Arab/Leftist Olive Tree Vandals
Arab/Leftist Olive Tree VandalsBinyamin Regional Council

Volunteers from the grassroots Binyamin Residents' Council on Wednesday caught a group of Arabs and anarchists uprooting olive trees near the town of Ateret in Binyamin. Apparently, the group was planning to cause damage to an olive grove belonging to an Arab farmer, and blame it on Jews from the area.

The volunteers filmed footage of the group as it was destroying the trees, filming its members for several minutes, until one of the group noticed they were being recorded. At that point, the group began shouting and threatened to attack the volunteers. The group quickly loaded the trees onto a pickup truck and ran away.

Itzik Shadmi, chairman of the Council, called on the IDF and the government to put more effort into preventing these kinds of provocations, and to keep the anarchist and student groups who ostensibly come to “help” the Arabs in the olive harvest out of the area. “Thanks to these patrols, which are manned by volunteers from the Binyamin region, we have shown the true faces of these Arabs, who each year complain that Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria destroy their trees.”

Last week, volunteers also caught a group destroying trees, and filmed them as well (see video below). That incident occurred near Elon Moreh. That group apparently did not have a pickup truck to move the evidence when they were caught, and instead left the damaged trees in the field. Volunteers called police, but no arrests were made.