Hares village: Ashraf's trees again

Today five of us, Ann, Kate, Sue, Noirin and myself, returned again to Hares to help Ashraf with his harvest. Today, we were to harvest the trees between the main raod and the military road. As we clambered over the old roadblock rocks to get to his trees, a settler emerged on the military track, carrying an M16 over his shoulder. We stood watching him and waited with Ashraf, to see if the Army were present. After a minute or two they arrived and an extended conversation took place between the Capain and the settler. The impression one always got in this situation was one of partnership between the settlers and the Army. There was never any real sense that the Army were present to protect the farmers from settler violence or intimidation. Having said that, it did seem that the behaviour of the settlers was to some extent constrained by the presence of the army. Then Captain Rafi spoke to Ashraf again and it seemed that we were to be allowed to pick. Ann commented to Ashraf 'You're quite friendly with Rafi,'  to which Ashraf quickly responded 'Rafi is no-one's friend'. Ashraf knew that he had to speak to Rafi to achieve what he wanted, but he was equally clear what Rafi represented.

More ways to kill an olive tree

Ashraf showed us a row of trees that all stood adjacent to the military road. One half of them, the half that faced the road, were completely shrivelled. The leaves and what looked like the remains of the blossom are grey and dried up. there was no crop at all. But remarkably the other half of the tree looked fine, although the crop was very light. There is no other explanation that I can see than that these trees have been sprayed with some sort of poison from the road.

All day we had to look out for rolls of barbed wire: in some places the only way to harvest the tree is to climb precariously into a small gap between two rolls of wire and stand completely still to pick. I'm alert to this barbed wire, some of which is new and shiny, but I almost fall headlong when I fail to spot a brown wire stretched between two rusty electric fence posts. Its an old electrified fence (no long electrified, thank goodness) which Ashraf says was put here several years ago to deter them from visiting what remained of their groves. The final element to this exercise in deterrence and intimidation were a couple of old signs saying, in Hebrew and English: "Danger: Mines".

So, the area where we picked that day, constituting what was left of Ashraf's family groves, constituted a narrrow strip about 20 metres wide, squeezed between a road he had only limited access to, and a military road that he was not allowed to cross without a permit. Further down the slope on which we picked where two mobile homes, a newish outpost signalling the latest seizure of Ashraf's land. The barbed wire tentacles, meanwhile, represented an attempt to seize what small area of land that was still being farmed. In the face of all this - the seized land, the military track, the sprayed trrees, the severed trees, the barbed wirte, the Mines notices and the new outpost, I found it difficult to see how any of Ashraf's trees would survive much longer.

And in case you're wondering - no, the soldiers that spend the day watching us show no interest in any of the above. They neither make a note of it, nor do they make any attempt to remove or report obstructions. The only activity they undertake is that from lunchtime onwards they are joined by two young Jewish boys, home from school. These boys spend the whole afternoon hanging round the soldiers and chatting to them. We are picking often no more than a hundred metres from these two boys, but we might as well be on another planet.

Earth roadblocks on the way home: just another day

On our way back from our day's harvesting, just outside the village of Al Funduq, and driving along a hillside in the dark, we come across an earthmound - a huge pile of earth which was completely blocking the road. It had been dumped there by the army no more than 30 mintues ago, we were told. Half a dozen children were stood on top of it and a car in front of us was cautiously attempting the drive round the earth - a fairly perilous thing to do as the road dropped away on one side of a hill and there wa a danger of wheels slipping over the edge. Teh four of us were in a servees with three other women, a toddler and a baby, plus a couple of men. We suggested getting out and walking round the earthmound but at first our driver wasn't having this. After watching the two drivers in front of us though, he changed his mind and we all piled out and clambered over the mound. We asked people - why has this been done? They all shrugged - no reason. As far as we knew there had been no 'trouble' in the area.

Noirin telephoned the United naion to report this human rights violation - they asked her to report the matter again if the obstruction was still there the next day 9so its Ok for the army to clock the road for a day??).

Postscript to an earthmound - a bigger earthmound

Two days later we came down this road again and now the earthmound was twice as high and the road was completely impassable. Local drivers had therefore carved out a completely new track which went up high onto the hillside and which at one point, I'd estimate, was a 1 in 4 gradient. The track was only one car wide so gettting through required skill, co-operation and some luck. It was completely unsuitable for ambulances or emergency vehicles and would not have been passable by the bus which took the university students towards Nablus (I never found out what had happened about the bus, but there was no alternative route for it). We phoned the UN again, to be told 'We understand that the affected villages have an alternative route'. This hair raising hillside track was the 'alternative'which the UN thought was acceptable. Autumnal rain, which can be very heavy and prolonged, was expected to start in Palestine at any time and as far as I could see this track would then become impassable.