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Palestinian olive trees sold to
rich Israelis
By Alan Philps in
Jerusalem
(Filed: 28/11/2002)
Israel's Defence Ministry is investigating reports
that Palestinian olive trees uprooted to make way for a security
fence are being sold illegally to rich Israelis and town councils,
sometimes for thousands of pounds each.
The illegal trade in olive trees has flourished as
Israeli contractors, supported by armed guards, clear Palestinian
agricultural land where an 80-mile electronic fence is being built
to seal off the West Bank.
Thousands of olive trees have been dug up to make way
for the 150-ft wide barrier and security zone. Its route usually
passes inside Palestinian territory, not along the old pre-1967
border, and thousands of Palestinian farmers say their livelihood is
being taken away.
Sale of the olive trees emerged after the owner of a
contracting company offered two reporters from a popular Israeli
newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, 100 large olive trees for £150
each.
The reporters found one enormous tree, said to be 600
years old, on sale at an Israeli plant nursery for £3,500. They said
the trade was conducted with the complicity of an official in the
civil administration, the Israeli military government in the
occupied territories.
Olive trees are extremely hardy, can live for
hundreds of years and will often stand transplanting. Gnarled old
specimens which are claimed, with some exaggeration, to have been
alive at the time of Jesus are much sought after for gardens of the
rich or city parks.
The Defence Ministry, which is in charge of the
security fence, said it had launched an investigation. "The ministry
pays contractors for uprooting and replanting and, in their
contract, there is no clause that allows for trade in the trees. If
there is such a trade, it is a criminal activity," it said.
Some contracts require the olive trees to be
relocated to areas suggested by their owners outside the
Israeli-declared security zone. But Yael Stein, researcher for
B'tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, said: "We have never
seen any relocation. The contractors cannot just sell the trees.
That is theft."
While the trees may be ornaments to Israelis, olives
are the lifeblood of Palestinian agriculture, almost the only crop
which grows on the stony hillsides of the West Bank without
irrigation. Most Palestinians are unemployed after two years of
violence and their staple diet is bread and olive oil.
About 11,000 Palestinian farmers will lose all or
some of their land holdings to the fence. Sharif Omar, from the
village of Jayous, near the Israeli town of Kochav Yair, said: "I
have lost almost everything. I have lost 2,700 fruit and olive
trees. And 44 of 50 acres I own have been confiscated for the
fence."
His village lost seven wells, 15,000 olive trees and
50,000 citrus and other fruit trees. "This area is the agricultural
store for the West Bank. They are destroying us," he said.
Israel is offering compensation for confiscated
agricultural land but Palestinians are unlikely to apply, as they
still hope to get their land back.
The Palestinian Agriculture Ministry says 200,000
olive trees have been destroyed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in
the past two years to provide security for settlers.
The £90 million fence will prevent suicide bombers
infiltrating into Israel. But some Israeli border communities say
depriving Palestinians of their livelihood will make for worse, not
better, neighbours.
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