CPTnet
25 January 2005

AT-TUWANI: Peace among the olive trees

by Art Gish

On the evening of 5 January 2006, over one hundred Palestinian olive trees
near the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills were cut down, most
likely by persons from the nearby Israeli settlement of Ma'on. The next
morning nearly one hundred Palestinians and internationals gathered to mourn
the loss.

On Saturday morning, 14 January, about thirty Israelis associated with
Ta'ayush, an Israeli peace group, joined about seventy Palestinians and
internationals in that demolished olive grove to remove all the severed
olive branches, make clean cuts on the trees so that the trees can heal more
easily, and clean up the mess.

As a striking contrast, Israeli soldiers drove up in a Hummer and walked
toward us with their semi automatic rifles ready. Present in that field
were two possible futures: one of peace and cooperation, and one of
domination and control.

After working in the olive grove, the Israeli activists walked to the
neighboring Palestinian village of Tuba. The purpose of their visit was to
express their condolences to a farmer whose lentil field had just been
destroyed a few days earlier by Israeli settlers and to the farmer's brother
who had just received a death threat from an Israeli settler.

Interfaith cooperation must include standing in solidarity with the
oppressed, together resisting oppression, asking each other for forgiveness,
and embodying in our relationships the seeds of the new social order for
which we pray. On 14 January, we celebrated our common faith in the middle
of a demolished olive grove.