Settlers ripped off branches and cut the roots of Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank village of Burin, residents said Saturday, as the yearly harvest of the important crop begins.
If you're not an arborist, your should know that olive tree roots grow wider than the crown of the tree.
Here:
[an] olive tree that will grow to be about 7 to 12 meters tall (up to 40 feet) and up to 4.7 meters (15 feet) wide.
The roots of a tree will grow BEYOND the mature crown, so if the hole is any closer then 2.5 meters (7 or 8 feet) to the building, that won't work. The more space between the mature crown of the tree and the building, the better and it is usually not recommended to plant a tree any closer to a building then 5 meters (15 feet).
and deep, here:
At the bottom a wide stump can grow sprouts even after the trunk has been cut, thus assuring the survival of the tree. The roots are fasciculate and with many surface ramifications which absorb most of the nourishment. They spread horizontally up to 2-3 times the height of the tree, and in the most fertile soils they run up to 1.5 - 2 meters (4.9 - 6.6 feet) deep.
So, cutting roots is really not only very difficult but nigh stupid. It takes too long and you can get caught quite easily.
P.S.
As for this:
Ghassan Doughlas, who holds the settlements portfolio for the northern West Bank, said 15 settlers wearing white uniforms threw stones at farmers harvesting olives
Uniforms? Were those perhaps white shirts worn for the Shabbat?
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This isn't exactly on topic, but it does concern olive trees.
In the UK there's a fanatical pro-Palestinian activist - sorry, "peace campaigner" - called Rod Cox (interesting name, when you think about it!) who has a Gaza blog (he accompanied Galloway on the convoy and initiated the idea of a UK-wide travelling exhibition of kids' drawings to show how evil the Israelis are. This wretched exhibition is still criss-crossing the UK and I think Rod hopes to take it across the Channel. He gives an Israel-bashing lecture at each venue. I went to his talk when the exhibition arrived here, and got into a slanging match with the wily old devil re Shalit, about whose plight he laughed and scoffed. But one of the things he was impressing on his Palestine Solidarity Committee pals (who sponsored the talk) and the useful idiots who attended was that you can always identify stolen Palestinian villages from pre-1948 by the fact that olive trees are tenacious and the old roots are still found in the soil, marking the places from which Palestinians were driven by the Zionist Entity. Not knowing anything about the olive I had to sit shtum. But it did occur to me that, by the same token, the old roots could signify land once cultivated by Jews just as much as by Arabs.
The Promised Land was to be `a land of olive trees and honey' (Deuteronomy 8:8).
The hilly country of Samaria and the Shephelah is excellent for olives, but Judea around Hebron rises too high for successful cultivation. The olive thrives on hillsides, where drainage is better than in the valleys, and when the summer warmth ripens the fruit.
The olive groves of biblical times were usually quite small -- we should call them orchards, rather than plantations -- olives often dominating the gardens of those days.
OLIVE GROVES
The olive tree has been important in the Holy Land for so long that many place-names indicate the presence of olive groves, olive-presses or something to do with the oil. Sometimes the place-names are translated in the English Bible versions, as for example in Judges 15:5 which reads `And when he had set the fire to the torches he let the [300] foxes [or jackals] go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain as well as the olive orchards.' According to Goor (1966), the last phrase should more properly remain as the Hebrew place-name Kerem Zayit, which means olive grove, and if he is correct, it is interesting that the animals apparently set fire to this village as well as to the corn. However, an olive grove could be burnt in the way described, as it was customary for cereals and other crops to be grown between the widely spaced trees.
During the construction of the temple, Solomon sent to Hiram of Tyre in each year 20,000 cors (homers) of both wheat and barley, 20,000 baths of wine and the same of olive oil (2 Chronicles 2:10). To give some idea of the vast numbers of olive trees that must have been grown in the land at that period, 20,000 baths was equivalent (at 22 litres per bath) to 440,000 litres, which would work out at just over 12ml (4 fluid ounces) daily for each of the 10,000 workers. At an average yield of 1840 ml per tree, I estimate that this would have been an annual output of 239,130 trees: a full orchard of olive trees properly spaced would be expected to have 48 trees per acre. Solomon must therefore have dispatched the product of some 4981 acres or 2015 hectares of olive groves!
Recent excavations at Ekron reveal that the Philistines' main product was olive oil - at least 1000 tonnes/tons flowed from their presses after a good harvest. It was produced in rectangular buildings divided into three rooms for production and storage.
SYMBOLISM AND ANOINTING
The anointing of people and objects with olive oil has a long history and a sacred significance. We first meet the practice in the Bible when Jacob, after he had seen the vision of a ladder from earth to heaven, poured oil (Heb. shemen) upon the rock that had been his pillow (Genesis 28:18). Later in the same place God spoke to him and Jacob again poured oil on a stone pillar (Genesis 35:14). By this symbolic act he set aside that place, which he called Bethel, as holy. Anointing was presumably a well-established practice even at that early date.
Later, we see Moses being commanded by God to prepare holy anointing oil with a fixed composition (see chapter 14) for the anointing of the tent of meeting, the Tabernacle, and all its contents. The furniture and utensils were thereby consecrated `that they may be most holy; whatever touches them will become holy' (Exodus 30:29), and Aaron and his sons were also anointed `that they may serve me as priests' (Exodus 30:30). In Leviticus (8:10-11) we find Moses putting this into practice, with the altar itself being anointed seven times. Furthermore, Moses had to warn the people of Israel of its holiness:
`It shall be for you most holy. And the incense which you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves; it shall be for you holy to the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people' (Exodus 30:36-38).
Throughout the Old Testament, anointing signifies the holiness of the anointed objects or persons, their separation to God, and also divine authority.
From the anointing of the priest it was a simple step to the anointing of the king or of the king-designate. `They anointed David king over the house of Judah' (2 Samuel 2:4; see also Judges 9:8-9; 1 Kings 1:34); and prophets, such as Elisha (1 Kings 19:16). Jotham's story of the trees (Judges 9:8-15) stresses the role of the olive tree in this respect. Personal anointing (Psalm 104:15; Micah 6:15) on the other hand was not symbolic, for in the dry Mediterranean climate the cool, smooth olive oil is pleasantly soothing (Isaiah 1:6) for the skin and as a hair-dressing (Psalm 23:5).
All these anointings, apart from the personal one, were regarded as acts of God, and of sanctifying significance. For example, when the prophet Samuel poured oil on Saul's head he said: `Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over His people Israel?' (1 Samuel 10:1).
From the anointing of the priest it was a simple step to the anointing of the king or of the king-designate. `They anointed David king over the house of Judah' (2 Samuel 2:4; see also Judges 9:8-9; 1 Kings 1:34); and prophets, such as Elisha (1 Kings 19:16). Jotham's story of the trees (Judges 9:8-15) stresses the role of the olive tree in this respect. Personal anointing (Psalm 104:15; Micah 6:15) on the other hand was not symbolic, for in the dry Mediterranean climate the cool, smooth olive oil is pleasantly soothing (Isaiah 1:6) for the skin and as a hair-dressing (Psalm 23:5).
All these anointings, apart from the personal one, were regarded as acts of God, and of sanctifying significance. For example, when the prophet Samuel poured oil on Saul's head he said: `Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over His people Israel?' (1 Samuel 10:1).
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