Rabbi helps occupied West Bank farmers amid rising Israeli settler violence | Israel-Palestine conflict

Stooping underneath the burden of his physique armour however uncowed by the specter of violence, rabbi Arik Ascherman guards an olive grove within the occupied West Financial institution, defending Palestinian farmers from rising Israeli settler violence.

“There isn’t any excuse, there is no such thing as a clarification, no justification for what Hamas did” in its October 7 assaults on southern Israel, stated the US-born 64-year-old, a veteran activist with the Rabbis for Human Rights group, referring to the lethal incursion in southern Israel by Hamas, the group that guidelines Gaza.

“However the common Israeli as we speak shouldn’t be ready or keen to tell apart between Palestinian terrorists and terrorised Palestinians,” he added, alluding to stories of an increase in settler assaults since October 7.

“It’s an all-out conflict between two peoples,” stated Ascherman exterior the village of Taybeh, close to Ramallah as farmers whacked olives weeping with oil onto pinstripe tarpaulins skirting the tree trunks.

“No person at this level is keen to assist Palestinians, out of our ache and our anger.”

Close by his comrades – even when they’re solely a handful – show him incorrect. They’re posted as lookouts, ready to face off with settlers who could descend at any second to harass and combat the farmers.

“Over the 28 years I’ve been doing this, I typically didn’t see myself as marginalised,” stated Ascherman, who has lengthy campaigned towards settler violence within the West Financial institution.

“There have been all the time a big variety of Israelis who at the least passively supported and agreed with what we have been doing,” he stated. “Right now, that’s evaporated. There’s virtually no assist.”