Rabbis For Human Rights: The Annual Report 2012-2013

I often like to tell a Talmudic story to our staff and
volunteers regarding the nature of our work in
the territories and the appropriate attitude for
this work. The story is about the famous Rabbi Akiva,
an illiterate shepherd who came to Torah study
relatively late in life. He fell in love with Rachel, a
young woman from a rich and educated family. She
agreed to marry him if he studied Torah but he found
learning to read and write very hard. Once while
sitting by a river in a moment of despair, he noticed
water flowing through a rock in the river.He said to
himself: “If water can penetrate and overcome such a
hard rock, I too can succeed.” He went on to become
a great scholar of Torah.
This year RHR marked a decade of
accompanying Palestinian farmers
in their olive groves located near
settlements, unauthorized outposts,
or near the Separation Barrier. Over
the past 10 years, we have ensured
the rights of thousands of Palestinians
to plant, harvest and prune their olive
trees in areas where settlers and/or
the Israeli security forces previously
denied that right. This year we saw
a marked improvement in how the
Israeli security forces protected
that right. In the past decade, RHR,
together with the Harvest Coalition,
has also brought thousands of
Israelis and internationals to meet
with Palestinians in their olive
groves, where they learn about
harsh realities on the ground as they
pick side by side with one another
in solidarity and friendship.
Our work is not complete. Farmers
still have great difficulty obtaining
permits to access their land between
the separation barrier and the Green
Line. Despite the vast improvements
resulting from our 2006 Supreme
Court ruling, requiring that the army
allow Palestinians to safely access
their olive trees, RHR still must play a
crucial role in coordinating with the
army and ensuring that Palestinian
villages be given a sufficient number
of days to finish the harvest. There
are areas near settlements where
all the trees have been poisoned,
chopped down or uprooted. This
year, over 450 destroyed or damaged
trees were discovered at the outset
of the olive harvest alone. RHR and
our coalition partners are searching
for ways to get the security forces
to keep their court obligation to
protect trees and property. While
senior army officials told us they
could do nothing more to stop the
wave of harvest destruction, the US
ambassador mentioned the problem
in the UN Security Council, and
the remainder of the season was
relatively quiet.
A key focus of our work this year
was maintaining and expanding our
contacts with Palestinian farmers
from 50 villages in the Occupied
Territories. RHR’s commitment
to these villages does not end
with agricultural access. Field
Coordinator Zakaria Sadeh regularly
visited the villages and responded
to diverse problems, including
settler violence, IDF inaction, illegal
detentions, problems at checkpoints,
IDF confiscation of equipment or
vehicles, and ensuring transport to
hospital for several patients. Among
the Palestinians whom we help, a
real trust in RHR has been created.
The peak of our work with these
villages is during the olive harvest,
My lesson from this story is that just as the water
was able to overcome the rock, so we can overcome
the evils of the Israeli Occupation through our
determination, however hard (and rock-hearted) it
might seem to us. Water penetrates where there are
cracks and openings in the rock and we too must
penetrate in such a way until the system caves in and
is replaced by something more humane. That is wiser
than confrontational tactics that lead to sparks but no
real change or improvement.”
Rabbi Yehiel Grenimann,
Director, Occupied Territories Field Department
The Olive Tree Campaign – Agricultural Access
which lasts for about one month
beginning in mid-October. This past
year we coordinated with the IDF
to ensure army protection and safe
access for farmers in at least seven
villages during the harvest. As in past
years, we also arranged for several
hundred Israeli and international
volunteers, including members of
RHR, to work in the olive groves
in 11 villages. Our presence in the
field alongside Palestinian farmers
provides protection against possible
settler intimidation, enables farmers
to pick within the limited number
of days that they can safely do so,
and has also become an act of
solidarity between Israeli Jews and
Palestinians. The sharing of lunches
and eating together, Israelis and
Palestinians, is usually the highlight
of the day! By bringing together
Israeli Jews and Palestinians under
the shade of the olive tree, we
believe that we are helping to
change the minds and attitudes of
Israeli Jews and Palestinians towards
one another. We continue this work
because we believe that it helps to
change the face of the State of Israel
into a more humane one.
The ability of Palestinians to
access their lands has improved
immeasurably since our 2006 High
Court victory, and in many cases
we no longer need to maintain a
physical presence or intervene in
order to ensure that farmers can
harvest their olives. In the areas
where Palestinians cannot go without
prior coordination (either because of
closure orders, fear, or because the
army has convinced the Palestinians
that they cannot or should not go on
their own), the number of days that
the army allocates to the harvest is
still inadequate. Unlike last year, this
year all villages we were in touch
with succeeded in completing their
harvest in areas next to settlements.
However, four villages were not
able to complete their harvesting
on their lands trapped between the
Separation Barrier and the 1967
border; the army did not allow them
enough days to reach these areas,
or any at all. In this coming year,
we intend to continue working with
the army to increase the number of
harvest days so that so that farmers
can reach all of their olive groves.
Although the presence of the army
as well as our presence in the fields
give Palestinian farmers an increasing
sense of security while harvesting
their olives, 2012 witnessed a
sharp increase in damage to trees
and property, particularly before
the olive harvest even started. In
just one week, for example, 450
trees were damaged, destroyed,
or stripped of their fruit in Yanun,
Krayut, Ein Abbus and Meghayer.
The economic cost of the damaged
trees is immense, and the emotional
cost is also great. As in previous
years, RHR acted on several fronts
to request army protection of trees
and property. Our ongoing presence
in the field and immediate response
to violations continues to be the
most effective way to address the
challenges on the ground.
This report covers both the 2012 and
2013 planting seasons. Each year,
RHR provides approximately 3,000
olive trees to be planted in areas in
danger of takeover, or where settlers
have cut, uprooted and/or burned
Our ongoing presence
in the field and
immediate response
to violations continues
to be the most
effective way to
address the challenges
on the ground.
trees in acts of vandalism and arson.
We have reduced the number of
places where we bring Israelis to
plant together with farmers because,
in some cases, the farmers prefer
not to attract attention. However, Tu
B’Shvat, the Jewish new year for trees,
continues to be the day in which we
organize a major pubic planting,
with many volunteers. In doing so,
RHR presents a different Jewish face
than that of the extremists who carry
out the “price tag” attacks. In 2012,
despite army attempts to block our
arrival, 22 people joined RHR in
planting in El-Jenia village in the
Northern West Bank, where a “Price
Tag” attack had taken place days
before. The army left after forcing us to
leave, and the Palestinians were able
to quietly resume work. Nineteen
volunteers and staff members
joined us in planting 50 trees at the
kindergarten in the Jabal, in solidarity
with the Jahalin Bedouin, who were
threatened with being relocated
to the garbage dump of Abu Dis in
early 2012 (see below).
In December 2012, trees were cut
down on lands belonging to farmers
from A-Asawiya. Two days later,
RHR volunteers joined Palestinians
in replanting. In January 2013, we
planted trees in Kusra, an increasingly
tense area. Less than a week later,
on the very day we were helping
Fawzi Ibrahim in nearby Jalud (see
below), we discovered that some of
our trees had been uprooted in the
middle of the night. The windows
of a tractor were shattered, and
hundreds of rocks were thrown at
the home of an elderly couple living
on the outskirts of the village. We
therefore returned on Tu B’Shvat
with several busloads of volunteers,
and the Palestinians indicated that
they would set up a system to keep
watch over the trees even at night.
RHR 2013 6
7 RHR 2013