http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1026228.html
Settlers clash with rabbis guarding Palestinian olive harvest near
By Reuters / Haaretz
Oct 4, 2008
Jewish settlers clashed with activists of the Rabbis for Human Rights movement near the West Bank city of
Israeli police and soldiers grappled with settlers who tried to drive off local Palestinians and international supporters of Palestinian rights in the West Bank.
`This is just the beginning of the olive harvest which will be going on for the next two months,` said the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, Arik Ascherman.
He said activists were going to 40 Palestinian villages to protect olive growers and uphold their right to work the land, and harvest. They would act `as human shields` if necessary.
A settler woman screamed `Murderer, murderer` at the rabbi, and settlers angrily shouted down any activists trying to explain their aims to TV reporters.
The
Palestinians say settler harassment often turns to encroachment and eventually seizure of more land in the name of settler `security`.
`There are those who say all the
`It`s unfortunate that some people so filled with mistaken religious fervor are choosing to insult, be violent, trying to steal the olives.`
The settlers say they want a secure route from the settlement through the olive grove, to a cave regarded as a Jewish holy site.
`The settlers would like to make a path ... as part of their effort to create facts on the ground,` Ascherman said. `They`ve been trying to create this outpost here to take more and more Palestinian land.`
Rabbis For Human Rights said in a statement that delegations also joined Palestinians for the olive harvest near Nablus, `where there is a long history of the army preventing agricultural work`.
`In several locations olives have already been stolen in recent weeks, and this year`s harvest will be all the more difficult because of the recent wave of settler violence,` the group said.
Its members would `work to insure that Israeli security forces meet their obligations under international law and the ruling of the Israeli High Court`, the statement added.
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An activist reported the following from the Hebron area today, Friday 3.10 a group of a 30 Israeli and international activists arrived to the city of Hebron in order to support the Al-Jaber family in their first olive harvest of the season, the situation of the family is extremely difficult due to it`s location : just next to the settlement of Hazon David, in the past two months , especially on Saturday`s the Hebron and Kiryat Arba settlers attacked the family in their house on several occasions.
We arrived, joined the family and neighbor`s and started harvesting the trees, in just a few minuets we were surrounded by a group of about 30 settlers(some of them armed with guns and some of them armed with baby`s...), police, Border Police and army, the settlers tried provoking us and preventing us from harvesting the trees and on several occasions used violence and tried to steal the olives, one activists was detained by the police for allegedly `assaulting` one settler although the video and stills material that was shot clearly shows that he was the one that was attacked by the settlers, he was taken to the police, gave a statement and released after 2 hours. Our day finished successfully after we managed to harvest all the family trees.
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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