At the Bil'in protest site, a report on an incident two days ago. The accompanying video is upsetting; if you look at anything, please just look at the women's faces at 2:22 and the smirking soldier at 6:11. Will good Peter Beinart and the New York Review of Books show American Jews this? Will Jewish Community Centers show this at conferences? This is occupied Palestine--humiliation, oppression, disrespect, and yes, rage.
This afternoon, villagers rushed to quench a fire in an olive tree sited close to the Apartheid-Annexation Wall which was deliberately set on fire by the retreating IOF [Israeli occupation forces], but which was unable to be saved due to the fire being set in a crevice in the trunk which smouldered throughout the day and it was only in the latter stages that the tell-tale smoke was detected.
This pernicious act of economic warfare has deeply angered the villagers as many are dependent on the sale of the olive oil 700 to 800 shekels per tree annually for their livelihoods. To rub salt into their wounds and worse, after the fire was extinguished, the IOF ventured forth from behind the Wall and after detaining three activist-journalists - so as not to record their crimes, subjected the villagers to live fire, tear gas and sound bombs. Today's destruction of the tree has alarmed the farmers in that phosphorus may have been used to unobtrusively burn the tree and olive groves may follow.
h/t Michael Bitar.
White phosphorous is not an incendiary weapon, huh? Granted, we’ll need to see some definitive evidence that the fire was started with phosphorous but it seems pretty clear that some sort of incendiary substance was used to commit arson — you really can’t set a fire inside a tree without an adequately flammable accelerant.
This is Zionism, folks.
If the report is accurate, it’s absolutely despicable.
However, given that the fire was “set in a crevice in the trunk which smouldered throughout the day and it was only in the latter stages that the tell-tale smoke was detected”, where is the evidence that the fire was set by the “retreating IOF” who, in the morning, had been forced to “beat a retreat”?
Just curious.
>> If the report is accurate, it’s absolutely despicable.
To clarify: Whether or not the report is accurate, the burning of an olive tree is despicable. However, if the report is accurate – if occupation forces did, in fact, set the fire – the act is considerably more despicable for having been carried out by the forces of an ambiguous “occupier” with “temporary administration over a region until sovereignty is established”. Engaging in maximalist destabilization instead of nurturing of “the other” is so…not poetic.
This kind of vandalism is a regular occurrence. Practically not a weekend goes by without the settlers poisoning wells/killing livestock/setting fire to agricultural fields or attacking Palestinians.
They’ve attacked three mosques since December. I visited the last mosque they attacked in the village of Lubban Al Sharqiya near Nablus. They had moved the Qurans from one side of the mosque to the other right next to the toilet. Then they had arranged shoes in a Star of David sign. This was to be deliberately provocative against a deeply religious society. Shoes are considered especially dirty in the Mideast/Muslim world and that is why people have to leave them outside the mosque before they come in to pray. And putting the Qurans right near the toilet was deliberate too.
The entire mosque was gutted and will have to be rebuilt.
Gosh, I remember how they used to carry the Torah scroll around the Temple, and we would all reach out to touch the sacred object.
That’s cause us Jews, we respect the sacred stuff, not like those Moslems.
But let’s cut top the chase: Can somebody tell me, in terms of the situation as it is today, what the fuck would happen if every goddam synagogue in America screamed and wailed about Israel’s crimes and sins? Nothing, that’s what. Since when do sovereign states get pushed around by minor religious oprganisations from another country?
At best (and it is something to hope for) there would be four divisions of Judaism instead of three. If the American Jews weren’t completely cowed by Israel’s threat to leave organised Judaism.
The idea that American Jews can do anything, as Jews, which might effect Israel is nothing more than a way of minimising what Israel has done. What the hell does Israel need from American Jews? They can go straight to the US government for money and military co-operation, and deal with honest Gentiles, instead of liberal Jews who don’t understand what’s required in this situation.
“Hello Israel, this is Congregation Podunk Elohim, please stop with the atom bombs and intransigence, already!” Yeah, that’ll work.
My hope that American Jews can pressure Israel is based on the possibility of neocons/colonial Zionists being ousted from major Jewish institutions like AIPAC with consequent change in lobbying policies. I realize it would be an absolute miracle if that occurred, and you are proposing the notion that even if it did, it wouldn’t make any difference. /sigh I hope you are wrong.
Colin, Israel deals directly with the US government. Neither of those entities has to care about the moral or ethical input of Jewish Americans.
I forgot to add the mosque was the subject of an arson attack. The Israelis later admitted that the fire was deliberate after first claiming an electrical fault caused the fire. The electricity had been turned off as repairs were taking place and villagers saw settlers arriving in the early hours of the morning and going into the mosque. The curtains were pulled down to help the fire burn.
It’s pretty staggering when you think about it. Jewish settlers are quite literally waging pogroms against the Palestinians.
burning trees is far from a pogroms, read some history
well yonira when will you have balls to denounce what the racist scum do there? is this what you share with the jewish scum?
Toppling houses? Setting fire to mosques? Spitting on Palestinians? Poisoning wells? Throwing stones at school children? Spay painting store fronts? And all government subsidized, and protected by your friends in the IDF?
And you consider none of that to be pogroms, huh?
Thanks for the input, David Dukota.
You just read about deliberate arson at multiple mosques. Palestinians are regularly killed in the West Bank/East Jerusalem and especially Gaza.
I’d like to see you being so flippant about a pogrom if a coalition of arab nations attacked and occupied Israel, burnt down synagogues and killed jews. Suddenly I just know zionists would start squawking about international law and human rights violations – and they’d be right to.
No, attacks like this are exactly what most pogroms consisted of.
And why aren’t you there, lighting matches, Yonira? You better get that girl converted, get over there and do your part.
>> I’d like to see you being so flippant about a pogrom if a coalition of arab nations attacked and occupied Israel, burnt down synagogues and killed jews. Suddenly I just know zionists would start squawking about international law and human rights violations – and they’d be right to.
According to Mr. Witty, that would be maximalist and destabilizing. It would not be nurturing, especially if the coalition were to become an ambiguous ‘occupier’ with ‘temporary administration over a region until sovereignty is established’. I have absolutely no doubt that he would insist Zionists do nothing more than scatter green yarn and recite poetry and try to understand “the other”. :-)
Speaking of pogroms:
Settlers intend to vandalize mosques, defense officials learn (May, 2010) link to haaretz.com
Fire damages mosque near West Bank city of Nablus
(Libban al-Sharqia, Nablus district, May, 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Mosque vandalized as settlers attack Palestinian village
(Huwwara, Nablus district, April 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Settler rabbi arrested over West Bank mosque arson (Jan 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Settler Pogrom in Yasuf, Mosque Burned with Quran
(Yasuf, Salfit district, Dec, 2009)
link to richardsilverstein.com
Settlers burn Koran in mosque attack as reprisal for Israel’s freeze on expansion (same attack as the one reported by Tikun Olam)
link to timesonline.co.uk
Olmert condemns settler ‘pogrom’
(Hebron, Dec, 2008)
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Israeli police probing ‘pogrom’
(Asira al Qabliya – Nablus district, Sept 2008)
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Desecrating graves and morality
(Kifl Hares, Salfit district, June 2007)
link to haaretz.com
Pogrom:
Cambridge Dictionary – pogrom: an act of organized cruel behaviour or killing which is done to a large group of people because of their race or religion
Collins Dictionary – pogrom: an organized persecution and massacre
“burning trees is far from a pogroms, read some history”
Yonira, these people here will never understand that Jews simply suffer more than others, given the same level of attack. It’s cause we’re just so sensitive. You know, liable to go off anytime, or way too soon.
I don’t understand how anyone could read your comments and not find themselves in complete sympathy with your sensitivity. And oh, your poor girlfriend! Has she mastered “modern” Hebrew yet?
aparisian,
denunciation goes with out saying, the actions are appalling, it makes me sick when i see it.
eljay, it happened in Iraq in the 1950s, that was considered a pogrom, this action is disgusting, but it takes more than burning down trees to consider it a pogrom. Chaos is obsessed with jewish suffering and feels to need to compare all historical jewish suffering to current palestinian suffering, no matter how outrageous the claim.
Is it still a pogrom when it was zionists planting the bombs?
Violence against Palestinians is not isolated to the burning of a few olive branches here and there, as you well know.
You didn’t want to speculate about life for jews under occupation where synagogues are burnt to the ground? I guess in this case speculation isn’t required is it?
>> eljay, it happened in Iraq in the 1950s, that was considered a pogrom, this action is disgusting, but it takes more than burning down trees to consider it a pogrom. Chaos is obsessed with jewish suffering and feels to need to compare all historical jewish suffering to current palestinian suffering, no matter how outrageous the claim.
I didn’t call it a pogrom and, while I don’t take to heart everything Chaos says (sorry, Chaos! ;-)), I get his point (at least I think it’s his point) that the burning of olive trees – which are essential to the livelihoods of many Palestinians – is just one more spiteful action in a long list of actions that could, as a whole, be considered a pogrom, the intent of which is to drive Palestinians out of “greater Israel”.
Burning and destroying olive trees wipes out what many families base their livelihoods on. I remember reading about Kristallnacht which was more or the less the same thing.
I met a Palestinian farmer in 2003 who university educated 4 children in Nablus, Jerusalem and Amman on the crop from one grove of olive trees which Israel destroyed that year. That is Zionism, yonira. It’s today a hateful ideology. Yesha takes precedence over human decency.
Bilin will be there long after hasbara is retired from use.
Speaking of pogroms:
Settlers intend to vandalize mosques, defense officials learn (May, 2010) link to haaretz.com
Fire damages mosque near West Bank city of Nablus (Libban al-Sharqia, Nablus district, May, 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Mosque vandalized as settlers attack Palestinian village (Huwwara, Nablus district, April 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Settler rabbi arrested over West Bank mosque arson (Jan 2010)
link to haaretz.com
Settler Pogrom in Yasuf, Mosque Burned with Quran
(Yasuf, Salfit district, Dec, 2009)
link to richardsilverstein.com
Settlers burn Koran in mosque attack as reprisal for Israel’s freeze on expansion (same attack as the one reported by Tikun Olam) link to timesonline.co.uk
Olmert condemns settler ‘pogrom’ (Hebron, Dec, 2008)
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Israeli police probing ‘pogrom’
(Asira al Qabliya – Nablus district, Sept 2008)
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Desecrating graves and morality
(Kifl Hares, Salfit district, June 2007)
link to haaretz.com
Pogrom:
Cambridge Dictionary – pogrom: an act of organized cruel behaviour or killing which is done to a large group of people because of their race or religion
Collins Dictionary – pogrom: an organized persecution and massacre
I want to scream and cry when i see that olive trees burning that way. An olive tree gives fruits after at least 20 years. Why Zionists are that cruel? Why they are so ugly and criminal?
It’s ethnic cleansing when the vandalism of a piece of property is meant to undermine the economic viability of a village to drive them out. Colonists and IDF aren’t just doing this for fun.
… the vandalism, theft and humiliation has been occurring for so long, it’s state sponsored violence for the purpose of ethnic cleansing.
It’s a slow kill of the last remnants of their society.
When you destroy olive groves, it destroys entire families and towns. This is like killing the sheep herdsman’s entire drove. He no longer has the animals, and his family becomes refugees in another town or place.
I imagine their is a population number that Israel is targeting for Palestinians, when their population has been so diminished it is no longer a threat to Israel. And the government can announce on that day that they are ready to make a lasting peace with the remaining Palestinians, and be perceived as the dignified state.
If I were an IDF general, I could tell the soldiers “Do you want them to become the Majority in Our Country One Day and They Make Us Their Slaves?” It’s a powerful message, that can motivate a soldier to destroy and humiliate civilians, who are already on the edge of survival.
The soldier in the video, the one who asked the cameraman to shut it off, started to say that they “didn’t set fire, we throw……OK,….shoot it…stop”, and then he catches himself and stops. The smile that follows immediately is an obvious sign of embarrassment at the slip-up. Mannerisms and body language differ from culture to culture and region to region.
I was under the mistaken impression that it was sacrilegious for Jews to destroy fruit-bearing trees. Israelis have destroyed over a million olive trees since it was created with half that amount destroyed in the last 10 years or so. A light onto nations indeed.
For more on the horrible Israeli onslaught on olive trees:
link to ameu.org
A little taken from the above:
…Thirty-five years ago, Mohammad Abu-Awad, a teacher of agriculture, planted 70 olive trees on his land. On the night of Sept. 25, 2009, the eve of the olive-picking season, while he slept, vandals came to his grove from the Jewish settlement of Adei Ad. Armed with buzz saws, they ravaged his field, leaving twisted stubs. Abu-Awad wrapped the mutilated limbs in sackcloth to shield them from sun scald. He would replant them, he said. If he can.
Twenty acres had already been taken from him to build the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, and another 25 for the settlement of Rahelim. Four acres remained. Now 68, his eyes wet, he told the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy: ”If I had been there, I’d have told them, cut off my hands, but don’t cut down my trees. What did the tree do to them, for them to treat it like this? I love the soil, I am in love with it. I am not afraid of them. If they want to kill me, let them. This is my land. I sleep on it.”
Mohammad Abu-Awad is one of an estimated 100,000 families in the West Bank alone who are dependent on income from their olive trees.
Agricultural experts in the Holy Land estimate that over one million olive trees—yes, one million—have been uprooted and destroyed by Israel since its founding in 1948. Almost half of these have been uprooted in the last nine years, with the start of the second intifada in 2000. Just during its last war on Gaza, the Israeli army, in the course of 22 days, destroyed more than 13,000 olive trees.
Sometimes they uproot the trees and take them away to replant in the settlements. This is called “theft”.
Hell no, it’s called “liberation”!
C’mon everybody! You know the words! Sing it like you mean it!
“Haa-aa-tik-vah….”
Mooser i know you are a wise man please explain me why yonira, Witty and the Zionists are that cruel in their hearts? Which synagogue they attend or how they are programmed?
” Mooser i know you are a wise man please explain me why yonira, Witty and the Zionists are that cruel in their hearts?”
Look, aparisian, I don’t know whether to be insulted or complimented by this. That you think I might have some insight into the outer workings (cause that’s about all there is, really) of their brains is very insulting. On the other hand, assuming I am some kind of forensic psychologist, or expert on psychiatric pathologies is quite a compliment!
With Witty, tho, it’s a lot simpler: Witty’s beliefs and way of acting are reflected in his son. And who wouldn’t defend their child? If Israel is wrong, then the haredim are wrong, and Witty can’t face that, on two counts. So he will choose the wisest option, and simply dissolve his brain.
Why he has to make us party to the spectacle, I’ll never know, but he feels he must.
There is variety of opinion among different Haredim. To generalize in that way, is frankly quite racist.
I will be reluctant to undertake any effort that causes him harm. I hope that you feel similarly about your children if you have them.
It is a greater justice to actually care about people, than to have the out from responsibility of having no one that you care deeply about, and incorporate that caring into your political beliefs.
Caring for my son (who in spite of Chaos’ lies, does not live in a settlement) does not prohibit me from supporting justice for Palestinians.
It is small-minded of you to think in that way.
is it small minded of you to not openly acknowledge the plight of those in this article which are a direct result of the cult of zionism you so cherish????
Small minded is “I support x community and I utterly reject y community”.
Mutual respect is broad-minded, not posed as either/or.
my comment was in relation to the thread the absence of any acknowledgment on your part.. it may seem strange, but in all the threads that could bring a tear to any persons eye, instead it is used by once again as an opportunity for to generalize/trivialize….
So Richard, we get down to it: To support the Palestinians is to be against the Israelis?
Yeah, baby, you just fight it out along those lines, Richard. I can’t see how it can lead to other than a complete victory. Cause no one, in the worlf, ever, will end up saying “You know what? In that case you stick the Israeli up your ass, I’ll take the Palestinians!”
I mean, who could ever do that? Who on earth has ever not taken the side of the Jews?
Yeah, Richard, the haredim are famous for their vibrant democratic and inclusive culture. There’s quite a bit of disagreement over whether to just spit on Palestinians, or kick them, too.
And as far as your son goes, I stand in awe of the education which prepared him to accept haredi doctrines, and the mental stability which enabled him to join them.
“does not prohibit me from supporting justice for Palestinians.”
The very real problem is this “justice” you support for Palestinians is currently non-existent and you condemn every reasonable action that could possibly bring it to life.
“Small minded is “I support x community and I utterly reject y community”.”
A perfect description of Israel’s policies, from before even day one. Knitting the green line is not going bring about the required change in mind-set.
Yup, mutual respect, that’s what Zionism and haredi-ism is all about, Richard. You betchum!
And oh, won’t Richard’s son have a balanced and liberal attitude toward women as a gift from his new glat overlords! Yessir, that’ll stand him in good stead.
Oh well, maybe I shouldn’t be so negative about it. After all, if the Haredi Empire ever falls, your boychik could probably just switch to the Taliban with no effort. I couldn’t do that.
Why he has to make us party to the spectacle, I’ll never know, but he feels he must.
Attention seeking? To act as static? A desire to experience “persecution”?
Something twisted.
Your right in this regard. I don’t know the difference in number of say Lubbavitchers and Nuterei Karta but the latter theology is that The current State of Israel and Zionism in general is against Halachic Law from what I understand. They are Anti-Zionist in that Zionism as it exists isn’t Kosher.
demize, look at what they do, not what they say. Remember the classic joke: “The food here tastess like poison, and the portions are too small!
They seem to be pretty consistant with their political positions. I have seen them or individual members at lots of demos and stuff like that. Whether they’re motivated by altruism or their parochial religious outlook, or a combination or nexus of both I don’t know.
Anyone else notice how Witty leaped at the defense of Orthodox Judaism and even swooned over his son (“My baby! Don’t hurt my baby!”) but he said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the destruction of Palestinian lives?
A few days ago, my employer had asked me to purchase a satellite phone. So, today, I headed over to Iridium’s website to research their product offerings.
To my pleasant surprise – not so much the content, but the global exposure the subject matter will receive as a result – the first page to show up was this:
Medic
What caught my eye were the destroyed homes in the background, common construction style in the Middle East. I looked closer and noticed the Palestinian flag in the background above the medic’s hat.
So, I clicked around on the menus and under the heading “GlobalMedic”, this showed up.
The text under A Rapid Response Lifeline reads:
“[...] In Gaza where recent war destroyed telecommunications infrastructure [...] GlobalMedic has distributed 10 million water purification tablets and 50 water purification systems in camps for displaced Gazans.”
Why would Gaza need 10 million water purification tablets?
Here in shangri la PR land there is no mention of them
link to mfa.gov.il
No mention either of 600 calories per person per day. For how long more can Israel realistically survive? For as long as people don’t know about what it is doing? How long will that be?
Oh but how they love the land. Eretz Israel, God’s creation.
They were never farmers. Thjey don’t understand the Palestinian attachment to the land. The pathetic love of the people of Balata refugee camp for the land on which the camp is built is not understood by Zionism. “Let them live like dogs, those who want to can leave” was Dayan’s advice on how to deal with the Palestinians. Life as a dog is better than life as an exile and Gaza is proof of that. That is why Zionism cannot win. The land means everything to a people that have nothing, not even their rights.
I don’t know if Richard Witty is a troll, but by saying “and yes, rage,” you, Phil, are feeding him. For Palestinians should feel no rage, but compassion for those young soldiers who are sent to shoot blindfolded prisoners in the foot, burn olive trees and kill unarmed protestors with tear-gas canisters. Golda Meir wouldn’t forgive the Palestinians for forcing Israelis to engage in such behavior, and neither does Witty.
Only Auschwitz-type genocide merits rage.
It was just another normal day. Burning down and uprooting Palesitian trees is just the state policy of the sole democracy in the middle east, which also kills Palestians deliberately, burn mosques and shoots on farmers and fishers.
One has to understand the Zionists, these things are all done for security reasons in the fight against apartheid. But Zionist are seriously concerned about their deeds. As Golda Meir put it:
“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
So, when one hears, that Zionists just uprooted 500 trees, which could have become hundreds of years old, one has to commemorate the Zionists.
PS: Sorry for the sarcasm. Zionism is sometimes hard to stand.
For the 500 trees see here:
link to ynetnews.com
If there was any justice in the world, the UNSC would condemn such deliberate atrocities against humanity and take punitive measures against Israel.
Then it seems the only way to bring justice in the world is to do something about the US’ veto on the UNSC because that is the only thing standing in the way of international action against Israel for breaking international law.