WEST BANK: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounces recent Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian olive pickers as "terrorism"

Record ID: 561366

  • Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounces recent Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian olive pickers as "terrorism"
  • Date: 22nd October 2008
  • Summary: (BN10) MAZRA AL-GHARBIYEH VILLAGE, NEAR RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (OCTOBER 22, 2008) (REUTERS) PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER SALAM FAYYAD ARRIVING AT AREA WHERE PALESTINIAN FARMERS PICK OLIVES VARIOUS OF FAYYAD PICKING OLIVES VARIOUS OF FAYYAD STANDING ON LADDER PICKING OLIVES WIDE OF FAYYAD PICKING OLIVES FAYYAD TOURING AREA VARIOUS OF FAYYAD SPEAKING TO JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER SALAM FAYYAD SAYING: "This is nothing short of terrorism by the settlers and complete violation. Their being here in itself is illegitimate as you know and to engage in addition to all of that in acts of violence against our citizens, particularly at this time of the year, time when they pick olives, with all that the olive tree signifies." FAYYAD STANDING IN OLIVE PICKING AREA
  • Embargoed: 6th November 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAD49FJT83D238CMH25J25867DL
  • Story Text: Recent Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian farmers amount to "terrorism", Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told reporters on Wednesday (October 22).
    Fayyad joined West Bank farmers to pick olives in Mazra al-Gharbiyeh village, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, to hear first hand accounts of recent Jewish settler attacks during olive harvest.

    "This is nothing short of terrorism by the settlers," Fayyad told Reuters while picking olives in the village surrounded by Jewish settlements.

    "Their being here in itself is illegitimate as you know and to engage in addition to all of that in acts of violence against our citizens, particularly at this time of the year, time when they pick olives, with all that the olive tree signifies," he said.
    Fayyad said the olive tree was not only a source of income for most Palestinians, but it was more importantly a "symbol of the determination of the Palestinian people to stay on their land and to preserve and defend it".
    Last weekend four Jewish settlers headed into a grove next to a Jewish enclave where a few dozen Israeli, Palestinian and foreign peace activists were helping to pick olives.
    The settlers punched and kicked a photographer and assaulted another.
    About 300,000 Jews live in settlements built by Israel in the occupied West Bank. The international community has called on Israel to remove settlers from the West Bank. Palestinians say settlements prevent the establishment of a contiguous, viable state.
    Palestinians say there has been a significant rise in settler attacks across the West Bank in recent weeks that coincided with Arab-Jewish violence in the northern Israeli town of Acre.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday (October 19) condemned the settlers and soldiers' attacks on olive harvesters and pledged to fund the plantings of a million trees to make the rocky West Bank terrain greener.
    Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday "the assaults by hooligans in the area ... deserve condemnation", but said Israeli troops cannot protect the harvesters everywhere.
    Israel has deployed forces in the West Bank to permit the harvest to proceed despite attacks by settlers in some olive groves this month, Barak told Israel's Army Radio.
    But Palestinians say the army does little to prevent settlers' assaults and often times breaks up the friction by forcing the farmers to leave the area.
    Fayyad said his visit to farmers in Mazra al-Gharbiyeh was "a clear message that we are here to stay".
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