- "...Israeli security forces are mostly choosing
to ignore attacks by settlers and are doing little to protect Palestinian
civilians - one of the duties of an occupying power."
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- EINABUS, West Bank (AP) --
Men with chainsaws turned Fawzi Hussein's olive grove into a wasteland
overnight - 255 trees cut down at the trunks, fruit-laden branches wilting
on a West Bank slope, at the height of the harvest season.
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- The suspected culprits: militant settlers who have been
harassing Palestinian farmers for years, especially in the past three years
of fighting. Human rights groups say it is part of an attempt to drive
Palestinians off their land.
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- The destruction of about 1,000 trees in three villages,
including Mr. Hussein's, was on an unusually large scale. It prompted an
outcry in Israel, with settler rabbis calling it a sin and Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon promising to track down the vigilantes.
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- It also heightens fears that this kind of extremism -
albeit of a tiny minority among the 220,000 Jews in the West Bank - is
a harbinger of the resistance the Israeli government could face if it tries
to uproot settlements in a land-for-peace deal.
-
- There have been hundreds of settler attacks, including
rampages through Palestinian villages, since fighting broke out in 2000.
A Palestinian human-rights group says 25 Palestinians have been killed
by settlers in the past three years. Palestinian gunmen, in turn, have
targeted settlements, killing dozens of residents.
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- Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders
say Israeli security forces are mostly choosing to ignore attacks by settlers
and are doing little to protect Palestinian civilians - one of the duties
of an occupying power.
-
- "Settlers succeed in murdering, uprooting trees
and attacking Palestinians without the army and the police controlling
them," said legislator Ran Cohen of the dovish Meretz party and a
colonel in the Israeli army reserves.
-
- Police say they have established a special unit and filed
85 indictments in 2003. Spokesman Doron Ben-Amo says attacks have dropped
from 350 last year to 192 this year, suggesting that "maybe the settlers
are beginning to understand that there are laws."
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- Mr. Hussein, the olive farmer, is from the village of
Einabus near Nablus. His grove is on a slope near the Jewish settlement
of Yitzhar, whose people are known for their militancy.
-
- On Oct. 27, Mr. Hussein, several Israeli peace campaigners
and a journalist were visiting the grove when seven settlers approached
wielding clubs.
-
- "They started threatening us and pushing us and
throwing rocks," said Arik Ascherman, leader of the Rabbis for Human
Rights. "I was kicked a couple of times and hit by a rock and pushed
down a couple of times."
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- The attackers fled when police showed up.
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- Mr. Ben-Amo said several settlers were questioned but
none was arrested. Mr. Ascherman said he offered to identify the attackers
in a lineup but police never got back to him.
-
- Police say they are trying hard, but lack the staff to
protect all farmers at all times. Military officials say that farmers are
offered escorts on request but that few Palestinians respond. After 36
years of occupation, many Palestinians distrust the Israeli authorities.
-
- The military itself has uprooted tens of thousands of
trees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the past three years, usually
in areas from which attacks on Israelis were launched.
-
- West Bank farmers say they mainly fear settlers.
-
- Mr. Hussein, 55, a father of 14, said he rarely went
to his grove until the harvest began last month. "I can't come up
here, because I am afraid for my life," he said.
-
- Yehoshua Mor-Josef, a spokesman for the Settlers' Council,
said extremists are blackening his entire community "with this horrible
thing of cutting down olive trees."
-
- Zvi Berenstock, the secretary of Yitzhar, said he did
not know if members of his community were involved, but he said settlers
have to defend their communities, and he contended that Palestinians disguised
as farmers attacked Jews from olive groves.
-
- An Israeli military official, insisting on anonymity,
said he knew of three incidents in 18 months in which Palestinian extremists
have cover in olive groves, but none in which they posed as farmers.
-
- Questioned in Parliament, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz
promised a thorough investigation, saying the army is doing its utmost
to protect Palestinian farmers.
-
- Critics, however, say nothing has changed since 1994
when an official inquiry into the Hebron mosque massacre - a settler attack
that killed 29 Palestinians - found that the security forces are lax about
enforcing the law against settlers.
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- © 2003 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights
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