Arabic version: فتوى حاخام بشأن الزيتون تثير انتقادات دينية

According to Al Jazeera, prominent Israeli Rabbi Dov Lior issued a Jewish religious ruling on Friday allowing settlers to take olives from Palestinian orchards in the occupied West Bank. The ruling said Palestinian landowners unable to reach their trees during the harvest season because of Israeli restrictions had been sufficiently compensated in years when they had access to the fruit.

Lior’s ruling said Jews could pick the olives to claim ownership of Palestinian land. It described taking olives from Palestinian farms as an “additional virtue” and urged settlers to “conquer the land” away from Jewish communities to publicly “demonstrate our ownership”. It also asserted that Palestinians had not purchased the land and that it remained under Jewish ownership.

The ruling came during another wave of settler attacks against Palestinian farmers in the olive harvest season. On Friday, at least 19 people were injured in 34 attacks by the Israeli military and settlers on Palestinians harvesting crops across the West Bank. An American photojournalist working for The Washington Post was assaulted by settlers while covering the violence, while five vehicles were torched. Many Palestinian farmers have been unable to access their crops because of Israeli restrictions and dangers posed by settlers.

Other religious figures rejected Lior’s position. Rabbis from the religious council of the Gush Etzion settlements called the harvesting of Palestinian crops theft, blasphemy and a moral defect. Tzohar, an organisation of 800 Orthodox rabbis, said only the state could confiscate property and that olives belong to their Arab owners while the state recognises that ownership. Knesset member Gilad Kariv of the left-wing Democrats Party criticised Lior and his followers, saying those who stand aside join their camp.

Mamoun Abu Amer, an analyst on Israeli politics, told Al Jazeera that the rejection by other rabbis could reflect political motives and pressure to portray those carrying out riots as anomalous. Lior is a prominent Religious Zionist figure and the spiritual guide for the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.