Press of Atlantic City · 27 October 2008
CP-2008-019
Olive harvest another West Bank battleground
Extremist Jewish settlers clashing with Palestinian farmers over land
By KARIN LAUB and DALIA NAMMARI / Associated Press
Transcribed from the clipping
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank —The olive harvest was off to a bad start for Said Abu Aliya — branches torn from the Palestinian farmer's trees lay scattered on the ground, along with bright-green olives. He blamed Israeli settlers in a nearby hilltop camp while Israeli soldiers patrolled as a buffer while he and his family picked the remaining crop.
“Without their presence, we wouldn't be able to enter our lands because the settlers would attack us,” said the 47-year-old. For many Palestinians, the fall harvest of about 10 million trees used to be a joyful ritual steeped in tradition.
But the West Bank's olive groves have increasingly become a target of extremist Jewish settlers who, hilltop by hilltop, seek to expand their control over land they say they were promised by God.
Just in the first two weeks of this season, farmers say, assailants beat a 63-year-old olive picker, slashed another man's car tires, tried to chase Palestinians out of several groves and stole or damaged some of the crop. In one incident captured on video, four settlers punched and kicked a Palestinian photographer and a foreign activist in an olive grove.
Compounding the farmers' problems, more trees are harder to reach because they lie beyond Israel's growing West Bank separation barrier or close to Jewish settlements and their multiplying satellite camps. Israeli human rights activists say securing the harvest is an important test of Israel's obligation as an occupying power to protect Palestinians.
They say the military and police are doing a better job than in the past, but have failed to protect crops or bring vigilantes to justice.
Cite this clipping
"Olive harvest another West Bank battleground," Press of Atlantic City, 27 October 2008. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2008-019. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2008-019
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
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