Volume [5]
No. [1]
July 2008
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Volume [5]
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No. [1]
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July 2008
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Olive Harvest in JaludBy Dimitri Jefferson, May 2008 |
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| The fall 2007 ISM Olive Harvest Campaign was
my first visit to occupied Palestine, and I was apprehensive about what
lay ahead. To say that I was shocked and saddened by what I saw and experienced
would be an understatement. During my stay I witnessed the incessant race-based
bigotry and violence manifested by both Israeli Occupational Forces (IOF)
and Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians.
To see this oppression of Israeli apartheid firsthand was truly upsetting. The illegal settlements and hundreds of checkpoints that have metastasized in the West Bank strangle commerce and social infrastructure by inhibiting free movement. Policies of collective punishment used by the IOF are both illegal and cruel. I experienced the idle malice of Israeli soldiers and settlers while harvesting olives with the people of Jalud, a village just south Nablus. Of Jalud’s 4000 acres, almost seventy-five percent has been illegally and forcefully confiscated to form the colony known as “Shiloh”. On a sunny day in November, a group of families from Jalud, accompanied by international human rights workers (HRWs) and Israeli activists, attempted to harvest olives from a plot of land adjacent to Shiloh. Not longer than two minutes after we arrived, IOF soldiers appeared, screaming for us to leave, cocking their rifles and pointing them in people’s faces. A man approached the soldiers and showed them the deed to his land as well as a map. Next, about a dozen male settlers walked up. Armed with guns, batons, and attack dogs, the settlers were extremely aggressive. One of the settlers approached a woman and pushed her to the ground, spilling her olives in the process. A few dozen more soldiers drove up in jeeps. The soldiers started loading up their guns with rubber bullets and threatening the farmers with tear gas. I was appalled to see the settlers and soldiers talking and laughing together as they terrorized an innocent group of people.
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A demonstration against the Annexation Wall in Bil’in November 2008 photo credit: Dimitri Jefferson This hatred and unwarranted brutality contrasted sharply with the kindness and enduring charm of the Palestinian people. Once back in the village, we were invited to have tea and join in the jovial scene of children playing and people laughing. It was then that a man walked up to me and asked, “Why do you look so sad?” I explained that I was sad because of the prejudiced and oppressive display that I had just witnessed. To this he said, “That is life, my friend”. This lighthearted spirit is a testament to the strength and patience of these besieged people. May they someday live in peace and autonomy. Dimitri Jefferson lives in the Bay Area. His first trip to Palestine
with ISM was in 2007.
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