Olive Loot

The battle of the Olive (Part I)
By Danny Adino Ababa, Meron Rapaport and Oron Meiri
Nov 2002

Reporters of Yediot Ahanorot’s “7 Days” Weekend Supplement joined the settlers’ pirate olive harvest for a week and exposed contractors working on the ‘Green Line’ who are selling ancient olive trees stolen from the Palestinians for prices ranging in the tens of thousand shekels.

This article was obtained from the Palestine Monitor.

OLIVE LOOT

A “7 Days” reporter responded to a wanted-ad and joined the settlers’ olive harvest as a simple laborer*** Working along with him were settler teenagers who boasted about shooting at Arab homes*** Settlement leaders gave the harvesters the “go ahead” sign to work in “abandoned” areas belonging to Palestinians*** The security officer of one of the settlements upgraded the method and proposed harvesting the Palestinians’ olives and forcing them to buy back the harvest *** A Palestinian who would refuse, would find his trees destroyed *** At the same time, along the “separation fence” line, Israeli contractors have loaded hundreds of uprooted Palestinian olive trees and smuggled them out to plant nurseries in Israel *** Every such stolen tree may bring in a profit of 600 to 25,000 (!) shekels *** Thus, dunum by dunum, tree by tree, canister by canister, proceeds the ugly ‘battle of the olive’ ***

When the shooting started, I realized that this time I was in trouble. Sitting in the car with me were Yair Shalev, my new boss, Shani, the spirited soldier-girl with the M16 rifle, and two settler boys we had picked up 10 minutes earlier at Kdumim. These are not people I’d want to spend my last living moments with, not yet. I could already see the headlines: “5 settlers killed in a pirate olive harvest”, and beneath, in fine print: “Among the casualties, an undercover reporter”.

Eventually we were not killed. The bullets buzzed by the car, I accelerated like crazy and somehow we got away. When we stopped at the headquarters in Kdumim we found out that Shani had suffered cuts from broken glass. She was in hysterics. Not because of the blood, but for fear that now her superiors would find out she had taken her weapon and gone to the occupied territories on her leave, to help settlers raid Palestinian olive groves. S. and H., settler boys, were somewhat in shock. The Shabak (secret service) people asked us if we’d identified the terrorist, and mentioned some hot warnings. No one bothered to ask what this strange bunch of people was doing in an olive grove around Nablus. After all, this is our country.

In a week when Avi Dichter, chief of the security service had complained in the Knesset that his men haven’t managed to infiltrate the ranks of settler youth (“the hill kids”, referring to the Samaria hills where they practice the settlers’ doctrines), that these outlaws are just too extreme, that they’re not organized, that they don’t abide by any rules, S. and H. and I sat in our trailer on a hill near the settlement Einav, froze to death and talked about our experiences. Or rather, they talked, I listened.

S. and H. are not yet 18, but they’ve had a lot of mileage on the ground. They told me how they fired Israeli army weapons on Arabs’ houses near Sa-nur, how they threw stones at olive harvesters near the settlement Yitzhar, and how, at the famous episode of the Gil’ad outpost, they were paid money not to leave Daniella Weiss on her own. I was the wide-eyed rookie, they - the veterans. It’s simple, they explained: “The Arabs come up to harvest next to a Jewish settlement, so you either take their olives from them, or harvest them yourself, or trash their trees. As soon as you pick their olives once or twice, they don’t come back any more.”

During my own pirate olive-harvesting week in the West Bank I discovered many things that S. and H. had not told me. I found out, for example, that alongside the hot-tempered ‘hill kids’, very respectable figures from the settlements take part in olive looting raids in the occupied territories. I found out that workers are recruited as hitchhikers on car rides, on the internet, at the course for newly converted Jews, at yeshivas, and that some of the areas destined for pirate harvesting have even been located by secretaries of settlements right next door.

I also discovered that most of the olives are shipped to the oil-press in the illegal outpost Ahiya. One of my more shocking discoveries during the week, though, was that recently some settlers have started a new business: they harvest the Arabs’ olives and offer to sell them back to their owners. There are even those who threaten the Palestinians that if they don’t purchase the olives harvested “for them” by the settlers, someone will be sure to kill the trees in their groves. An irresistible offer…

As I documented this industry of olive-looting at the heart of Samaria, two Yedioth Aharonot reporters – Meiron Rapoport and Oron Meiri – did some market research on olive trees at nurseries in the heart of Israel. They discovered a different brand of looting there, no less ugly. It seems that contractors building the “separation fence” have been uprooting thousands of trees belonging to owners of the land that has been confiscated from Palestinians. The price of such a tree runs between 600 and 25,000 shekels (!). But instead of transferring the tree for its owner to another spot to be replanted (explicit orders of the Ministry of Defense), some of the contractors sell it to nurseries within Israel. Entire olive groves have been erased this way, hundreds of thousands of easy shekels, all cash – net profit under the auspices of the civil administration.

The olive is more than a tree. Both for Israelis and for Palestinians. It is no coincidence that the olive tree is both the emblem of the Golani infantry brigade, and of the Palestinian village of Zeita. They make their living from it, and we write peace songs about the proverbial dove and olive branch. But if this is what is done to the olives in our name – God have mercy on the dove…

Recruiting
“Volunteer for farm work in many places throughout Samaria”. Thus a want-ad for ‘Hebrew work’ on the internet. This site, created by the cohorts of Moshe Feiglin, leader of the “Zo Artzenu” (This is Our Land) faction that is currently trying to take over the Likud party, offers a list of businesses employing Jews only. Attorney General, Elyakim Rubinstein, has considered charging the site’s owners with breaking the anti-racism law, and they had to moderate their style a bit. Anyway, here is the ad:

“With God’s help,

People are needed to help with the olive harvest in October-November. Work will be carried out in various localities in Samaria, from Einav in the north, Karnei Shomron, Imanuel, and down to Shilo in the south. In addition, armed security guards are needed, preferably with cars, to help transport people, olives etc. from and to the fields.

I can pay for some of the work, but not supply accommodations. Anyone interested, whether as paid work or volunteering, we need you. I prefer people who can stay as long as possible. The olive-harvesting season lasts from mid-October at least until mid-November.

In addition to helping settlements in Samaria in general, it is of utmost importance to assist Jewish farming based on the labor of Jews only. Helping the settlements’ farming projects creates a buffer zone around outposts vital to our security, and keeps the enemy away.

Signed: Yair Shalev, Shilo. Telephone: 02-9400054, 053-492217.”

On the phone I find out that Shalev is indeed looking for olive harvesters. I introduced myself as a yeshiva graduate (which is true, incidentally), a lover of Eretz Yisrael (also true), and needing money (always true). Shalev sounded interested and proposed to meet in Jerusalem. A modest looking man with short, thick glasses, casually dressed, he bears a heavy American accent. His wife, he said, works at a hi-tech plant in Jerusalem. She drives a car that belongs to her workplace, and he needs a driver to take him around during the harvest. “I have no license, when I was young I had no money, now I haven’t the time for this”, he said.

On our way to Karnei Shomron he questioned me about the yeshiva I went to, where I came from, which prominent rabbis in Samaria and Judaea do I know, and most important, how I came upon this job offer. “Through the internet”, I said. “Also, a friend told me.” Shalev was glad. “Many people call me because of the internet ad”, he said. “Actually I have people sending in their friends”. He liked the names of the rabbis I mentioned, and my Ethiopian roots were an obvious asset. He explained that a friend of his employs Ethiopian Jews in the Golan, and that they’re the best workers. “I want you thinking big,” he said. “You’ll make a lot of money. Come with me to all my meetings in Jewish settlements in Samaria and Judaea.” He said it, and meant it.

The Method
During the week in which I drove Shalev around, we went from the office of the head of Karnei Shomron settlement, to the bureau of the vice-chairman of the Kedumim local council, and from there to the office of the secretary of Shavei Shomron. Shalev’s brother serves on the secretariat of Einav, and Shuki Levin, security officer of the ultra-orthodox settlement Kiryat Sefer, who had also served as security officer in several settlements previously, is a friend and comrade in arms. Rabbi Yehoshua Mordechai Schmidt, head of the yeshiva Birkat Hatorah at Shavei Shomron, also welcomes him for a long tete-a-tete, and promises to send him yeshiva students to help out. Olive harvest is even more important than studying the Torah. Everyone knows that Shalev has been running the harvest outside the settlements themselves. At least they don’t inquire whose groves exactly he intends to harvest, and in most cases they lend a hand. These are no longer “hill kids”.

These are the aristocrats of Samaria and Judaea.

The point in his meetings with the heads of the settlements is quite simple: to get their permission to work in plots next to their settlement “which are not owned by Jews”, as he puts it. According to the army’s orders, the army is supposed to enable Palestinians harvest their own olives everywhere. But if the trees are at a distance of 500 meters or less from the settlements, they must coordinate the work with the army for security reasons. In fact, many of the settlements have annexed the adjacent groves at distances much larger than 500 meters. Any Palestinian who dares approach risks being shot to death. At Yitzhar, for example, settlers prevent the residents of Einabus, a village 3 kms. from the settlement, to approach their olive groves. The Einabus villagers who were permitted only last Friday to come to their groves under army protection, have discovered that in the meantime someone has harvested their trees down to the last olive.

Until the army bothers to arrange the Palestinians’ access to their groves, the heads of the settlements permit Shalev and his workers to harvest the trees. He enters his meeting at Karnei Shomron by himself. He doesn’t trust me enough yet. An hour and a half later he comes out grinning. He claims he’s spoken with Yehuda (Hudi) Lieberman, head of Karnei Shomron local council and brother of Bentzi Lieberman, head of the Samaria and Judaea Regional Council, and asked his permission to work in an area “not owned by Jews”. Shalev is convinced that Lieberman will give him the ‘go ahead’ sign.

Lieberman, on the phone from abroad, claims he doesn’t know Shalev, but “a man called me about an olive harvest inside Karnei Shomron, our trees, property of the council, perhaps his name is Yair Shalev. I told him very clearly: my dear friend, I can’t help you. Wait until I get back and we’ll see what we can do together. On principle I won’t let anyone touch olives that are not our own. Anyone who does that, commits an illegal and immoral act.”

In the case of Karnei Shomron, Shalev has his eye set on an area called Neve Aliza, a new neighborhood named after Aliza Begin, a few minutes’ ride from the center of the settlement. Between the settlement and the new neighborhood, a corridor of trees has been formed, and Shalev has targeted them. “All these trees you see here belong to an Arab from the village of Yazoun”, he explains. “The owner has probably not come to tend them for quite some time. We may help ourselves. This is our land.”

At Kedumim, he made a similar request. Shalev targeted an ‘open area’ east of the settlement, and is going to ask the vice-chairman of the local council for permission to work there. After the meeting he says that the vice-chairman, Esther Kerish, has let us do whatever we want, only we should speak with the settlement’s rabbi first. “She said that as far as she was concerned, there was no problem,” says Shalev. “Tomorrow she’ll update Daniella.” Daniella is, of course, Daniella Weiss. At the beginning of the week Kerish emphatically denied that she let Shalev harvest olives on Arab lands: “Someone came to me. We have lands to the east belonging to the Zar family. If it’s on Zar land, that’s perfectly alright, they can harvest there. But if the land belongs to Arabs, we won’t touch it.”

The secretary of Shavei Shomron, Gadi Shtetman, is very clear on the subject: “I don’t care if you work here,” he tells Shalev and me. “In the settlement’s master-plan are areas that did not belong to Jews. I hope that soon everything will belong to us and things will be easier. So you can work here. I say it’s alright.” He even introduces us to the security officer of the settlement, to vouch for our safety.

Gadi Shtetman, secretary of Shavei Shomron, confirmed to us, a week later: “I know Yair Shalev. I approved his olive harvest as employment for residents of the settlement who have no employment within the settlement.

I have no control over the groves around the settlement. He came and asked permission to harvest outside the fence, in places where Arabs do not approach. As for the groves outside the settlement, ask the army. Most of the Arabs who come, even the best of them, come for reconnaissance purposes, to pass on information to hostile elements for terrorist activity.”

Q: The areas included in the master plan, are these yours or the Arabs’?
They belong to the army, not to the Palestinians. The Arabs are not allowed in there.

On the road between Karnei Shomron and Shavei Shomron, Shalev expounds his philosophy: “It’s good for the tree to be harvested. Right now no one tends them, the area is neglected. If the owner would come now, whether Arab or Jew, and bring documents proving that in court, he could place charges with the police.”

Q: And in the meantime, we…”
We work, okay? If someone comes along and proves possession, we’ll sell him the lives in return for our labor.

Q: He would pay us and we’ll give him the olives from his own land?
If the land is really his, if it’s proven in court and he has papers and everything, no problem. Let the Arab come and pay me for the day’s work.

Q: But he can’t come, he can’t harvest.

What do you mean, he can’t? If the police decide to bring an Arab, I can’t say anything. But as soon as that happens, just tell me. I’ll see to it that it doesn’t.

The Girl-Soldier
Shalev is meticulous, working with people who aren’t. And he also has the money to pay them, though I’m not sure where he gets it. He stops at every junction, picks ups hitchhikers. “Want to come work for me?” he asks the boys, promising both money and the glory of “rescuing the land”. The boys respond enthusiastically, take his mobile phone number. He has picked up at least ten people this way.

On the lookout for veteran soldiers, Shalev waves a tempting offer. Work in the pirate olive harvest is not ‘preferred’ work, namely employment that makes soldiers fresh out of the army eligible for a grant of several thousand shekels if they work for at least 6 months. But Shalev can organize this. “If your friend has just finished his army service and wants to receive this grant, tell me,” he says. “I can arrange it. Mine is not recognized as ‘preferred’ work, but I have a good friend who can get us the document that the guy worked for him, so he’ll get both the grant and be paid for his work.”

The day after I started working for Shalev, we get unexpected reinforcement: Shani, a girl-soldier from Kefar Saba, on leave. “She comes from a secular home, and is presently finding strength in religion”, Shalev fills me in, as we pick her up from home. “I told her that Adino can help you get stronger while you work.”

Shani bears an important dowry: an M-16 rifle that she brought with her from the army. She’s in civilian clothes, and very excited about the ride. “My mom is anti-religious, she doesn’t know I’m off to the occupied territories. If she finds out, she’ll die,” she says. “I’ve been to all the hills. I was with the ‘hill kids’ two weeks ago, with Daniella Weiss whom I admire. Weiss is an amazing woman.”

Shalev suggests she act as our security guard, because she’s armed, and Shani happily accepts. What is a secular girl looking for in such a dangerous area, I ask her. “Nothing, I just want to make some money and get stronger,” she answers. “I’ve had a really rough year. Two good friends of mine were killed by terrorists, another committed suicide.”

Shani says that her best friend, Elazar Leibovitch from Hebron, was killed at the end of July, a day before his 21st birthday, at a terrorist ambush at the Zif junction. Another friend, lieutenant Yar Leventhal from the settlement Neve Tzuf, was also killed by an ambush on his way home. The terrorist lay in wait for his car at the side of the road, hiding among the olive trees. “We asked the army several times to clear the roadsides of olive trees in order to prevent the terrorists from hiding there”, says the bereaved family’s neighbor, Dr. Yoav Mark, after the attack. “There have been many shootings on this road, but the army did nothing.”

The army did nothing, so now Shani is here with us, in Yair Shalev’s wife’s new Ford Focus. With her M-16 on the back seat, between S. and H. We are on our way to Shavei Shomron, and at Jit junction (or Gil’ad jucntion, named after Gil’ad Zar), we stop to let off the two boys who want to continue hitchhiking to Itamar. Facing us, across an unmanned roadblock, stands a group of Arabs busy with the olive harvest, loading sacks onto a white truck.

I stop at Shalev’s request, he has arranged to meet a friend here at the junction. He gets out of the car for a moment, taking a break to stretch his legs. Suddenly a white Renault Express pops up in front of us. Two shots are heard. That was close. Aimed at us. Shani gets hit by by shreds. Superficial wound, heavy bleeding. In less than a second, we’re out of there.

Within 7 minutes the whole area is swarming with soldiers. No sign of the white Renault Express. We’re already at the headquarters in Kedumim, answering questions fired by army officers and Shabak men. Shani is in panic. So are we. She no longer shows up for the harvest on the next day. Perhaps she’ll come next week.

The Indians
The two ‘hill kids’ and myself were supposed to be foremen, actually.

At Shavei Shomron we took charge of 64 workers from northern India, now living in the settlement. Rabbi Eliahu Avichail, head of an organization in search of the ten lost tribes of Israel, claims they belong to the tribe of Menashe. The Shavei Shomron Indians are presently being converted to Judaism, and since the Jewish Agency does not subsidize them, they have been living at the expense of the settlement and employed in temporary jobs. In the meantime they harvest others’ olives.

“Two months ago, Rabbi Eliahu Avichail called me, saying that a group of Jews from northern India is making its way to Shavei Shomron, and that he needs room immediately,” recounts Rivka Bondi, director of the Conversion Course at the settlement. Residents of Shavei Shomron do not know much about the new Jews. “It’s not easy”, Bondi explains. “Most of them don’t speak English, and we don’t speak Hindi.”

The only Indian who speaks Hebrew is Michael, who immigrated 8 years ago. “We are Jews who love Israel,” he says. “We even observed all the Jewish laws when we were still in India. I am very glad to be here in Israel.” Michael is considered the success story of Shavei Shomron. Since his arrival he has married a local girl, “Polish, no less…” Tikva laughs. In the settlement he’s nicknamed “the Indians’ eyes”. In fact he is both their spokesman and work chief, foreman. It is not clear if any of them really grasp where they’ve ended up, and what risk they’ve taken, and whose trees they are now harvesting so vigorously. At any rate, you won’t find more industrious and efficient workers anywhere. Guaranteed.

The Hill Kids
If Yair Shalev is the company commander and the Indians privates, the ‘hill kids’ are the company sergeants. They’ve had their share of fighting experience. They were at Yitzhar and Sa-nur, and all over. They’ve had it, actually. They work hard, and hardly get paid. Perhaps a hundred shekel a day. “No money to live, no money to breathe”, they complain. The Zionist idealism that Shalev preaches at me and the hitchhikers no longer works for them. “It sounds good,” H. says cynically. “They tell you that you can take from the Arabs not for gain, but for the sake of taking from the Arabs. But really, Yair couldn’t care less how you live, or if you eat, as long as he gets his olives.” S. sums up: “Action is the last thing we need. Now it’s all a question of money. We don’t even make a thousand shekels a month.”

In the evening, in our frozen trailer (did you know that the cold doesn’t affect Samaria mosquitoes?) H. recalls the good days in which he roamed the territories for ideals, not money. “We were sent to the settlement of Sa-nur. Not the army base, the settlement. It was empty. No one else lived there.

We ran into explosive charges, shootings. We lived there in fear. We’d go around there at night with bulletproof vests. The lights next to our rooms were out because we lived closest to the fence.

“We were only a couple of 16 year-olds, no standby platoon. So the army decided this was a para-military yeshiva, and gave us a weeks combat traning. We didn’t eat all week, just trained all day. A whole day of marksmanship training. We weren’t allowed to carry weapons, but at night each room had one rifle.”

Q: You carried a gun?

It’s like the civil guard in town. If something happens, say there’s shooting at the settlement, everyone runs to the armory, takes a weapon and stands in line.

Q: Have you shot at Arabs?
Not at Arabs, but in their direction, and at the houses of Arabs, or their solar-heated water tanks.

A year later the army evacuated the boys from Sa-nur. Adults replaced them, 20 year-olds. The 17 years old Sa-nur veterans were sent out to set up a new outpost near Yitzhar. “We put up a tent with a generator”, H. says. “We were four guys, you had to stand guard all alone there. Scary. Twice as scary as in Sa-nur.” At Yitzhar they learned the art of handling the Arab olive pickers. H.: “The Arabs would approach, and I’d start throwing stones.”

Such boys who had had army or settler training of one sort or another are now found in every corner in the West Bank. The Palestinians have learned this first hand. Issa Smandar of the Committee for Land Defense at Ramallah, claims that since the beginning of the olive harvest in early October, some 1,000 incursions by settlers against Palestinian farmers have been registered. Throughout the West Bank: Jama’in and Yassuf near the settlement Tapuach, Awarta, Akraba and Yanoun near the settlement Itamar, Burin and Einabus near the settlement Yitzhar, Turmus-Aya and Jalous near the settlement Shilo, Khader near Efrat, and so forth and so on. Over 84 villages.

Some cases ended with casualties, some wounded, even dead. Just last week, at the end of the harvest season, the Chief of Staff Moshe (Bogi) Ya’alon remembered to promise the Palestinian harvesters some security.

In many places no olives have been left for them to pick. Someone got there first, courtesy of the ‘hill kids’.

The army
The army’s attitude to our pirate harvest, and ours to the army – is complex. On the one hand, Yair Shalev boasts that he is on excellent terms with the deputy commander of the Ephraim brigade, a religious lieutenant-colonel named Ophir, and according to him he could even request an escort of soldiers to safeguard the harvesters, if required. On the other hand, our activity is legally questionable, and there’s a limit to official eye-turning. On the ground, Shalev warned us not to get into quarrels with soldiers if they show up. Just get away.

Next to the settlement Einav, three reserve soldiers suddenly turn up, headed by a lieutenant named Kobi, skullcap on his head. He asks us whether the olives we picked belong to Jews. We said no, these olives are “wild”. This time we’ve hit on a sympathetic officer. Lieutenant Kobi looks happy enough, quotes Jeremiah 31:4: “And you shall plant groves in the hills of Samaria…”

He says that as far as he is concerned, we may stay. Just keep in mind there’s been a hot warning of terrorists in this area. “If you need us to guard you, talk to the brigade deputy-commander or operations officer”, he tells Shalev.

Shalev get upset. “Hey, you stupid or what?” He says to the well-meaning Lieutenant Kobi. “You understand us better than anyone else. If we call the army, it will be swarming here and throw us out. If you can watch over us, fine. If not, so be it.” Lieutenant Kobi is not stupid, but neither is he free to disobey orders too blatantly. For the time being he backs off, lets us go on, and after a while comes back with orders from the higher brass to get out. Not because of the harvest, but for security reasons. Another workday shot.

The oil-press
The settlers don’t really make much of a profit from the olives they pick. 200-300 kgs olives per dunum, about 75 kg olive oil, a bit over 750 shekels. In Palestinians terms this is a fair amount, but it too is not enough. In Israeli terms it is next to nothing. Shalev’s workers get 2.50 shekels per kg olives. In two workdays they’ve made 100 shekels a person. Peanuts.

Still, out of this bit the settlers still make light industry. At the outpost Ahiya, an unofficial outpost near the settlement Shevut Rachel, a sophisticated oil-press has been in operation for two years now. The olives we picked at Shavei Shomron were taken there. Our car was crammed full of olives picked by the Indians. The road from Shevut Rachel to Ahiya, so I hear on the way, is out of bounds for Arab traffic. “There’s an electric roadblock here. Only if you give a Jewish surname or get out of the car and identify yourself as a Jew or press a special code number, does the gate open for you,” Shalev says. “Where does this road go?” I ask. “It used to serve several Arab villages”, he answers.

We get to the gate. We mention Shalev’s name, it opens. We’ve reached Ahiya. Not a soul on the hilltop, and the only Jewish oil-press in the region. A sophisticated pressing machine, worth hundreds of thousands of shekels.

Ahiya outpost is infamous for miles around. Fauzi Ibrahim from the neighbor village of Jaloud, who owns much of the land and has 1,500 olive trees to his name, said that in early October, when he started to pick his olives, settlers descended from the outpost and took ten sacks containing 700 kgs olives from him by force. The same thing happened the next day. This time they took five sacks. Eventually, because of the settlers’ incursions, he had to give up harvesting most of his trees.

If you wish to purchase fresh olive oil, Ahiya is not the place. Settlers from all over the West Bank – from Itamar, Yitzhar, Karnei Shomron, Shavei Shomron, Kedumim – bring their olives, or others’ olives here. The oil-press charges them a small fee, as oil-presses normally do, and gives them their oil. The settlers’ names are written on huge yellow containers, each container awaiting its owner, an ample year’s supply, at least. The residents of the neighboring Arab villages see the yellow containers, understand exactly what is going on inside. And fume.

The Tree’s Soul
We meet Shuki Levin, the security officer of Kiryat Sefer, an urban ultra-orthodox settlement a bit beyond the “green line”, at Shavei Shomron.

His sister, Rivka Bondi, lives there. Levin, an old friend of Shalev’s and one of the prominent figures in this area, has an idea about how to empty the Arabs’ groves and still get away with it, righteously: go to the Arabs and offer to sell them the olives he picked from their groves. Levin says he doesn’t want to be a swine. Just cover his expenses, and make a little profit. “You should see how much it costs you to have workers, friends who work, and see that you don’t lose money. Don’t take too much, see to it that you make something.

I always say, don’t work hard, work smart.”

Q: What do you mean?
If the landowner comes and proves he owns the land, we’ll have something to offer him. If you just come and take it, that’s theft. I don’t care about his olives, what do I care – if he can prove ownership.

Q: Are there Arabs who would agree to such a deal?
They don’t have to be asked.

Q: And if they don’t agree?
I can tell them that ten years ago they had trees here inside the settlement, and the trees were ringed. You know what that means? You made a special ring, cut the bark all around, with a special knife. All the tree’s nutrition passes through the outer bark. You make a ring, and the tree’s soul is gone.

No fruit next year.

Q: That’s harassment, isn’t it?
Yes, it is. I told him (the Arab), your trees will be finished. If I don’t tend your soil, if I don’t pick your olives, if I don’t get that ten percent, no harvest next year. Rivka Bondi, Levin’s sister, and director of the Indians’ conversion course, stares at the ground as her brother speaks. She whispers to me that she doesn’t like her brother’s methods, nor Yair Shalev’s work. “Two things the Arab values most: his woman and his land. We hurt his pride this way. “Say,” she points to Shalev, “have you heard that he was shot at?”

Q: I was there.

I don’t know if that was a coincidence. I don’t know that it wasn’t because of the business he runs. That’s how they murdered Gil’ad Zar, of blessed memory.”