Palestine: Offering the olive branch...met with teargas...

Shamelessly taking credit for planting olive trees.

Farming is not necessarily what could be called my strong point (as claimed by Al Jazeera at 2.10 - bastards). Lucky then that when we were planting trees in Asira this week, there were only a couple of spades, leaving me to do important work such as observing, coordinating and supervising tree planting (aka sitting). Oh and soldier/settler watch, natch.

We were planting trees for Rachel Corrie, an ISMer who was killed in Gaza by the Israeli army ten years ago on Saturday, and to replace trees destroyed in previous years by the Israeli army or settlers - this happens every year and is devastating to Palestinian economy and culture, both of which are strongly based around the olive tree.

Commander ordering us to yallah.

Our presence on Palestinian owned land was, as usual, considered pesky by the army - they want that hillside all to themselves, having recently built a military tower on it (annexing more Palestinian land, of course). The commander, who arrived looking flash/ridiculous in wraparound sunglasses took it upon himself to tell us off and to get off his goddamn lawn.

He pointed out that of course, if the landowners applied through the appropriate channels, they would of course be granted permission, and of course, would be allowed to access their land without hindrance from the army.

Tell that to the shepherd who was beaten by soldiers and ordered off the exact same land the week before. He had permission to be there. The people of Asira know that that the outcome is the same whether they apply for permission or not. However, threatened with arrest or violence from the army, we decided to move down the hill and plant in an area slightly further down the hill. This – arbitrarily it seems – was deemed acceptable to the soldiers.

However, the settlers from nearby Yizhar did not seem satisfied with the compromise. So they decided to come and tell us off slightly more strictly - running down the hill, masked, they pelted stones at us by hand and with slingshots. Some of the Palestinians in our group ran to fend them off, trying to throw stones UP the hill at the attackers. I suspect none of those reached their targets.

Settlers from Yizhar arrive on the scene

It was then that the settler’s mates, the soldiers, then made a re-entry onto the scene, firing teargas and rubber bullets.

Of course, they targeted the real threat – olive tree planting farmers (and tree planting supervisors, such as myself). Luckily, this time no one was hurt, nor arrested and eventually the settlers and soldiers left, giving us a chance to admire the beauty of the Palestinian spring! Man, we sure look like a threat, I'd attack us too. Defs.