generalspeaking

Raising Families Peacefully

Despite all their differences - in language, religion, customs, heritage, ethnicity, people have far more in common with one another than they acknowledge when circumstances tend to create suspicion and animosity, leading to inevitable clashes. And, as it was in primeval times when nature equipped human beings with the primary urges of survival, territorial imperative motivated people to recognize adversaries in each group's need to occupy enough land that would sustain their needs.

Not too much has changed since then, in tightly populated areas of the world when too many people continue to strive to possess too few natural resources. And in the Middle East can be seen what happens when people with similar backgrounds but competing needs are led to each blame the other for claiming ownership of what the other also claims to be their own. That's a fairly simple reduction of recent history, leaning heavily on ancient history.

The opportunity for both communities to settle into a land mass that was roughly defined through the UN's offer to both Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, through Partition, was outright refused by the Arabs and grasped by the Jews. The resulting series of attempts to dislodge the Jews from their lawfully claimed geography by Arabs, furious that the world body's decision seemed to disadvantage them, exacerbated their bitterness and violence has ensued ever since.

Now the people of the land who live in the West Bank, both the Palestinian Arabs and Jewish settlers who have laid claim to what they insist was biblically their assured inheritance, continue their resistance to living together in peace. If it were possible to simply lift Jewish settlers holus-bolus out of the West Bank and re-settle them within Israel's borders, much might be simplified.

But to imagine that were that to ever miraculously occur, with a trade between Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the Arabs who live as Israeli citizens, magically erasing all anger and resentment between them is folly. Deep-rooted enmity will remain, as it has over the past 60 years, spurred on and encouraged in large part by the Palestinian authorities who themselves refuse to surrender to the reality of Israel's presence.

The truly sad impact from the situation is the Palestinian villagers and farmers who seek to reap their harvests, and who have fallen victim to a small percentage of settlers' destructive impulses in destroying olive groves and harassing Palestinians who have traditionally harvested those olives. Far sadder yet is the extent of the hatred that Palestinians raise their young with, so that youth can be found guilty of slaughtering settlers in their very homes.

There is an estimated ten million olive trees in the West Bank, covering 45% of all the region's agricultural land. The Israeli army, controlling security in much of the West Bank, is aware of the danger that lurks through confrontations between Arabs and Jews. "It is very hard to catch the vandals. We have ten million trees here and can't defend all ten million. It is not our only problem," said an IDF commander.

"Ninety-nine percent of settlers maintain law and order ... Unfortunately one percent or maybe less" represent the violence-prone among the settlers. Fully 350,000 settlers live in the West Bank. The peace talks that the Palestinian Authority refused to continue to honour, to iron out the disagreements and differences in position between Israel and the PA might have solved many of the outstanding problems both face.

Including the well-founded fears of the settlers of deadly night-time attacks from violent Palestinians. Including the obvious fears of the Palestinians of the harassment and violence emanating from a small proportion of Israeli settlers. The Israelis fear violent stealth in the night and rocks shattering windshields leading to deadly crashes, while the Palestinians have their own fears of the settlers.

"They were waving Israeli flags and shouting there shouldn't be any Arabs here. They threw stones at us. It was terrifying", said one Palestinian man who, with his wife rushed out with specific permission from the IDF, to harvest the olives from their grove of trees near the Itamar settlement close to Nablus.

"Only six months after the murder, while our blood is still boiling and the residents are still caring for their bleeding wounds, allowing anyone from the Awarta village where the murderers came from, is outrageous and negligent", said Itamar rabbi, Avichai Rozenki.

"The announcements that are going out almost daily about damage caused to Arab land and olive groves is totally incredible. If true, it would be visible everywhere. But it is not", said David Ha'ivri, a settler spokesman.

"Most of people here, Jews and non-Jews, are interested in living out their lives and raising their families peacefully."

Labels: Agriculture, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Peace, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 03, 2011