In the West Bank, this nightmare for Palestinians needs ending

A bishop and a rabbi went into a field to plant an olive tree. It sounds like the beginning of a joke. But the field was outside Beit Jala, in the beautiful Al Makhrour valley – a Unesco world heritage site – in occupied Palestine.

Above us on the hillside was an illegal Israeli settlement and, until recently, young settlers had occupied an outpost of caravans a few hundred metres away. They had caused local mayhem through thuggery, violence and thefts, seemingly all designed to intimidate Palestinian farmers and drive them from their land.

The aim? It is clear to see across the West Bank: push out the Palestinian owners and the land becomes the settlers’. The settler expansion programme, supported by the Israeli government and many overseas funders, has marched on relentlessly during the war in Gaza.

At least these young thugs were moved away by the Israeli authorities – but that happens far too infrequently. And I wonder: how long will it be until they are back on Wasim’s farm, pulling up olive trees, damaging property, and threatening him and his family with sticks and worse? There is no point in him calling the local Israeli police, he tells me, as the police invariably side with settlers. Too often, it is the Palestinian complainant who ends up in a cell on trumped-up charges.

A bishop and a rabbi went into a field to plant an olive tree also sounds like the opening of many of Jesus’s parables: “A farmer went out to sow his seed”, or “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho”. In fact, that morning was a living parable. I was there planting trees with the bishops of Gloucester and Chelmsford, alongside rabbis and activists from Rabbis for Human Rights.

The planting was an act of faith-based activism – Jews and Christians living out a parable of solidarity with Palestinians practising peaceful resistance and resilience. We spoke about land as identity. We heard of Palestinian pride in living within the land’s sensitive ecology, and of their anger at the destruction of habitats by settlers. The land provides Palestinians with economic support, yet too often they are prevented by the Israeli Defence Force and by settlers from harvesting their crops.

Notably, both ecology and economy stem from the Greek word oikos, meaning “house”, “household” or “dwelling place”. The land goes to the roots of the Palestinian sense of home. They are being violently pushed off it. They are being robbed. And too often, their voices go unheard.

I have travelled frequently to the region for more than 30 years. I have listened to Jews, Christians and Muslims. I defend the existence of the State of Israel. I was in Jerusalem on 7 October, and later sat with the families of hostages held in Gaza following Hamas’ evil attack on Israel. Yet this latest visit was an epiphany about what is now happening across the West Bank.

Across the West Bank, the three of us bishops heard testimony after testimony. Unchecked settler expansion; new settlements and outposts; escalating violence by Israeli troops and settler militia; the widespread use of administrative detention (without charge or the length of imprisonment being known); localised road closures, with nearly a thousand new gates sealing off Palestinian communities; and growing restrictions on access to water and electricity. All of this is now part of Palestinian daily life.

It took us three and a half hours to travel the eight miles from Ramallah to Jerusalem through the Qalandia checkpoint. That makes commuting to work impossible. Hospital appointments and funerals are missed. The emotional and psychological toll is plain to see.

“We are being suffocated,” Palestinians kept telling us. “They are doing their best to ruin our lives, so we will leave.” Many believe this is a form of slow ethnic cleansing. This nightmare needs an ending.

Jesus’s parables often contain a twist – a wake-up call to his hearers. The good soil produces an outrageously abundant harvest. It is someone from a despised ethnic group, the Samaritans, who does good. What might yet turn the narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict towards a more hope-filled harvest, built on justice, peace and reconciliation?

The planting of olive trees by Jewish rabbis and Christian bishops was only a small sign of solidarity and hope. Towards the end of the Christian scriptures, we read that “the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations”. The nations now need to wake up and challenge the culture of impunity that legitimates the Israeli government’s de facto annexation of the West Bank. The international community must uphold international law and firmly defend Palestinian rights, so that farmer Wasim’s children’s children can one day sit beneath the trees we planted.

The Rt Revd Graham Usher is the Bishop of Norwich