Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Palestinian Olive Oil Wall
saleh on January 25th, 2006Artist Alec Finlay has made a series of projects for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park culminating in an exhibition for the Bothy Gallery and Park. The exhibition includes a Olive Oil wall made from Zaytoun Olive Oil.
In Alec’s own words: ‘Spanning the gallery is a high wall composed of clear glass bottles filled with olive oil harvested in the conflicted land of Palestine. The oil was sourced from an organisation called Zaytoun. To encounter this wall of oil, which divides the room and is illuminated with light, is an invitation to reflect on conflict, trade and resolution.’
Occupied Olive Tree Territories
saleh on January 25th, 2006A interesting blog entry on a a culinary weblog, which examines the olive tree as a symbol of Palestinian identity in response to a short documentary by Osama Qashoo, titled My Dear Olive Tree.
‘The eighteen-minute documentary shifts swiftly from registering the small community’s warm familial bond with the land, to an extremely tense situation in which Israeli Army bulldozers move in to uproot the olive trees. The film shows Palestinian women in a state of utter hysteria as they are forced to bear witness to an act nothing short of an amputation.’
Full entry at culiblog.org
Foreign Office Disclosure on the Separation Wall
atif on January 13th, 2006In July 2004 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled the Separation Wall to be illegal where it stands on Palestinian territory, and pointed to the obligations of the international community under the Geneva Conventions to take action against Israel to end its violations.
One year later, in July 2005, War on Want, the Dove & Dolphin charity and a number of individuals instructed lawyers from Hickman & Rose to write to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the European Commission to ask what action they had taken to prevent Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, specifically in relation to the Separation Wall.
The Foreign Office disclosure, under the Freedom of Information Act, is made public (with commentary) at: www.waronwant.org/?lid=11496
Experts: Palestinian Trees Were Vandalized, Not Pruned
heather on January 13th, 2006By Amira Hass
Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank are clearly being vandalized rather than pruned, two experts said yesterday. (10/01/06)
They were responding to the Yesha Council of settlements’ contention that Palestinians sometimes label pruned trees as having been vandalized in order to smear the settlers, who are believed responsible for the vandalism.
Professor Shimon Lavee, an expert in olive tree cultivation from the Hebrew University’s agriculture department, refuted this claim after examining photographs of trees taken by the B’Tselem organization in Salem, near Nablus, and Tawana, south of Mount Hebron. According to B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli, Lavee said that trees as young as the ones in the photographs would not normally be pruned, and they had therefore evidently been vandalized. He also said that the damaged trees would take eight to 12 years to recover fully and produce as much fruit as they had before.
Yoel Marshak, a veteran member of the kibbutz movement who has been trying to protect Palestinian harvesters from settler attacks, issued the same verdict yesterday after examining 50 trees near Burin that were vandalized earlier this week. Marshak has considerable experience in this matter, having spent six years in charge of his kibbutz’s plant nurseries.
Marshak said that he learned of the Burin vandalism during a meeting yesterday morning with Commander Uzi Sumer of the Judea and Samaria District Police. He added that Sumer had told him that the police lack sufficient manpower to prevent such vandalism, and therefore, Marshak should “set up a private security company.”
Marshak said that a state commission of inquiry should be appointed to investigate the failure of the police and the Israel Defense Forces to prevent such vandalism.
Based on his inspection of the damaged trees, Marshak offered the following analysis of the vandals: “It’s clear that these were people who were rushing so as not to be caught. They had a saw, but they didn’t saw completely through the branch; they sawed partway through and then broke it off. They didn’t saw the trunk, because it is thick; therefore, they cut off the branches.”
Marshak said that he also told this to Sumer when the latter quoted the Yesha Council’s suggestion that the trees had merely been pruned.
According to the police, 733 Palestinian olive trees were vandalized in 2005. But according to a partial list of damaged trees throughout the West Bank compiled by B’Tselem, Yesh Din and Rabbis for Human Rights, the real number is much higher. These organizations say that at least 2,750 olive trees were vandalized in various ways last year, including being uprooted and stolen, being torched and being chopped down.
Jonathan Lis adds: Police and army officials yesterday contradicted Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin, who said he had given the names of settlers who vandalized Palestinian trees to the police and the IDF, but that they did nothing. The officials said that on the contrary, their major problem has been the lack of information from the Shin Bet.
