Luke 3.7-18
Bear fruits worthy of repentance...Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees…. (Luke 3.8)
I cannot read these words without thinking of all the olive trees I saw in Israel and Palestine that have been cut down.
On the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, on the left hand side of the highway, there is a whole orchard of stumps of the trees that have been cut down to make way for the settler road, linking Jerusalem to its settlements in the West Bank, where even today, the Israeli government has given permits for more illegal building, the “natural growth” expansion on land I always thought would eventually become the Palestinian state.
In Jayyous, where I stood in the village at the top of the hill and looked down on the olive groves which now lie on the other side of the barbed wire security barrier, I could see where hundreds of trees had been cut down to build the barrier, a twenty-foot-wide swath of dirt and barbed wire. Each morning and afternoon the checkpoint between the village and its olive groves is open for an hour to let the farmers pass through from their village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom. Seventy-five percent of their olive groves have been cut off from the village by the security barrier.
When we toured the village, Dr. Abdul Latif told us that one third of the villagers lost their land when the barrier was built because they could not provide adequate
documentation of their ownership and were therefore denied permits to cross at the checkpoint and tend their olive trees. Fifty percent of the villagers must now depend on food aid because they cannot farm their land. Photo: view of the security barrier and checkpoint separating Jayyous from its olive groves.
The residents of Jayyous have been engaging in non-violent demonstrations against the building of the Israeli security barrier, and now 40 of the village’s 3000 residents are in prison. An additional 3000 people of Jayyous live abroad, many of them leaving because they were unable to find work and make a living in Jayyous.
Land confiscated from the village has been used for the construction of the Israeli settlement of Zufim. A report in 2004, describes one of the confrontations between settlers and the people of Jayyous: “On Dec. 9, Zufim settlers uprooted 117 olive trees at Jayyous, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported. Villagers said dozens of settlers, some of them armed, entered the olive grove owned by Jayyous resident Mohammed Salim that morning and began razing it with a bulldozer. Villagers alerted the occupation authorities, but police and troops only arrived in the afternoon--long after the trees had been destroyed. "How would you like to buy one of my trees?" a settler told an international. The uprooted trees were carted away in the direction of Israel, possibly to end up in Israeli nurseries for sale, construction workers reported. The phenomenon of Palestinian olive trees uprooted by Israel in the building of its separation barrier ending up being sold as trophy plants in Israeli nurseries was well documented in "The battle of the Olive," by Danny Adino Ababa, Meron Rapaport and Oron Meiri, Jan 22, 2003, in the Israeli paper Yediot Ahanorot . Read the rest of this story: http://ww4report.com/105/palestine/jayyous
Read another article about Jayyous in The Nation, by this same writer, David Bloom: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040308/bloom
Gracious God, help us to heed John the Baptist’s call to repentance. In this Advent season, awaken us from our apathy and turn us to your way of justice and mercy, that we may bear fruits worthy of repentance. Amen.
Bear fruits worthy of repentance...Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees…. (Luke 3.8)
I cannot read these words without thinking of all the olive trees I saw in Israel and Palestine that have been cut down.
On the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, on the left hand side of the highway, there is a whole orchard of stumps of the trees that have been cut down to make way for the settler road, linking Jerusalem to its settlements in the West Bank, where even today, the Israeli government has given permits for more illegal building, the “natural growth” expansion on land I always thought would eventually become the Palestinian state.
In Jayyous, where I stood in the village at the top of the hill and looked down on the olive groves which now lie on the other side of the barbed wire security barrier, I could see where hundreds of trees had been cut down to build the barrier, a twenty-foot-wide swath of dirt and barbed wire. Each morning and afternoon the checkpoint between the village and its olive groves is open for an hour to let the farmers pass through from their village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom. Seventy-five percent of their olive groves have been cut off from the village by the security barrier.
When we toured the village, Dr. Abdul Latif told us that one third of the villagers lost their land when the barrier was built because they could not provide adequate
documentation of their ownership and were therefore denied permits to cross at the checkpoint and tend their olive trees. Fifty percent of the villagers must now depend on food aid because they cannot farm their land. Photo: view of the security barrier and checkpoint separating Jayyous from its olive groves.The residents of Jayyous have been engaging in non-violent demonstrations against the building of the Israeli security barrier, and now 40 of the village’s 3000 residents are in prison. An additional 3000 people of Jayyous live abroad, many of them leaving because they were unable to find work and make a living in Jayyous.
Land confiscated from the village has been used for the construction of the Israeli settlement of Zufim. A report in 2004, describes one of the confrontations between settlers and the people of Jayyous: “On Dec. 9, Zufim settlers uprooted 117 olive trees at Jayyous, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported. Villagers said dozens of settlers, some of them armed, entered the olive grove owned by Jayyous resident Mohammed Salim that morning and began razing it with a bulldozer. Villagers alerted the occupation authorities, but police and troops only arrived in the afternoon--long after the trees had been destroyed. "How would you like to buy one of my trees?" a settler told an international. The uprooted trees were carted away in the direction of Israel, possibly to end up in Israeli nurseries for sale, construction workers reported. The phenomenon of Palestinian olive trees uprooted by Israel in the building of its separation barrier ending up being sold as trophy plants in Israeli nurseries was well documented in "The battle of the Olive," by Danny Adino Ababa, Meron Rapaport and Oron Meiri, Jan 22, 2003, in the Israeli paper Yediot Ahanorot . Read the rest of this story: http://ww4report.com/105/palestine/jayyous
Read another article about Jayyous in The Nation, by this same writer, David Bloom: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040308/bloom
Gracious God, help us to heed John the Baptist’s call to repentance. In this Advent season, awaken us from our apathy and turn us to your way of justice and mercy, that we may bear fruits worthy of repentance. Amen.
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