A Zionist rabbi issues a fatwa legitimizing the theft of Palestinian olives

Tel Aviv - Ofoq News - Zionist Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the most prominent religious figures in the extremist Zionist movement, today, Friday, issued a fatwa permitting settlers to pick olives from Palestinian orchards in the West Bank, in a move that would provide religious cover for settlers’ attacks on Palestinian farmers and their property.

The fatwa comes at the height of the olive harvest season, which is witnessing an escalation in attacks on Palestinian farmers, amid the spread of video scenes showing settlers attacking Palestinians and preventing them, under the protection of the occupation army, from reaching their lands to harvest their olives.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the fatwa of Rabbi Dov Lior, affiliated with the extreme right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, came in response to a fatwa issued by the rabbis of the Gush Etzion settlements south of Bethlehem, in which they forbade Jews from picking olives from the neighboring Palestinian orchards, considering it forbidden theft. They proposed allowing Jewish workers or volunteers to pick the crop and transport it to its owners in exchange for covering the expenses. The letter was signed by the rabbis of the settlements of Eliezer, Etzion, Alon Shvut, and others.

However, this morning, the Zionist Rabbi Lior published his own letter in which he issued a fatwa permitting the theft of Palestinian olives, and even granting them an additional credit, because the land remains the property of the Jewish people who have not abandoned it.

According to him, Arab owners are considered to have abandoned the fruits when they are unable to pick them for security reasons, and they have received adequate compensation for the years in which they ate from their fruits. Therefore, according to his opinion, Jews are allowed to pick olives even in remote areas, to prove their ownership of the land and to fulfill the obligation of conquering it.

Rabbi Dov Lior considered the Palestinian lands to belong to the Jews, claiming that the Arabs did not buy these lands from the Jews, and that they were therefore “stolen” from them. He justified the picking of Palestinian olives by saying that the inability of their owners to reach them for security reasons may mean that they abandon them, adding that the crops they had previously harvested compensated them for planting trees.

Lior went further, considering that the theft of Palestinian olives is permissible by law, and even carries additional merit under the pretext of the security risks posed by the Palestinians’ proximity to the settlements. He also permitted theft in areas far from them with the aim of demonstrating what he described as Jewish ownership of the land.

The Zohar rabbinical organization, concerned with the integration of religious and secular people, responded strongly to the fatwa, stressing that theft is forbidden for everyone, Jews and non-Jews, and that picking Palestinian olives involves a religious, moral and educational violation, in addition to its political risks. The organization supported the position of the rabbis of Gush Etzion, considering that their fatwa prohibiting these practices is a correct and strict position.