(RNS) — Two American Jewish women who had volunteered to harvest olives in a Palestinian village in the West Bank were deported from Israel and sent back to the United States on Friday (Oct. 31) in what human rights groups say is an escalation of hostilities toward anyone who aids or advocates for Palestinians.
The Americans, a physician in her 50s and an 18-year-old high school graduate, were volunteering as part of a four-month program run by a Jewish group, Achvat Amim, or Solidarity of Nations. Last week, the group partnered with Rabbis for Human Rights in their campaign to help Palestinians under attack from Israeli settlers.
The Jewish women’s deportations comes one week after 32 international volunteers — from the U.S. and Europe — were also deported from the same spot in the town of Burin, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, about 45 miles north of Jerusalem.
Israeli settlers have targeted the olive harvest in recent years, unleashing waves of violence and destruction. In Burin and other places across the West Bank, settlers have cut, bulldozed, uprooted and set olive trees on fire. The reasons have everything to do with the economic importance of olives.
The UN estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 Palestinian families rely on the olive harvest for their livelihoods.
The two women, whose names have not been released, are U.S. citizens with deep ties to Israel. They have family living there and have traveled there before.
“The concept of easily deporting Jews for showing up to a workday to stand with Palestinians is a complete antithesis of what the state of Israel claims to be as a refuge for Jews and a place that claims to respect huma …