ABSTRACT
Today was another long day. We began picking olives early and then received a call that a Palestinian farmer named Ismael was being denied access through Ariel settlement to his land. Ariel is home to about 20,000 settlers and is expanding. Many farmers like Ismael have been separated from their land by the settlement. Ismael has 500 trees full of olives that will go bad unless they are picked in the next few weeks, but he was told he must go the long way around—that is, hike around the settlement over several mountains to get to land that is only about ten minutes away—or not go at all. Ismael has an Israeli permit to get through Ariel and has successfully traveled through in the past, but these days his permit isn’t enough.
