Last update - 02:53 11/11/2003
People and Politics / What investigation?
By Akiva
Eldar
Ever since the olive harvest began, David Nir from Ta'ayush has shown up practically every day in the olive groves of the little village of al Sawaya, surrounded by the outposts put up around the settlement of Eli. Nir also heard the weekend radio report about how Prime Minister Sharon was shocked by the TV images of uprooted and chopped down olive trees and gave an "order" to investigate.
On Sunday, Nir showed up at the grove, with a dozen other human rights activists, to find what remained of Ibrahim el Halil's olive trees in al Sawaya. Apparently, the prime minister's "shock" and "order" for a police probe did not make much of an impression on the thugs on the hills, nor on the Israeli security services.
According to Halil, a few minutes before the Israeli human rights activists showed up, a settler stopped his car beside two elderly women harvesters, one 70 and the other in her 80s, and ran them off. He took their buckets of olives, got in his van and drove off. Four or five settlers picked olives from a grove owned by villagers near the settlement. When they noticed the human rights activists, the settlers ran off, leaving behind tools and a bit of food. Nir says he reported this to the policeman who has been the liaison to the human rights groups since the harvest began, and the police showed up with other Binyamin sub-district police. Later more troops and police showed up.
They were followed by two people from Eli, including Dudu, the security officer from the settlement. "They demanded we leave," said Nir, "since they said the harvesting (by the Palestinians with Israeli civil rights activists) was not coordinated with them, and we were not allowed to cross the security road that surrounds Eli. But I was present when the harvest was coordinated with the District Liaison and Coordination Office. The Eli security officer was there as well. Last Monday, by the way, he told me he was once a Kach activist."
The police ordered the peace activists to move 100 meters away from the security road, just as the Eli security officer demanded. The Palestinians decided to give up and went home. That afternoon, a major from the civil administration showed up and after some conversation announced that only Jews - more precisely anyone except the Palestinians - would be allowed to pick olives in that area.
The prime minister did not need the media to learn that many of the youngsters he has sent to the hilltops over the years are hooligans and thugs for whom Palestinian lives and livelihood are worth less than a single olive. Security officials reported last year on the systematic harassment of olive harvesters throughout the territories. But the Israeli authorities are much more interested in enforcing the building laws - when it comes to Palestinians, not against the "illegal outposts."
Unless something comes up to change things, the day after tomorrow, the army will get permission from a military court to demolish half the small village of Aqaba in Samaria, including its kindergarten and mosque, which the authorities refused to grant permission to build.
