Influential extremist Jewish rabbi Dov Lior has issued a religious ruling permitting Israeli settlers to harvest olives in Palestinian orchards in the occupied West Bank. The ruling immediately provoked an outcry and lands in the middle of a tense olive harvest season marked by attacks on Palestinian farmers.
The ruling's contested content
According to the text published on Friday, Lior argues that Palestinian landowners have been unable to reach their olive groves during harvest season because of Israeli restrictions, and that this has been "fully compensated" during the years they could harvest. On that basis, the ruling holds that Jews are permitted to pick the olives in order to assert Palestinian land ownership.
Lior, born in Poland in 1933, goes further, framing the taking of olives from Palestinian farms as an "additional virtue." He calls on settlers to "conquer the land" beyond Jewish communities to publicly "prove our ownership" and to follow biblical commandments. The ruling also asserts that Jews "never abandoned the land of Israel" and claims that Arabs "never purchased land from Jews," so the land in their hands is "stolen land."
Violence during harvest
The ruling emerges amid a fresh wave of settler attacks on Palestinian farmers harvesting olives. On Friday alone, at least 19 people were injured in 34 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers on farmers across the West Bank. An American photographer working for The Washington Post was assaulted by settlers while reporting, and five vehicles were set on fire.
Many Palestinian farmers cannot reach their crops because of Israeli restrictions and the risk of settler attacks. The violence comes just weeks before Israel's elections, as far-right parties step up efforts to court settlers and their supporters.
Reaction from clerics and politicians
Not all Jewish religious leaders agree. Rabbis on the religious council of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc published a letter calling the unauthorized harvesting of Palestinian crops theft, desecration and a moral failing. The Tzohar organization, which represents 800 Orthodox rabbis, insisted that only the state has the authority to confiscate property; as long as the state recognizes Arab ownership of the olives, those olives belong to them.
Israeli political analyst Mamoun Abu Amer told Al Jazeera that the rejection of Lior's statements by other religious groups may stem from political motives and pressure from government bodies, aiming to create the impression that such voices are isolated and do not represent settler opinion broadly. According to him, the Israeli government is trying to portray rioters as a small group unrepresentative of settler public opinion, attributing the problem to the "Hilltop Youth."
Rabbi Dov Lior holds significant influence within extremist settler groups such as the Hilltop Youth, is a prominent figure in the religious Zionist movement, and serves as spiritual mentor to the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Abu Amer argues that Ben-Gvir relies on Lior's religious rulings, which are grounded in biblical texts and the Book of Deuteronomy, and described the rabbi as pursuing the most extreme interpretations within Judaism.
MK Gilad Kariv of the left-wing Democratic Party also criticized Lior, accusing him and his followers of dragging Israel into "a flood of moral corruption." Kariv said: "Anyone who stands on the sidelines on this issue is joining the camp of Rabbi Dov Lior and his criminals."
