Olive Loot II

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

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 Friendship Village.

[These special reports from mainstream Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahanorot expose two more Israeli actions that are transforming the olive tree from a symbol of peace into one of theft and extortion. In the last two years, the Israeli government has uprooted more than 160,000 olive trees in the West Bank. Many of these trees were hundreds of years old and had sustained the Palestinian economy for generations. Yediot Aharonot reports that large numbers of the uprooted trees, particularly those from near the Green Line, where the security fence is being built, are taken to Israeli nurseries. The nurseries resell the trees to Israelis for between $125 and $5000 each.

UPROOTED

By Meron Rapoprt and Oron Meiri

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

The 'separation fence' line opposite kibbutz Magal. Amos, a foreman at the Ben Rahamim Brothers firm, presents his clients with the goods: an olive grove covering the hillside on the outskirts of the village Zeita. Handsome, ancient trees, at least to the layman's eye. There' s not much time to check the merchandise. "They were shooting here this morning, from this window here", says Amos, pointing to the outer house of the village.

The clients, two reporters of Yedioth Aharonot and a press photographer, cast quick glances at the trees. They look good, no dry leaves, a sign of health. Such a large tree, over one hundred years old, might sell for 3,000, perhaps even 5,000 shekels at an Israeli nursery. We ask Amos for 100 trees. "No problem," he says, "we have as many trees as you want". When can we take the trees, we ask. "Whenever you want. Tell us and we'll get them for you," Amos answers.

The deal looks good, but we don't want to be suckers. "The CEO has said 1,000 shekels per tree. This is expensive as hell", we say. Amos is offended: "1,000 shekel is cheap. He gave you a discount. At 3,000 shekels I can sell it just like that, in the ground. 1,000 shekels for such a beautiful tree? Cheap, cheap."

Three days later, near the same hill, we meet Ahmad Al Rafiq, a farmer from the village of Zeita. Apparently the trees Amos had so generously offered us belong to Al Rafiq. Actually, there's not much of a hill left, nor trees. Gone. A day or two earlier the bulldozers came. Of his hundred trees, perhaps ten were left. "I asked the contractors to wait a little, to let me uproot them myself", he says. "They wouldn't agree, they didn't let me near the trees. They said to me: Shut up, or we'll send you soldiers." At first they sawed off the branches and loaded the them onto a truck, then they uprooted the bare trunks and loaded them too." How old were the trees, we ask him. "I don't know," Al Rafiq answers. "I'm 73 years old, and they were here when I was born. My grandfather planted them."

Behind the Zeita olive grove uprooting hides a large-scale looting operation. Huge. In recent months, reveals a "7 Days" reportage, thousands of Palestinian olive trees have been uprooted as part of the work done along the "Security Fence" line. In the area we visited, alone, Amos boasts, they have uprooted 5,000 olive trees. And these are just 2-3 km. out of a 100 km. long line. According to moderate estimates, at least 20,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the past months. Some of them were destroyed as they were being uprooted, some transplanted elsewhere by their Palestinian owners. And not the least part were sold to nursery owners in Israel.

Even if only 1000 trees were sold - and the willingness of the Ben Rahamim Co. to sell us 100 trees without blinking an eye indicates that a much larger scale is in question - this means a profit of one million shekels. The Arab owners, of course, don't get a penny. Nothing.

The civil administration that is supposed to care for the Palestinian population even encourages this looting. "You can take as many trees as you want, just say from where and how many", tells us Samir Mu'adi, Agricultural Staff Officer at the civil administration headquarters in Beit El.

In one of the nurseries at the Sharon region, the owner admitted he knew the story. The nursery displays dozens of olive trees. Their branches are cut off. Just a bare trunk and branch stumps. The younger trees are sold for 600 shekels a tree, the older ones, 60-70 years old, sell for 1,000 shekels a piece.

Several enormous trees stand in a line apart. 5,000 shekels a piece. One of them, especially large, catches the eye. "This is a 600 year-old tree", explains the salesman. "It costs 25,000 shekels. We brought it from Akraba. In the West Bank. It's the last one. There were maybe ten of them. We sold a few to local councils, and a pair of trees to someone from Savyon (wealthy villa neighborhood)." On the "fence" line as well were several ancient, expensive trees. Abd el Jelil, whose 70 trees were uprooted, remembers how delighted the contractors were with the 500-years old olive tree that stood in the middle of his plot.

This is how they do it, explains the nursery owner: when a tree is uprooted during work on the "fence' line or the bypass roads, the civil administration calls in the JNF, and the JNF calls the nursery. The nursery owners come and take care of the uprooting project themselves. For a suitable price they'll gladly transport and transplant the tree in our own private garden. In a year's time, he promises, the tree will sprout new branches and bear fruit.

Some facts and figures: An olive tree is a natural wonder. It has become a symbol for good reason. Professor Shimon Lavi, one of Israel's greatest experts in this field, Tells us he himself established the age of an olive tree in Gethsemane, Jerusalem: a 1,700 year-old tree, and still bearing fruit. Arabs in the Galilee speak of 3,000 year-old trees. It's a hardy tree and does not die easily. If uprooted correctly and well-tended, Prof. Lavi explains, there is a 95% chance that it will adjust to its new surrounding. Even if it's not too well tended during and after the uprooting, there is still a 25% chance that it will survive.

A modern olive grove in Israel yields nearly 1.5 tons of fruit per dunum, a grove in the West Bank subsisting on rainwater alone will yield 200-300 kg olives per dunum, but this is still a very important source of income in the occupied territories. Nearly 60% of the agricultural produce in the territories are olives. Let alone the emotional and symbolic aspects of this tree. And this branch has taken a deadly blow. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has supplied these data, cited in the Wold Bank report on the economic situation in the occupied territories: In the two years of Intifada, 160,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the territories by the army in its "exposure" operations, for bypass roads, by settler incursions, and now the latest - the "security fence" preparations.

The first section of this line, 110 km, passes mostly through agriculture areas. Hundreds of Palestinians have filed complaints against the seizing of their land. At a village like Zeita, the separation line actually destroys the residents' livelihood. 450 dunum were confiscated for building the "fence", 450 dunum are on the other side of the "fence" and cannot even be reached now. At any rate, Israel's higher court has rejected all appeals and accepted the position of the security forces, claiming the "fence" essential for security reasons. Landowners will be compensated upon proof of ownership.

And what happens to the trees in these areas? "Trees uprooted for the purposes of setting the "fence" will be transplanted wherever possible, in compliance with the owners' requests," answered Captain Gil Limon, the Legal Adviser to the Central Command in a letter of November 3rd, answering objections presented by attorney Azam Bshara of the organization Kanoun on behalf of landowners in the Qalqilya area.

It should be noted that in many cases the contractors who are constructing the "fence" do return the trees to their Palestinian owners. At works done these days in Falame and Jayous near Qalqilya, the uprooted trees are given to their owners. This has also happened elsewhere. But in many cases it has not. At Zeita and Qefin near Bak'a al Gharbiye, at Jammal near Qalqilya, and in many other places, landowners told the same stories: they asked for their uprooted trees, the security people in charge would not let them near the trees, and the uprooted trees were loaded on trucks and gone. Where? No one knows, no one told them.

The Arab press in Israel published the story that several Arabs in Israel working at one of the nurseries in the north were fired, having refused to uproot olive trees along the "fence" line. "We were to take the trees to settlements or to nurseries in Israel", they told Yedioth Aharonot reporter Faiz Abas. Apparently this time these were not fantasies.

Ben Rahamim Brothers is one of the five firms that won the Ministry of Defense's tender for constructing the first phase of the separation line. The CEO Shimon Ben Rahamim did not sound surprised when we said we were interested in purchasing olive trees. "How many olive trees do you need, small or large?" he asked. We explained we'd like one hundred large trees. "No problem", said Ben Rahamim. "Talk to my foreman, Zion, look at the trees, and we'll settle the price. Around 1,000 shekels a tree. Zion will show you everything. Whatever you'll like, you'll take. Trees that no one wants, we take. If someone wants them, we move them."

The olive tree is a protected species. By force of a Turkish law still valid in Israel, a tree 100 years old or older needs a special permit to be transplanted. We inquired with the JNF and they sent us to the civil administration. Agricultural Officer Samir Mu'adi was not in his office, he was harvesting olives at his family plot in the north. But he reassured us: "No problem, it's a simple procedure," he said when we asked for a permit to take trees uprooted along the separation line. "Give me the details of the mover, go to the post bank, pay 30 some shekels that go to the civil administration, and then you'll have a permit to bring olive trees into Israel. Just tell me from where and how many, and I'll arrange it."

And I can take as many as I wish?

No problem. Just say from where.

What if the Palestinians won't agree? Won't they give me a hard time?

I'm sure they won't like it. After all it's theirs, and there's a war on. And the contractors should be giving them the trees according to the agreement. But if you ask me if you can take them, I think you can. Just talk to the contractor and tell me: Mu'adi, I want to take trees from X to Y, and I'll arrange the permit for you, its' official.

The next day we went to meet foreman Zion near the Bak'a el Gharbiye checkpoint. Zion sent us to Amos, and Amos showed us the trees. "Too bad you weren't here a few weeks ago," said Amos. "We had some 5,000 trees.

There were a million and a half people here, taking tress."

Amos, like the Palestinians from Zeita with whom we spoke three days later (they claimed "only" 3,500 of their trees had been uprooted), didn't remember his men transplanting trees for the Palestinians. At the most, they moved trees aside that were not needed.

And what about the Arabs? We put on a concerned face, I don't want some Palestinian to come tell me suddenly that this is his tree, and that I can't take it, we said. Amos was irritated: "Who takes them into account, anyway? If the Arabs see me here, their balls go up into their throat. This morning they were throwing some stones. I short my gun once or twice, boom-boom. I went into their house and told them: "One more time you do this, you're finished, all of you." I told them: "One of you goes, you all go."

We got back to Shimon Ben Rahamim, told him we liked the trees, asked him to give us a discount for taking 100 trees. He agreed to let us have them for 800 shekels a tree. "If you want it without AVT, no problem. Then you get a bigger discount, 650 shekels a tree." Not only the tree owner who inherited them from his forefathers and tended them all his life won't see a penny for his beloved trees, neither will the tax authorities.

We got back to Mu'adi. He had already returned to his office at the civil administration center in Beit El, having harvested his own olives. We told him we found trees, closed a deal with the contractor, and only needed his permit. "Send me the money and everything will be fine", he said. We paid. 34.50 shekels to the civil administration coffers. A few minutes later we had our permit faxed: one permit for the transfer of one hundred protected olive trees from Zeita to Israel. It was simple. Much, much too simple.

The Ben Rahamim Brother' response:

No one is selling trees

Shimon Ben Rahamim, the firm's CEO, was agitated when we addressed him officially: "We don't sell. What maniac told you to write such a story? No one is selling any trees, they're all to be transplanted!" What do you mean, transplanted?

Uprooted and transplanted in their area.

Which means you don't sell anyone any trees?

We don't sell trees. No one's selling anything.

Say I'm a civilian and have my own huge garden?

You won't get one single tree. We'd rather throw them away. We had some in Kibbutz Magal, and transplanted them to Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael.

At this point, Shimon Ben Rahamim slammed the phone, cursing heavily. Our next call was answered by Dori Ben Rahamim, Shimon's brother: "We haven't sold any trees, don't go telling stories. Plain slander. Got any photos? I don't want to speak crassly. I didn't sell any trees. Maybe you sold them trees. We don't sell trees for any money. This is just not done. We have no time for this. It's not our line of business. I don't know anyone who sold any trees. I don't know who sold them to you, and it's not my responsibility. I have nothing to do with selling trees."

Ministry of Defense's Response:

We have not given any permits to sell olive trees

The Ministry of Defense spokesperson, Rachel Nidak-Ashkenazi, in response to "7 Days": "As a part of the infrastructure works in preparation of the 'separation wall' project, trees are uprooted. Before the actual uprooting takes place, the owner of the land is requested to notify the authorities where he wants to replant the trees, and accordingly thousands of olive trees have been replanted. There are cases in which we are asked to uproot the trees and pile them up, to be removed by their owners. In cases where the owner does not request an alternative site for replanting, the trees are replanted close by and the Ministry of Defense even waters them for two weeks after their replantation. The Ministry of Defense pays the contractors for uprooting and replanting work. This clause is an official part of the contract signed with them for infrastructure works. Evidently no permit has been given to trade in olive trees. It goes without saying that the Minisry of Defense would not lend a hand to any kind of trade that is not accordance with the laws of the State of Israel."