There used to be fifty olive trees here, fifty fig trees, and fifty pomegranate trees, and we used to make a delicious paste of all three that when you ate it the world suddenly had meaning. No matter how bad things got, mmmm, that olivy, pomegranaty and figgy flavor came to the rescue!

Then they came with their bulldozers and drove through them. They resisted, but wood is no match for steel. I suppose one might say from dust life came, and to dust they return one day. It’s part of the nature of war. But there is something different about bulldozing olive trees. They represent a special place in the history of man. These are what I call trees of the book, like the people of the book which is how Jews are referred to in the Quran. These trees stand on the land of Abraham and the prophets, maybe even have roots on the very spots where they walked. And they can trace back their lineage to the beginnings of man when they first settled the fertile crescent. They, along with the mountains, bear silent witness to the first stories of the written word, of art, philosophy, of music, of religion. On a personal angle, I see them as a kind of umbilical cord connecting me, man, back to that ancient time — a continuous spiritual feed nurturing man’s soul.

They came in the night, they came in the day, they came with tanks and bulldozers. They looked right at the trees with cold eyes, and calmly, purposefully, and with a smile, drove through them.

How could you, people of the book, do this to the trees of the book?

I could have shared my delicious paste with you gladly. In fact, there were five jars in the cupboard in the kitchen of the home you also bulldozed. I would have been happy to eat with you under the olive trees, feeling the cool southern Lebanese breeze on our faces while drinking tea. I could have.

What have you gained, people of the book? What will you do with the land you cleared? Is Yahweh happy with fifty fewer olive trees?