LOOKING AROUND : The olive branch has snapped

By Barbara Sofer
Nov. 21, 2002

The first reports of IDF actions in the aftermath of the deadly ambush in Hebron last Friday night focused on the clearing of trees that had obscured the vision of our military patrols. Olive trees, of course.

The irony is that the olive branch is the universal symbol of peace. The floodwaters had subsided and the dove brought Noah an olive leaf, freshly plucked, at eventide.

This has to have been our country's most controversial olive season.

"A harvest of fear" The New York Times labeled it, with Palestinians allegedly attacked by hooligan Jews who reportedly absconded with their olives. We all winced at the image of ourselves bullying the poor olive pickers.

On the other hand, in a year filled with sniper shootings and the murder of toddlers listening to bedtime stories, we know that the olive groves were used not only for their ripe fruit but also as a cover for terror attacks. The bucolic scenes under gnarled olive trees had become dark and threatening.

Watching the news reports from Hebron last week, I wondered how those Israelis who had actually gone to pick olives with the Palestinians felt. One group, led by left-wing activist Uri Avnery, went picking on Shabbat. I was more interested in the group of Sabbath-observant pickers, "Rabbis for Human Rights" - a group of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist clergy.

Attacking olive pickers is repellent to most Israelis.

It would have been easy for us to become hard-hearted avengers living in a country where there has never been a full day of real peace, but thankfully we haven't. The murders of the past two years might have provoked attacks on the villagers themselves, not only on their trees, but for the most part they haven't. Likewise, we deplore the lawlessness represented by the vigilantes and demand they be stopped.

Although many Israelis grew up in undemocratic regimes, we are largely united in our commitment to democracy and human rights.

Thinking back to the time before September 2000 (the beginning of the current intifada) is getting harder by the month. Nonetheless, let's remember how peace activists used to organize joint olive-picking sessions as dialogue-building excursions, not as "international" (notice the new use of this word) protection for the Palestinians. Private olive trees on Jewish property were routinely beaten by wandering olive pickers, even in Jewish settlements.

Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, an activist in Rabbis for Human Rights, told me that he hadn't made a connection between his group's olive picking alongside the Palestinians and the bulldozing of olive trees in Hebron. He didn't feel awkward about joining Palestinians because he believed it was essential "that the outrage of those acts be countered." Picking would be an expression of the need to "constantly renew the well of faith" between peoples.

I disagree.

Certainly our rabbis need to be deeply committed to human rights. Their sermons should morally invigorate us, their personal behavior inspire us, and their jeremiads help us to rein in our excesses. But that's very different from making a public show of siding with the Palestinians when most Palestinians, according to their own polls, want to continue deadly violence against us.
Assuming few rabbis are particularly practiced olive-pickers, their abetting the Palestinians has to be a gesture rather than any serious attempt at compensating them financially for lost olive oil.

A GESTURE to whom, exactly? To fellow Israelis? The vigilantes aren't touched by it. A gesture to humanize our army in the midst of the conflict? The soldiers have to be out there to protect the rabbis. Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon, a man without leftist inclinations, swore he'd protect the olive pickers.

A gesture to improve the Jewish image in the eyes of the foreign press? The olive-picking rabbis have, indeed, been widely quoted - but in every report I saw they were used as proof not that some Jews are good-hearted humanitarians, but that even our own rabbis consider us batterers.

A gesture to the Palestinians? Beyond the propaganda, our intimate enemies know who we are better than we can imagine. Despite more than two years of violence, a major party in Israel put its chips this week on a peace candidate for prime minister.

That's a far more powerful message of our intentions.

Perhaps the rabbis wanted to influence non-observant Jews who would otherwise think that "religious" is a synonym for "callous." I wonder if their congregations have swelled.

Let's overcome our cognitive dissonance and realize that the olive branch has snapped. We've had more than 600 killed in the past two years, 5,000 hospitalized - numbers that don't even begin to measure the damage. Tens of thousands of Israelis would be dead if the IDF hadn't prevented most of the terror attempts.

Defending civilians has become increasingly difficult and dangerous. This week we mark the Hebrew anniversary of the triple attack on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda last year. At least two victims, one still hospitalized and the other back to remove metal from her legs, were sharing hospital space with the new victims of Hebron.

We can't expect the olive harvest to go ahead as if nothing was happening around it. Like hi-tech investments and tourism, the olive harvest is also going to be negatively affected by Palestinian terror. Nor should we justify Palestinian violence, pretending it is a result of the other side's political views. In one horrific week, both a kibbutz with a strong left-wing commitment and a town with a strong right-wing commitment were both brutally attacked.

Two olive branches stand to the right and left of the candelabrum symbolizing the State of Israel. In the end, it was the State of Israel that was attacked both times.

Sorry, Rabbis for Human Rights. The timing of your well-intentioned gesture is wrong and ultimately damaging to the Jewish people. Human rights have to include the Jews' right to live in our country.

We'll all be lighting Hanukka lights next week, marking the miracle of the oil. Olive oil, of course. Let's pray for a new miracle to help us see the way out of this morass.