The Verity Courier
Palestinian Destruction
By Ron Estes
24 July 2023
Olive trees have been cultivated for thousands of years in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, now occupied by Israel. There is evidence of olive groves, and olive oil in the Chalcolithic period between 3600 and 3300 BC. Olives and olive oil had a significant role in all of the major religions which developed in the region. In the Hebrew Bible, olives were one of the blessings of the Promised Land God offered to Abraham. In the Christian New Testament, olives and olive oil are part of Christian as well as Islamic religious tenets. During the 18th through the 20th centuries, olive oil was used in lieu of money. By 1914, there were 112 thousand acres of olive trees in the area that is now Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. Almost half of all cultivated land across the occupied West Bank and Gaza is now planted with an estimated 10 million olive trees.
The olive harvest has been the primary source of income for Palestinians, and were so essential for the Palestinian community that universities and public schools closed every year for the olive harvest.
After the 1967 Israeli occupation, Israeli forces began to uproot Palestinian olive trees, with an estimated 830,000 olive trees uprooted between 1967 and 2009.
Today, olive oil is the essential export for Palestinians in the West Bank. In most Palestinian villages, olive oil represents economic security.
In October 2021 Israel constructed 1,355 new homes in West Bank Israeli settlements, to accommodate 3,000 new Israeli settlers. Over 700,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, has recently announced plans to build 5,000 more homes in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlements in the occupied Arab lands are illegal under every reading of international law and are not recognized by any country outside Israel, including the United States. Their violations include the following:
Article 49, paragraph six of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly stipulates that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Article 46 and 55 of the Hague Convention prohibit the confiscation of private property in occupied territory and stipulates that “the occupying state shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct,” respectively.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 465 states that “Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants” in the Occupied Territories constitutes “a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
The Security Council called upon Israel to “dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.”
The 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague declared that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development.” The UN International Court of Justice ruled that Israeli provision of infrastructure, land, funding, schools, synagogues, water, electricity, roads, etc., constitutes transfer of civilian population to occupied territory. Violations of the 4th Geneva Convention are prosecutable as war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
There is a record of Israeli settlers committing violent attacks against Palestinian villages and residents harvesting their olive trees. The attacks, included beatings of Palestinian farmers and destruction of trees. In addition to burning and cutting down olive trees, the attacks included stealing olive crops, forcing Palestinians off their lands, and drowning parts of their lands in sewage water.
President Biden has condemned Israeli settlement activity but his administration has been preoccupied with more urgent problems such as tensions with China and attempts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the international nuclear deal with Iran that Trump abrogated in 2018. Israel strongly opposes Biden efforts to reintroduce Iranian return to the JCPOA.
Biden appears determined not to pursue the Trump sycophantic policy toward Israel. The Biden administration has repeatedly said that Israelis and Palestinians “deserve equal measure of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.” Biden is on record saying, “I do not support annexation, Israel needs to stop the threats of annexation and stop settlement activity…”
Biden’s lack of support for Israeli annexation plans, and expanded Israeli settlement activity, may very well put Israel, U.S. relations on a rockier road than heretofore.
Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.