by Hannah Saunders
The olive harvest season kicked-off earlier than usual this year, and four solidarity activists who were supporting Palestinian farmers in Jamma’in were deported and returned with stories of destruction and violence.
“I witnessed large groups of masked settlers attack Palestinians with clubs and rocks,” Dima, a solidarity activist residing in the Pacific Northwest, told TtS. “They also called the IOF and made claims that the Palestinian farmers and international solidarity activists had attacked them.”
Jamma’in is a town located in the West Bank, and not long after their arrival— with three from the U.S. and one from Germany— a group of Israeli settlers and an IOF jeep pulled up on them, checked their passports, issued a Closed Military Zone order for the area, and demanded Palestinians leave. The activists were forcibly taken to the Ariel Police Station, located in a settlement close by, and were unlawfully arrested.
“The activists had an immigration interview without being allowed to consult a lawyer, despite the lawyer trying to contact immigration authorities multiple times without success. Families and friends were left in the dark about the condition of the activists for about a day,” the International Solidarity Movement stated on Oct. 5.
Dima, a clinical assistant at a residential mental health facility, said the goal of the international solidarity activists is to be present alongside Palestinians wherever they are requested, and to document the Israeli occupation’s brutality.
“We are not there to protect the Palestinian people, as they are capable of their own liberation,” Dima said. “They have asked us to stand in solidarity with them, witness both the effects of the occupation and the ongoing Palestinian resistance, and bring these experiences back to our home countries and encourage others to join the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
Olive harvest season typically begins in mid-October, but Israeli settlers have been destroying the groves and terrorizing farmers since this year’s take off. For 80,000-100,000 families each year, olive harvesting provides all or part of their means of support, according to the International Solidarity Movement.
“For many of the Palestinians, the olive harvest is their livelihoods. They depend on the harvest for survival,” Dima said. “These olive groves are their ancestral lands, which are rapidly being stolen and destroyed by the Israeli settlers. The olive tree is also a symbol of Palestinian resistance. The government of ’48 knows this and intentionally destroys olive groves as an act of ethnic cleansing.”
At a different location, Dima described Palestinian farmers harvesting olives as Israeli settlers drove ATVs right by them as a form of intimidation; the settlers called IOF soliders, who removed the farmers from their land.
“At one location, I witnessed the IOF use tear gas and shoot live ammunition in their attempt to remove the Palestinian farmers from the olive groves,” Dima said.
Despite being in the West Bank for several days earlier this month, Dima acknowledged that not everyone can travel there, but everyone can commit to acts of resistance stateside.
“Washington state is a hub for weapons and other military equipment manufacturing, which is being sold to Israel to continue the genocide against the Palestinian people. Many of Washington’s politicians have received funding from pro-Israel PACs, like AIPAC,” Dima noted. “Certain police departments in Washington state train with the IOF. Our resistance against the apartheid state must start at home.”
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