OCCUPIED WEST BANK — Rabbi Dov Lior, whom Al Jazeera describes as the spiritual guide of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, ruled on Friday that Jews may pick olives from Palestinian-owned groves in the middle of the West Bank olive harvest.
Al Jazeera’s account of the ruling says it claims Palestinian landowners were “sufficiently compensated in the years they had access to the fruit.” Lior classed the taking of the fruit as an “additional virtue” and urged settlers to “conquer the land” and “demonstrate our ownership.” The ruling describes the land as “stolen land in their hands.”
On Friday at least 19 people were injured in 34 attacks on Palestinians picking their crops across the West Bank, Al Jazeera reported, without saying who compiled the count. An American photojournalist was assaulted by settlers and five vehicles were torched. The ruling and those attacks fell on the same day, so it cannot explain them, and the reports cited here do not say any settler has acted on it.
Other rabbis rejected the ruling. Al Jazeera reported that the religious council of the Gush Etzion settlements called the harvesting of Palestinian crops “theft, blasphemy, and a moral defect,” and that Tzohar, an organisation it describes as representing 800 Orthodox rabbis, said “only the state has the authority to confiscate property.” The Times of Israel reported that Lior was responding to a letter signed the week before by a small group of Gush Etzion rabbis, and that Tzohar said theft is forbidden from anyone, Jew or non-Jew.
Mamoun Abu Amer, an analyst of Israeli politics, told Al Jazeera that Itamar Ben-Gvir “competes via the TikTok platform” and described a “market for extremism” in Israeli society. Knesset member Gilad Kariv of the Democrats Party was blunter: “Whoever stands on the sidelines in this issue joins the camp of Rabbi Dov Lior and his criminals.”
The numbers do not line up. Middle East Eye reported that the Israeli rights group Yesh Din has recorded at least 170 settler attacks since September 27, a longer window than Al Jazeera’s single-day tally, and neither outlet says how an incident was defined.
Al Jazeera’s report carries no response from Lior, Ben-Gvir’s party or the Israeli government. What the army or police would do if a settler picked Palestinian olives and cited the ruling is not addressed anywhere in the reports cited here.
