Prominent Israeli Rabbi Dov Lior on Friday issued a Jewish religious ruling allowing settlers to steal olives from Palestinian orchards in the occupied West Bank.
Lior’s ruling asserts that Palestinian landowners who were unable to access their olives during the harvest season due to Israeli restrictions were adequately compensated during the years they had access to the fruit. According to the ruling, Jews are allowed to pick these olives to claim ownership of Palestinian land.
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Lior, born in Poland in 1933, went so far as to call the theft of olives from Palestinian farms an “additional virtue” as settler pogroms and Israeli occupation continue in the West Bank.
He added that settlers should “conquer the land” away from Jewish communities in order to “publicly demonstrate that we own it” and follow biblical commandments.
“The Jewish people have never abandoned the Land of Israel, as we express every day in our prayers,” the judgment continues. “The Arabs never purchased the land from the Jewish people or from any individual Jew, and so it is stolen land in their hands… They never purchased it in any way and it remained the property of the Jewish people. »
Harvest violence
The move coincides with another wave of settler pogroms against Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest season. Friday. At least 19 people were injured in 34 attacks by the Israeli army and settlers on Palestinians harvesting crops in the West Bank.
An American photojournalist working for the Washington Post was attacked by settlers while covering the daily violence, and five vehicles were set on fire.
Many Palestinian farmers have been unable to access their crops due to Israeli restrictions and the dangers posed by settlers.
Even if settler pogroms are not exceptional, they occur a few weeks before the Israeli elections, under the leadership of far-right parties to obtain the support of settlers and their supporters. But not all Jewish religious leaders supported the call to steal Palestinian olives.
Religious reaction
Rabbis from the religious council of the Gush Etzion settlements have issued a letter calling the illegal harvesting of Palestinian crops theft, blasphemy and a moral failing.
Tzohar, an organization of 800 Orthodox rabbis, said in a statement that only the state has the power to confiscate property. As long as the state recognizes Arab ownership of the olives, they belong to them, he adds.
Mamoun Abu Amer, an Israeli politics analyst, told Al Jazeera that there could be political reasons behind religious groups’ rejection of Rabbi Dov Lior’s comments.
“The position of the other rabbis who rejected this appeal may be politically motivated and pressured by entities within the government to appear as anomalous voices that do not represent the general opinion of the settlers.
“The Israeli government is trying to show that those leading these riots are a small group that does not represent public opinion in the settlements, that the settlers are peaceful, good and law-abiding, and that the problem is limited to the Hilltop Youth boys who are committing these crimes,” he explained.
Rabbi Dov Lior wields immense influence among extremist settler groups, such as Hilltop Youth, who fiercely support his extremist religious edicts that oppose any territorial compromise with the Palestinians.
He is also a prominent figure in Israel’s religious Zionist movement and serves as a spiritual guide to the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“Ben-Gvir relies on the religious rulings of Rabbi Dov Lior, which are based on biblical texts and the book of Deuteronomy,” Abu Amer noted. He claimed that Rabbi Lior embraces the most extreme interpretations of the Jewish religion.
“There is an important issue, which is that Ben-Gvir competes through the TikTok platform, propaganda and populist rhetoric, and this is rhetoric that serves him and earns him votes, given the environment and the general atmosphere in Israel after the events of October 7, because there is a ‘market for extremism’ in Israeli society,” Abu Amer added.
Gilad Kariv, a Knesset member from the left-wing Democratic Party, criticized Lior, accusing him and his supporters of leading Israel into a flood of moral vices.
“Anyone who stays on the sidelines of this matter joins the camp of Rabbi Dov Lior and his criminals,” Kariv said.
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