NIF’s photographer set out for the West Bank last month to join NIF grantee Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) during its weekly Friday “Planting Justice” trip. This is an initiative that RHR does every year between December and March in partnership with the New Israel Fund and Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank.
See below for a video from that Planting Justice trip:
The plantings aim to promote economic justice and to demonstrate solidarity with communities severely harmed by war, settler violence, and systemic state injustice. The initiative has planted more than 4,500 trees by upwards of 300 volunteers in at-risk Palestinian communities across the West Bank.
In mid-January, RHR Director Rabbi Avi Dabush, West Bank Department Director Adam Rabea, and additional staff alongside some 80 volunteers (including two NIF Social Justice Fellows, Nona Golan and Dikla Taylor-Sheinman) traveled from across Israel to the Palestinian town of Husan, located southwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank, to assist local farmers planting olive, grape, and other fruit trees.
Upon arrival shortly after 9AM, volunteers were briefed by RHR staff and Palestinian farmers on how to plant saplings and what to do if Israeli settlers, police, or military forces arrive on the scene.
The morning’s work was conducted almost without interruption. There was an armed settler present as work was commencing, and an Israeli Border Police patrol arrived on the scene part way through the planting, ordering RHR and the volunteers to leave the area. Nevertheless, Israeli officers eventually allowed volunteers to complete the planting and eat a lunch provided by local Palestinian families.
Meanwhile, in the Masafer Yatta region of the southern West Bank, RHR volunteers had planted 150 trees in the community of Wadi a-Rahim. These trees were subsequently uprooted or cut down by Israeli settlers. In response, RHR plans to return to Wadi a-Rahim with a coalition of seven organizations to replant the trees, set up cameras and lights, and organize protective presence shifts to prevent further settler violence.
RHR says: “The Tree, for which the land is toiled, which we plant every year on Tu Bishvat and whose fruits we harvest, has come to symbolize a connection to the land and to the divine. These same trees are routinely torched by settlers seeking to demonstrate that they are the masters of the land and that they are in control. On the other hand, when Palestinians and Israelis come together to plant trees a message of belonging, solidarity and hope for a common future is voiced. This is the message of the olive branch and it is our message with every tree planted.”
With the proud support of NIF, Rabbis for Human Rights is the only organization in Israel that promotes discourse and advocacy for human rights from within the Jewish religious tradition.
Founded in 1988, RHR has one hundred and fifty members, rabbis and rabbinical students representing a pluralistic and wide spectrum of Jewish belief and practices. Since its founding, RHR has struggled to protect the human rights of Palestinians living under occupation and its flagship project is supporting Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank, especially during the harvest and planting seasons, in the villages and communities most vulnerable and affected by violence. RHR also organized accompaniments of Palestinian shepherds in particularly volatile locations. RHR sees its work as a salient and compelling way to help Palestinian farmers build resilience and to overcome obstacles of settler violence on the one hand, and the intensifying Israeli occupation and military control on the other hand.
(Photos and video: @matimilstein)