The ancient Greek philosopher Sophocles once described the olive tree as “the tree that feeds the children” and “stands unequaled.” For centuries, the olive tree has dotted the stony Palestinian hillsides, feeding generations and representing the livelihood of a nation. As a historical and universal symbol of peace, the olive tree has come to represent more than a means of economics or the natural environmental beauty of Palestine; it is the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict—the symbol of a land controversy, the symbol of a homeland, the symbol of survival, the symbol of reconciliation. Today, as Palestinians commemorate the twenty-ninth anniversary of Land Day, it is important to look at the significance of Palestinian land through the branches of the olive tree.
The harvesting of olive trees has traditionally been a joyous community event, in which neighbors and families turn out in force, working from early morning until sunset to gather the fruit of the tree. Palestinians use every part of the olive tree for food, economic mainstay and health and beauty products. The oil from the olive is used for eating, cooking and producing soap; the branches are carved for quality wood products; the olive pits are used for fuel. About fifteen to twenty percent of the total agricultural output in Palestine comes from the olive harvest, with olive oil being the second major export item. Although it takes years for the olive tree to bear fruit, it nourishes families for generations. In essence, many Palestinian families depend on the olive tree for their livelihood.
Because of its historical presence in the land and its economic significance, the olive tree has evolved as the symbol of the Palestinians’ longing for peace, justice, self-determination and national liberation. A December 2000 article in the U.S. daily Christian Science Monitor described this significance eloquently, saying the olive tree “is a symbol of [the Palestinian] nation … [i]t is seen as embodying the qualities of rootedness and durability, attributes Palestinians say they believe have preserved them during years of struggle with Israel.”
Throughout the conflict, Israelis have maintained a persistent systematic policy of uprooting olive and fruit trees in Palestinian territories. They place restrictions and curfews on the populations of Palestinian villages and towns. They confiscate Palestinian land to expand illegal settlements, construct the illegal Annexation Wall and build by-pass roads exclusively for Jewish settlers. They demolish homes, forcing many Palestinians to uproot themselves from their land and move into the diaspora. Such harassment and impediments have made harvesting almost impossible.
Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, approximately 2,305,286 dunums of land have been confiscated; 73,505 dunums have been razed; 1,185,063 olive trees have been uprooted; and 7,708 homes have been demolished. Thus, the olive tree, the symbol of peace, has become a casualty of war. The raging conflict has inflicted tremendous physical damage to the olive tree—a peace symbol, signifying the extent of the conflict.
Land Day commemorates the brutal killings of six Palestinians by Israeli forces on 30 March 1976 while they were peacefully protesting the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land in Galilee. Israeli authorities seized 22,258 dunums of land in Palestinian villages in order to further their development of illegal settlements. In response, Palestinians within Israel held a general strike of repudiation, protesting the renewed expropriation and colonization of Palestinian land. The Israeli army and police violently broke up the demonstrations, killing six, injuring 96 and arresting over 300 Palestinians.
When Palestinian farmers plant an olive tree, they say a prayer: “God protect it and make it grow so that my children’s grandchildren will benefit from its abundance.” Land Day is a time for Palestinians and the international community to remember and protest Israel’s policies of injustice and oppression, especially the illegal expropriation of Palestinian land and expulsion of its people. On this day, it is time to extend the olive branch and seek peace and harmony. A fair and just solution to the conflict is desperately needed. Just like people all over the world, Palestinians have the right to live peacefully in their homeland and to pass on their olive trees to future generations.
Land Day 2004
Date posted: March 30, 2004
By MIFTAH
March 30, 1976, is a sacred and “painful” date. On that day, Israeli occupation forces confiscated a total of 5500 acres of land from the Palestinian villages of the Galilee, in northern Palestine. These areas were classified by the Israelis as “closed military zones” and later fell subject to heavy illegal settlement expansion. The confiscation of land provoked heavy confrontations between Palestinian citizens, land owners, and Israeli military forces, confrontations that claimed the lives of 6 Palestinians, injured 96, and resulted in the arrest of 300.
Today, Israel’s illegal policies of land confiscation and settlement expansion continue; since 1967, Israel has confiscated more than 750,000 acres of land from the 1.5 million acres comprising the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, Israel is annexing more land in order to erect its illegal separation and expansion wall, designed to confiscate close to 50% of the West Bank. This wall is a most evident exploitation of Israel’s breach of convention and is an implementation of new borders within the West Bank, an occupied territory. This effective annexation of land, alongside combined violations of basic human freedoms including freedom of movement, destruction of private property, and collective punishment of the civilian population have highlighted Israel’s selfish and destructive policies.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 clearly asserts that the “…occupying power cannot move segments of its own population to parts of the land it occupies,” or make any demographic changes that are not in the interest of the occupied. Furthermore, provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention have unquestionably condemned Israel’s settlement activities and demanded the ceasing of “all” settlement expansion by Israel.
The Israeli government is evidently not making any efforts, or expressing any willingness, to alter its policies; amidst world criticism and as the world awaits the International Court of Justice’s ruling on the legality of this wall, the wall continues to grow and settlements continue to expand, land is being confiscated and destroyed regularly and demonstrators are shot dead on a daily basis.
Palestinian Land Day is a day for remembrance. Yet equally, it is a day for peaceful demonstrations against injustice, and a call for freedom by Palestinians inside the territories, Israel proper and refugees in the Diaspora.
Believing in Jerusalem
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.
Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.
Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.
The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.
The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.
What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.
Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.
The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.
That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Let Mohammed rest in peace
Date posted: May 20, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.
The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.
My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.
Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.
Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.
That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Recognition and justice is our demand
Date posted: May 13, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.
This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.
It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.
But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.
We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
