throw them an olive tree

Why tender them an olive branch when you can throw them a whole tree, in fact an entire logging camp of peace offerings…

In looking at settler violence against Arabs, it has to be understood that these religious Jews, for the most part, a little more than tolerated guests, excluded from the corridors and spheres of influence and power in the state. They are in the margins of a self-perpetuating establishment that is hermetically sealed to those unwilling to adopt the secular agenda. Even the tern “religious Zionist” is a contradiction, not a natural fit where cultural and religious power becomes a bed-mate with a political and military one more suited to nation building and a sort of leap of faith in being adopted by the religious since it means adoption of methods from the very non-Jews they have historically resisted.

— Vincent van Gogh
Painting, Oil on Canvas
Saint-Rémy: November, 1889
National Gallery of Scotland
Edinburgh, Scotland, Europe
…
 Van Gogh: Olive Trees: Bright Blue Sky—Read More:http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/361/Olive-Trees:-Bright-Blue-Sky.html

By extension, the potential seems to be intrinsic in fostering some very twisted ideologies when the materiality of land, is mixed with religious rhetoric and weaponry plopped on top of letting themselves be accommodated as a form of self-colonization which almost institutionalizes an ingrain sense of inferiority. Initially, the religious Zionists viewed the nation as  an gateway to genuine Jewish empowerment leading to a new level in the revival of spiritual life. To some extent this has been realized but running parallel, it seems, is a streak of a generic, albeit earnest trope and stereotype of being uber-Zionist, more Zionist than the ruling class and more slavish to that same class than the old line secular Zionists are…

(see link at end)…RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Settlers destroyed over 250 olive trees in a Ramallah village on Wednesday, a local agricultural committee said.

Jewish extremists from nearby Shilo settlement entered the area and cut down the trees in al-Mughayyir village, the committee added.

Attacks increase around the time of the olive harvest season as settlers target olive trees and agricultural land….

Vincent van Gogh—Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background
Oil on canvas
72.5 x 92.0 cm.
Saint-Rémy: June, 1889—Read More:http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0712.htm

On Tuesday, Jewish extremists cut down over 120 olive trees on private Palestinian land in Nablus, a Palestinian Aut

On Sunday, a group of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in the Ramallah town of Beitillu, burning dozens of olive trees, while settlers uprooted around 40 olive trees in the nearby Ramallah village of Ras Karkar.

On Friday, settlers destroyed 100 newly-planted olive saplings and at least 60 vine trees on private Palestinian land in Al-Khader village near Bethlehem….

“jewish voices eclipsing,” ….such as her own?—Baltzer, contra Finklestein’s pragmatism, was comfortable with postmodern abstractions, tending to speak a bit airily, though with a great deal of conviction. She spoke forcefully about lobbying for Palestinian rights but rarely about which rights. She claimed that “Jewish voices eclipsing Palestinian” ones represented “a dangerous phenomenon.” She offered some clarification, adding that some ostensibly sympathetic audiences tell her that they find Jewish narratives more credible than those from Palestinians. But, she also announced that “the traditional gatekeepers of the conversation are in crisis.”—Read More:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/08/not-trying-to-cause-a-big-sensation.html

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs reported that over 2,500 olive trees were destroyed in September 2011, and 7,500 throughout 2011. Read More:http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=527716

If you go back, to 1939, a look at John F. Kennedy’s letter to his father after his trip to Palestine, JFK, then twenty-two, pointed out something that more than seventy years later is still true, in place and intact, with the same fault lines:

After all, Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away. The question is further complicated by the fact that both groups are split among themselves. There is the strongly orthodox Jewish group unwilling to make any compromise, who wished to have a government expressing this attitude, there is the liberal Jewish element composed of the younger group who fear these reactionaries, and wish to establish a very liberal, almost Communistic form of government, and then there are the in betweens who are willing to make a compromise. There are even further lines cutting these groups, but they do manage to present a united front now; if and when they get their claims, the break-up will start…