Prominent Israeli Rabbi Dov Lior issued a Jewish religious ruling on Friday permitting settlers to steal olives from Palestinian orchards in the occupied West Bank. Lior’s ruling claims that Palestinian landowners who could not access their olives during the harvest season due to Israeli restrictions have been sufficiently compensated in the years they had access to the fruit. According to the ruling, Jews are permitted to pick these olives to claim ownership of the Palestinian land.
Lior, born in Poland in 1933, went as far as classifying the theft of olives from Palestinian farms as an “additional virtue”, as settler pogroms and Israeli occupation continue in the West Bank. He added that settlers should “conquer the land” far from Jewish communities in order to publicly “demonstrate our ownership” and follow biblical commandment. On Friday. at least 19 people were injured in 34 attacks by the Israeli military and settlers on Palestinians harvesting their crops across the West Bank.
An American photojournalist working for The Washington Post was assaulted by settlers while covering the daily violence, and five vehicles were torched. Many Palestinian farmers have been unable to access their crops due to Israeli restrictions and the dangers from the settlers. While settler pogroms are not exceptional, they come weeks before Israeli elections, with a push by far-right parties to gain the support of settlers and their supporters.
But not all Jewish religious leaders backed the call to steal Palestinian olives. Rabbis from the religious council of the Gush Etzion settlements published a letter calling the illegal harvesting of Palestinian crops theft, blasphemy, and a moral defect. Tzohar, an organisation of 800 orthodox rabbis, said in a statement that only the state has the authority to confiscate property.
As long as the state recognises Arab ownership of the olives, they belong to them, it added. Mamoun Abu Amer, an analyst on Israeli politics, told Al Jazeera that there could be political reasons behind the religious groups’ rejection of Rabbi Dov Lior’s comments. Rabbi Dov Lior holds immense influence among hardline settler groups, such as the Hilltop Youth, who fiercely back his hardline religious decrees that oppose any territorial compromise with Palestinians.
He is also a prominent figure within Israel’s Religious Zionist movement and serves as the spiritual guide for the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He claimed that Rabbi Lior adopts the most extreme interpretations in the Jewish religion. Knesset member Gilad Kariv of the left-wing Democrats Party criticised Lior, accusing him and his followers of dragging Israel into a flood of moral vice.
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