Israeli Rabbi Permits Settlers to Seize Palestinian Olives

Israeli Rabbi Dov Lior, who is close to the Otzma Yehudit party, has issued a religious ruling permitting settlers to pick olives from Palestinian lands in the West Bank. Lior stated that this action is not theft but a religious virtue, asserting that the land remains the property of the Jewish people. He further claimed that Palestinians unable to access their groves due to security reasons are, in his religious interpretation, relinquishing their right to the harvest. Lior also suggested that picking olives, even from lands far from settlements, demonstrates Jewish ownership of the land.

These statements coincide with a rise in settler attacks during the olive harvest season and the circulation of a video showing an assault on Palestinians and an American journalist from The Washington Post while they were covering the harvest. The ruling has drawn sharp criticism from the Tzohar Rabbis organization, which declared that theft is forbidden for any person, Jewish or non-Jewish. The organization considers seizing olive harvests a moral and religious violation and a political danger. They emphasized that preventing Palestinians from reaching their lands does not mean they forfeit ownership or their right to the harvest, and that olives remain the property of their owners unless explicitly abandoned.