tel Rumeida a “closed military zone”, meaning that all non-residents have to leave. Of course the settlers were already gone. Most of the Israeli peace activists present wanted to continue the harvest. But Israel has a law banning all Israelis, other than settlers, from entering Palestinian areas. The effect, and probably the intent, of this law is to make it difficult for Israelis who oppose Israel’s occupation to meet and work with Palestinians. Eventually the Israeli police began detaining the 15 Israeli activists and escorting them out of Tel Rumeida.

We had picked only one tree, collecting maybe eight gallons of olives. The four young settlers got what they presumably wanted – the olive harvest was stopped. Today’s harvest was mostly unsuccessful. Except that the harvest is not really about olives. It is actually about the struggle for power and control over the land. And the settlers may have miscalculated. A half-dozen of the other photojournalists were standing 15 meters away on the terrace above the attack, with their video cameras running.

That same evening Jan and I were chatting with the manager of our hostel in Jerusalem, when we suddenly saw ourselves on the TV in the hostel lobby. Al Jazeera and the BBC both broadcast, worldwide, the complete footage of both attacks. The settler movement was extremely embarrassed, and immediately began making false allegations. They claimed we had “marched” through “their” street, “throwing stones” and “provoking” them to defend themselves. But the next morning the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz carried an extensive front-page story, and four-color photos, of the settler attack.