By Ramzy Baroud
On October 17 a
Palestinian farmer was shot dead by Israeli settlers near the
village of Beit Fourik.
On October 26, a
75-year-old farmer was tortured to death by a group of settlers
near the same location. In between, many farmers have been wounded
by armed settler attacks.
The death of those
Palestinians was by no means an accident, as many Palestinian
deaths are justified. In both cases, the killing was deliberate,
and like earlier killings, they will go unnoticed and unpunished.
And in both cases,
both men were harvesting their olive trees, a remaining symbol of
a confiscated land, stolen at gunpoint. The olive branch has come
to be known as a symbol of peace. For Palestinians, the olive tree
is also a symbol of peace, courage, defiance and life. For the
Israeli army and Jewish settlers, the symbol of the olive is
simply, death. When many Palestinians innocently believed that the
Oslo peace accord is bringing them a just peace, they rushed to
the streets waving olive branches, celebrating the long awaited
justice and peace.
Seven years later,
Palestinians realized that Oslo was nothing but a wicked
experience that brought little peace, and much poverty and
humiliation. And as they began to pass their martyrs one by one to
crowded grave yards, they attached olive branches to the caskets
and around the newly watered graves, a symbol of continuation and
resistance.
Olive harvests have
always been a festive occasion for most Palestinians, even for the
refugees who own no land and no olive trees. Complete strangers
help each other harvest the land. Young children help to clean the
olives from small branches that fall as men and women stand on
high ladders, collecting the olives with enthusiasm and a great
sense of joy.
Beit Fourik however,
like other Palestinian villages in the West Bank has long lost
that festive spirit that used to come with the olive harvest. The
once small Israeli Jewish settlement of Eitamar near Nablus has
stripped the harvest joy, as armed gangs of settlers are dedicated
to stealing Beit Fourik's land, to burn and destroy it's olive
trees and to endlessly expand at the expense of helpless
villagers.
Two years ago,
75-year-old Al Haj Mohammed Al-Zalmout was killed at dawn by a
gang of settlers. The settlers may have feared that the sound of
their bullets would gather nearby farmers, so they surrounded the
man and savagely crushed his skull with rocks. His own son, Udi
then failed to recognize his father's face.
The old man's donkey
was still there, as were the harvested olives of the remaining
four trees which sat on a nearby blanket. Nothing was done since
then to protect Beit Fourik from barbaric individuals who thought
that killing the old man would bring terror to other villagers,
provoking them to abandon their land.
Despite the daily
assaults, harassment, beatings of young and old farmers,
destruction and seizure of the land by Eitamar settlers,
supervised and aided by the Israeli army, Beit Fourik has never
given up its claims to its land and to the remaining olive trees.
As the Israeli army went on the rampage a few weeks ago, shooting,
killing and shelling Palestinian towns and villages with missiles
and apache helicopters, Jewish settlers also went on a rampage.
The recent violence
and iron fist of the Israeli army was a golden opportunity for
West Bank and Gaza settlers to abuse more Palestinians, including
the villagers of Beit Fourik. It was time to steal more land, to
destroy more trees, and to expand the borders of Eitamar.
On October 17, Farid
Manasra, joined by three other family members, met at their land
to resume their harvest. Despite the expected threats of Eitamar
settlers, the young men insisted on harvesting their olives on
time, after all, the land was theirs as it had been their family
for many generations.
Little did the men
know, Eitamar settlers were hiding nearby, waiting for the
"zero hour". Minutes later, Farid was laying dead after
being hit by a bullet, and all his relatives were wounded. There
is little doubt that the young man's casket was showered with
olive branches, as his fellow villagers held his dead body high
with pride, delivering him to the grave yard where Al Haj Mohammed
al-Zalmout was buried two years ago. And like Al Haj al-Zalmout's
olives, Farid's harvest must have been carried to the grieving
family, a gesture of pride and a vow for resistance. With every
drop of blood and every new martyr, Palestinians grow more
attached to their land, to their olive trees and to their harvest.
No wonder Palestinian painters equate the olive trees to
ever-standing martyrs.
Perhaps once we
understand the deepening intimacy between Palestinians and olive
trees which for them is an icon of lasting resistance, we may be
able to understand what a Palestinian poet meant when he said,
"If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their
oil would have become tears..."
