Last update - 08:01 04/11/2003
Olive tree massacre
By Akiva
Eldar
Brig. Gen Ephraim Sneh, who commanded the south Lebanon area in the early 1980s and headed the IDF's Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria just before the outbreak of the first intifada and later became deputy defense minister, lately had a chance to get an up close look at the inequities of the occupation. As a Labor MK, he visited the village of Inabus in Samaria this week, saying on his return that he has never been more shocked and felt shame as he did when he saw the hundreds of sawed up olive trees owned by Fawzi Hussein. Last week, this column reported how settlers sawed down 300 decades-old olive trees in the fields of El Sawyie and Inabus. Sneh saw it first hand this week.
Before going to the groves, he met with the deputy commander of the division stationed in the area who proudly explained to the former general and current MK how the army routinely protects the Palestinian farmers in the area from Jewish settlers - as if it is perfectly natural for the government to send its best boys or even call up reservists to protect the livelihood of people from the long evil arms of Jewish thugs.
But when they reached the groves, even the officer couldn't believe his eyes. Dozens of more trees had been sawed down in addition to the hundreds already destroyed this season. Apparently someone, somewhere, told the settlers the army was on its way, and they got a jump on the operation. Sneh promised Hussein that he would not rest until the defense minister guarantees compensation for the lost olive trees - nor will Sneh rest, he says, until the Knesset discusses the scandal. Hussein doesn't have much faith in Israeli promises. He still has complaints he made to police in January 2001 when 55 trees were destroyed. According to settlers in the area, the trees were all cut down to make way for "security roads" to outposts in the area. As the Defense Ministry refers to it, "security elements."
In the latest State Comptroller's Report, the defense minister's assistant for settlement affairs says "the policy of the Central Command is that security must be provided to the Jewish residents in those settlement points that are in statutory processes for being legalized." That is bureaucratese for one of the most foul of tricks used to make the illegal outposts legal: having "security elements" is one of the basic criteria for winning status as a permanent settlement. First cut down the trees - depriving the Palestinians a way to make a living - and then pave a "security road"; that's how to make a new settlement, immune to evacuation, ready for "natural growth."
