All Because Of A Small Olive

Why has the Sharon-Ben-Eliezer-Peres government collapsed? Because of a small olive.

It started like a children's tale: Once upon a time there was a small olive in a Palestinianvillage. It grew and ripened on a branch of an old tree in a grove on the top of a hill. "Pick me! I wantto give my oil!" the little olive pleaded.

But it went on ripening, and the pickers did not come. They could not reach it, because thesettlers had set up two mobile homes on the hill, and the whole area became a "security region" ofthis outpost. When the owners of the grove approached, the settlers cursed them, beat them up and startedshooting. This happened at dozens of locations all over the West Bank.

The villagers called the IDF, which now controls all the Palestinian territories. But the armydid not come to protect them. Many of the army officers are themselves settlers. The army considers that itsjob is to defend the settlers, and does not like the idea of confronting them. When the army did interfere, itwas to drive the villagers out of their groves near the outposts.

In their plight, the villagers called on the Israeli peace organizations. They found themwilling.

The Israeli "peace camp" consists of two parts. One, centered around "PeaceNow", is connected with the Labor party, which was a pillar of the government. The party chief served asMinister if Defense and was, therefore, responsible for all the iniquities committed in the Palestinianterritories.

The other part of the peace camp consists of many radical groups, each active in its chosensector. "Gush Shalom" is a political and ideological center. "Taayush", an Arab-JewishIsraeli group, is aiding the besieged Palestinian population. "B'Tselem" collects and publishesdata, as does the "Alternative Information Center". "Physicians for Human Rights" does awonderful job in the medical field, while the Women's Coalition for Peace and Bat-Shalom combine human rightsactivities with a feminist agenda. "The Committee against House Demolition" initiates the rebuildingof homes destroyed by the army, and "Rabbis for Human Rights" is acting on behalf of the(unfortunately, tiny) religious community that does not follow the fanatical nationalist banner. "MachsomWatch" reports and tries to prevent abuses at the checkpoints. "Yesh Gvul" helps soldiers whorefuse to serve in the occupied territories. "New Profile" is active in the same area. The list islong. Activists of different groups frequently cooperate, and many belong to more than one.

The activists of these organizations volunteered to help the villagers. They went out to pickolives and to defend the villagers as a "human shield". They were joined by European peaceactivists, who comw in shifts to help the occupied Palestinian population. On some days there were dozens ofIsraeli and international activists in the groves, on Saturdays there were hundreds. They were dispersed indifferent villages, went up the hills and were attacked by the settlers. In dozens of incidents, the settlersstarted shooting into the air and at the ground around the olive pickers.

During long weeks, the public did not hear anything about these events. There is a conspiracyof silence in the media concerning the very existence of a radical peace camp. "Peace Now" isconsidered somehow as belonging to the national consensus, and therefore its actions are (scantily) reported.The actions of the more principled and energetic forces ("The Deep Left" in the words of formerPrime Minister Ehud Barak, who abhors them) were not reported at all, unless there was bloodshed.

But slowly, reports about the War of the Olives began to infiltrate the media: about thesettlers driving the Palestinians away and robbing them of the olives they had picked; about settlers whopicked the olives in the groves themselves after driving the owners away; about settlers setting fire togroves; about the former Chief Rabbi, who announced that Jews are justified in taking away the fruits forwhich the Arab villagers had toiled, because God has given the fruit of the Land to the Jews.

The conspiracy of silence was finally broken when a group of famous writers organized a tokenolive picking. The media, which had ignored the devoted work of the hundreds of anonymous activists, werehappy to join celebrities like Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, David Grossman and Me'ir Shalev. The olive pickingbecame part of the consensus.

The settlers have never been popular with great parts of the public. The anger grew when itbecame known that the poor in Israel were deprived of large sums of money in order to fatten the settlements.The anger was mixed with anxiety for the soldiers, who were frequently beaten by the settlers, while riskingtheir lives to protect remote, half-empty settlements. The stories about the cruel harassment of defenselessolive pickers were just too much. They evoked repulsion and loathing even in the Silent Majority.

This had an indirect impact on Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, too. He noticed the changing public moodand decided that it is now in his and the party's interest to leave the government. He was feverishly lookingfor a pretext. Public opinion polls indicated that the settlers are now the most unpopular group in thecountry. He decided, therefore, to break up the government on the point. He suddenly demanded that thegovernment take away money from the settlements and give it to the pensioners.

This was only a pretext, but it shows that a great part of the public is fed up with thesettlements. At long last, the settlements have become the central object of controversy. While Ariel Sharonis trying to set up a government based on the settlers and their allies on the extreme right, the Labor Party,now in opposition, will be compelled to present an anti-settlements program. Thus, the slogan of a small,"marginal" minority is becoming the program of a large camp.

This is an example of the working of the "small wheel" doctrine formulated by usdecades ago: a small wheel with a strong independent drive turns a bigger wheel, which turns an even biggerwheel, and so on, until the whole big machine starts operating. That's how a small political group, with anindependent and determined agenda, can drive decisive political processes when the timing is right.

We still have a long way to go. The danger of fascism is still hovering over this country.However, it has now been proven that things can be moved in the opposite direction.

Perhaps the small olive on the hill is mightier than a one-ton bomb.