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(RNS) — On Oct. 21, I was harvesting olives alongside Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank when Israeli soldiers arrived and detained me, along with dozens of American and Israeli rabbis, human rights activists and other volunteers.
We had come to the village of Nahalin, near Bethlehem, to provide a protective presence for Palestinian farmers as part of an international solidarity coalition called Protect the Harvest. For three years, some of the families in the village have been unable to access their olive groves because of growing threats from Israeli extremists. With violence and intimidation making even the most ordinary agricultural work dangerous, our presence was intended to help them harvest safely.
For approximately two hours, we picked olives peacefully. Then, Israeli security forces arrived and declared the area a closed military zone. We agreed to leave, but they detained us anyway.
What happened to us was upsetting, to say the least. But what should alarm Americans even more is what our detention reveals about the Israeli government’s systematic campaign to drive Palestinians from their land.
Just five days earlier, Israeli settlers brutally attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives near the village of Abu Falah, in the West Bank, The Washington Post reported. Among those assaulted was Heidi Levine, a veteran photographer for the Post, who was beaten while documenting the violence. According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers at the scene failed to intervene to stop the attackers.
Across the occupied West Bank, Palestinian families face an escalating campaign of violence, intimidation and dispossession. The annual olive harvest, a cherished cultural tradition and a means of essential economic sustainability, has become an occasion for fear. The United Nations has documented more than 200 incidents in which Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians since the harvest began in September. Settlers have burned and uprooted olive trees, demolished homes and driven families from communities where they have lived for generations.
It is tempting to describe this violence as the work of a few extremist settlers operating outside the law. But that explanation ignores the role of the Israeli government.
The Israeli military controls Palestinians’ access to vast areas of the West Bank. It determines when farmers may enter their own agricultural land, issues orders closing those areas and removes Palestinians from places where they have every right to be, the UN has found. Meanwhile, settlement outposts, considered illegal under international law, continue to expand with government support, while attacks against Palestinian communities frequently go unpunished.
Our experience demonstrated how this system operates. Palestinian farmers were attempting to harvest olives, and rabbis and volunteers had come to help protect them. The Israeli military’s response was to remove the family and the people providing that protection.
This is how forced displacement happens. A family loses access to its fields, violence makes daily life increasingly dangerous, and military restrictions make farming impossible. Eventually, remaining becomes untenable.
We must recognize this for what it is: a systematic, state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The Torah warns of the danger of getting so drunk on power that one comes to forget that the Land of Israel ultimately belongs to God and that sovereignty brings with it the responsibility to live justly there. Bloodshed, the Torah says, defiles the land. Today, the Israeli government has forgotten this essential lesson and has enabled bloodshed and destruction of Palestinians’ lives and property.
That is why rabbis like me, and members of T’ruah, the organization I lead, travel to the West Bank to accompany Palestinian communities. And it’s why Israeli rabbis and activists do the same. We are living out our Jewish values in the land that is home to both Jews and Palestinians.
The Israeli government must end the forced displacement of Palestinian communities, stop enabling violence against them and guarantee their ability to access and cultivate their own land. The United States must also confront the role its military assistance and diplomatic support play in sustaining the occupation and demand meaningful accountability for abuses committed by Israeli forces and settlers.
I expect my detention will attract attention because I am an American rabbi. Brad Lander, a congressional candidate from New York who joined us, was also detained. The attack on Levine drew international outrage in part because she is an American journalist.
But Palestinian farmers should not need Americans standing beside them to make their suffering visible.
I will continue standing alongside these communities. The question is whether the rest of the world will finally recognize what is happening to them — and act to stop it.
Editor’s note: The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
(Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)