The Olive Trees of Ma'ale Adumim

By K. Jeanne Person
Thursday, April 28, 2005
 

In the traffic circles of Ma'ale Adumim, an Israeli settlement between Jerusalem and Jericho in the West Bank, landscapers have planted centuries-old olive trees that were bulldozed off Palestinian farmland.

The Palestinian families who cared for these beautiful olive trees and sold their produce would immediately recognize them. The residents of Ma'ale Adumim, many of whom are recent Jewish immigrants who do not realize they are living in the occupied Palestinian territories, view the trees as simply part of the greening of their "Greater Jerusalem" neighborhood.

The trees seem, therefore, a poignant symbol of both the devastating effects on Palestinian life of Israel's security and growth policies and the ignorance of many Israelis and Americans about what is happening in the West Bank.

About thirty people from the United States visited Ma'ale Adumim this month as part of a peace pilgrimage sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Our purpose in traveling to Israel-Palestine was to witness first-hand the current "facts on the ground" of the Israeli occupation; to learn from Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates; and to express our friendship and solidarity with Palestinians who are suffering, both Muslim and Christian.

I had joined two similar pilgrimages before, in June 2003 and April 2004. We had visited the long-established Gilo and Etzion settlement blocs southwest of Jerusalem. We had seen the 25-foot-high concrete separation wall being built between them and the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour. We had traveled along settlement by-pass highways, which Palestinians are not permitted to use, and through checkpoints within the West Bank. So I thought I knew what to expect in Ma'ale Adumim.

I had not anticipated the olive trees.

The trip to Ma'ale Adumim was my first look at Israeli life so far east into Palestinian territory. The time it took to drive there from Jerusalem, across the hills, led me to imagine a rugged, dusty outpost town, with vigilant, ideological Israeli settlers waiting to protest my presence.

Instead, we saw what looks very similar to an American suburb, complete with a shopping mall, a country club, gas stations, flower beds, and residents walking quietly through the well-maintained streets. The settlement also has a peace library, which conveys an image of friendliness towards its Palestinian neighbors. Most of Ma'ale Adumim's residents are not hostile towards the Palestinians, nor are they motivated by religious ideology, claiming the settlement as part of Eretz Israel. They are, instead, "economic settlers" simply seeking an inexpensive home for their families.

At first glance, Ma'ale Adumim did help me to understand better the arguments in favor of keeping the settlement as part of Israel. Established in the mid-1970s, Ma'ale Adumim is home to 32,000 people and is, quite visibly, a "major Israeli population center," as U.S. President George Bush chooses to call the large West Bank settlements. Dismantling Ma'ale Adumim would be far more difficult than removing the 7,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip. To do so, I realized, would be something akin to relocating the entire populations of Princeton, N.J., or Greenwich, Conn., which are part of the metropolitan New York City area, where I live.

Still, as I looked more closely at Ma'ale Adumim, I witnessed signs of an aggression against Palestinians that, if not present in the hearts of many residents, yet persists in current Israeli policy.

For one, new construction was clearly continuing, even though the peace plan known as "the road map" prohibits new settlement growth. Stunning to me were the Israeli construction cranes, symbolic of Israel's expansion policies in the settlements, next to the apartment buildings of a huge new neighborhood being built on the northeastern edge of Ma'ale Adumim. The settlement's population is expected to double during the next five years, but this new neighborhood is also extending the settlement's boundaries even deeper into the West Bank.

For another, the flower beds, green lawns and swimming pool of Ma'ale Adumim contrasted sharply with the aridness of Al-Ayzariyah, a neighboring Palestinian city we also visited. The lush landscape of Ma'ale Adumim manifested the inequality imposed by the Israeli government in the allocation of scarce water resources within the West Bank, with water being diverted from Palestinian communities to support the settlements.

Most expressively for me, though, were the Palestinian olive trees in Ma'ale Adumim's traffic circles, some of which still bear scars from damage caused by bulldozers.

During our pilgrimage, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with President Bush in Texas and reaffirmed Israel's intent to continue the build-up of Ma'ale Adumim, as well as an area known as E1, the stretch of hills reaching east from Jerusalem to the settlement. In February, the Israeli government formally approved plans to extend the separation barrier east and around Ma'ale Adumim, enclosing both the settlement and the E1 development area into "Greater Jerusalem".

Because of his commitment to the road map, President Bush did express concerns to Prime Minster Sharon about Israel's ongoing construction in Ma'ale Adumim and other large settlement blocs of the West Bank. Yet he failed to stress that the "thickening" of the settlement areas near Jerusalem is not only in violation of international law and an obstacle to the peace process, but also is crippling the Palestinian economy.

The "facts on the ground" of Israeli settlements, settler bypass roads, checkpoints, land confiscations, and the separation barrier are destroying the possibility of an economically viable, contiguous Palestinian state. Already, Palestinian farmers cannot travel to care for their olive and fruit trees and harvest their crops. The weeds growing in Palestinian groves are absorbing precious water. Laborers cannot get to their jobs. Commercial traffic faces rising costs because of movement restrictions within the West Bank.

The development plans for Ma'ale Adumim are cutting off Ramallah from Bethlehem, and both of these Palestinian cities from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a holy city to three world religions, and it is also presently the economic hub of the Palestinian territories, accounting for one-third of the economic activity. Without free access to Jerusalem, and especially its tourism industry, a future Palestinian state will face continuing unemployment rates approaching 80%, nutrition and health care crises, and political anger rooted in economic desolation.

Yet many Israeli and U. S. citizens remain unaware of the economic hardship. In a front-page article of The New York Times last week, for example, reporter Steven Erlanger examined only the 8% to 10% of Palestinian land captured for Israel by the separation barrier, and not the overall economic impact, writing that the likely effect on Palestinian life of the rapidly changing Israeli-Palestinian landscape "is, perhaps surprisingly, smaller than generally assumed." Quite the opposite is true: the adverse effect on the economic and cultural life of the Palestinians, as well as their morale, is and will be staggering.

After Prime Minister Sharon's meeting with President Bush, three Republican U.S. Senators, led by Sam Brownback (R-KS), introduced a resolution to declare Jerusalem the "undivided capital of Israel." The resolution also calls for Congress to refuse to acknowledge a Palestinian state unless the international community "resolves the status of Jerusalem by recognizing the city as the undivided capital of Israel." Such resolutions usually fail, but this one will pressure President Bush not to make too much more noise about Ma'ale Adumim, which pro-Israel advocates consider part of an undivided "Greater Jerusalem".

As I pray and work for peace and justice in the Holy Land, I also beg the international community, and especially the political and religious leaders of the United States, to look more closely at the olive trees of Ma'ale Adumim.

The Rev. K. Jeanne Person is an Episcopal priest serving the Church of the Holy Trinity in Manhattan. She may be reached by email at kjeanne.person@holytrinity-nyc.org.
 

Published by The Witness (www.thewitness.org), April 28, 2005.

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