An olive-harvest story you won't see on AP

In recent weeks there have been scores of stories in the mainstream media, and especially news-wire photos,  showing Palestinian Arab farmers harvesting their olives. The implication is that these people are indigenous to the land, doing the exact same thing with the same trees that their ancestors did, for centuries. The reason that only Palestinian Arabs are shown harvesting olives and not, for example, Greeks is because the media wants to drive home the subtle message that any Jews that happen to live on the land are interlopers whose only purpose is to deprive Arabs of their land and livelihoods.

Recently, AP purposefully misrepresented an earlier Ha'aretz article in order to make one specific Jew, Erez Ben Sa'adon, appear to be a fanatic -and thieving -Jewish fanatic by quoting an anti-settler activist's accusation that he stole his olive grove. Ben Sa'adon replied that he has no reason to prove that he owns his land, as his land deed is the Bible. In fact, as Ha'aretz showed, no less a personage than the Arab mayor of the neighboring town vouched that Ben-Sa'adon owned the land that the was working - and that his nearby vineyard had been destroyed by Arab vandals.

So you cannot expect to have AP or the BBC or any of the other media outlets, who are wedded to the meme of evil, criminal, fanatic Jewish settlers who steal land, showing these Jews actually harvesting olives on the land that they legally own - and land that their forefathers indeed did harvest grapes and olives.

Which is why the world needs alternative news outlets like blogs.

This video shows Erez Ban-Sa'adon, as well as the olive oil production of the Meshek Achiyah company. Jews have some 8000 dunams of olive groves in Judea and Samaria. Unfortunately it is in Hebrew only.


h/t Yisrael Medad of My Right Word