Rønningen Folkehøgskole from Oslo, Norway visited Palestine through the Joint Advocacy Initiative. The program included visiting different Palestinian cities and information centers that shed light on the reality of Palestine and Palestinians under the Israeli military occupation. On the 4th, 6th, and 7th of March, the student group helped Palestinian farmers plant olive trees in their privately owned fields. Regardless of the fact that these farmers are Palestinians, and their land is inside the occupied West Bank, have land ownership documents which are also verified by the Israeli civil and military Authorities, their lands are still subject to confiscation by the Israeli military and attacks by Israeli settlers.
On the 7th of March, a representative of the radical Israeli settlers group "Women for Israel's Tomorrow: Women in Green" appeared in the field, namely the co-founder Nadia Matar, and under Israeli military and police protection she verbally assaulted the Palestinian farmer calling him a "terrorist". Also the settler (a Belgian immigrant to Israel) went on assaulting the students by calling them Nazis, accusing their grandparents of killing her grandparents and asking them to switch sides instead of helping the Arabs kill the Jews. (watch video).
The incident had a profound effect on the Norwegian group that they wrote a letter of protest to the Israeli minister of Defense and to the Israeli ambassador in Norway asking for explanation regarding the uprooting of olive trees planted by them and demanding an official apology from the Women in Green.
Here is the reply from the Israeli Embassy in Oslo
