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Olive Harvesting at Saffa, Palestine, Usual Military Harassment
by MC
On Tuesday, October 20, a couple of Israelis and one international joined Palestinian from Saffa (West Bank) for a day of olive harvesting. The action (and others like that), organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Project, is designed (other then helping with the olive harvesting) to protect the Palestinian from Settlers violence, who very often under the protection of the military attack the Palestinians and the trees in the area. It is also used to prresure the military to allow the Palestinians to work the fields. Usually with internationals and Israelis present the occupation forces allow the Palestinian to work, and don't evict them on first sight by declaring the area a "closed military zone'". The excuses given by the Israeli military for this are that the Palestinians working the fields are aggravating the settlers, although it has been documented for many years that its actually the settlers who attack and burn down the fields in the area. beside, how can one aggravate others by harvesting olives? so, with this intro, we move to another day in occupied Palestine, where sometimes these day to day features are not reported for the simple fact that they are nothing new or out of the ordinary. For example, while we were in Saffa, in another part of Palestine more then 50 olive trees were cut down by settlers. obviously, no one was arrested, although the trees were located very close to a settlement, and this was not the first time that it happened in the area. in general, the settlers in Palestine more and more resemble to me the KKK movement in America during the first half of the 19 century. One the one hand protected by the state and its laws (and in many cases part of the state mechanism), and on the other hand violently attack and oppress.