The Olive trees

I am sure there are lots of things I don’t know about the conflict between Palestinian people and the state of Israel. I know I don’t feel the history, the pain, the impact of the holocaust and its deadly racism, and the feeling of being surrounded by people who don’t always want you to exist. Of course I also haven’t experience 60 years of exile and living in refugee camps, denial of statehood, abuse of human rights, or having my land stolen from me.

I don’t understand the denial and mythology, the pretence that the land was not occupied (a form of terra nullius). I don’t understand how an agreement by the UN can be honoured by the establishment of the State of Israel, but the promise of a Palestinian state can be denied year after year. I don’t understand the moral outrage against Iraq or other countries for breach of UN resolutions while settlements go on without condemnation and real action to stop them.

I don’t understand how people think they can have safe and secure borders and good relationships with their neighbours when thousands of people have lived in refugee camps for 60 years, ore when illegal settlements continue to encroach on other people’s land or state. How can you keep stealing people’s land and livelihood and expect them to make peace?

I do not understand how a people so harmed by racism can build a racist state where Palestinians are not equal citizens and, increasingly, where Palestinians are treated as less than fully human. I don’t understand the killing of the children, and the petty, bloody-mined and, at times, life-threatening road blocks and check points. I don’t understand how people can steal another’s community’s water, or pollute their water supply and expect to build a future. I don’t know how that sort of community claims to be a democracy, or claim to be interested in human rights.

Most of all, though, I don’t understand the Olive trees! I don’t understand how people can tear out and burn down ancient Olive trees; the wanton, callous destruction of people’s livelihood and the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the struggling Palestinian economy.

Somehow the Olive tress strike me as a symbol of it all – stolen land, illegal settlements, pointless and wanton destruction, disregard for ordinary human beings trying to live, and a state that has no respect for international law, genuine peacemaking, or the rights of all citizens, and which shows a willingness to turn a blind eye to the sort of racism that has harmed so many of its own citizens.

Can someone help me understand how a people with Amos and Micah in their holy book can do this?

Please remember if you respond. This is a critique of the policies and actions of the state of Israel. Don’t accuse me of anti-Semitism, because as a follower of the Jewish Jesus it is not true. Just help me understand how this terrible injustice continues and can be defended.