I have heard that the Israeli army destroys olive trees belonging to Arabs. Could you confirm this for me, and if possible, find Israel's rationale. The Talmud expressly forbids the destruction of an enemy's olive trees.
Here are a couple of more articles that may be of interest:
Although this article focuses on Israel bulldozing houses, there is a passage about why olive groves are also destroyed: "Under the guise of 'destroying sniper hiding places' the IDF have also destroyed many fields, olive groves, factories and greenhouses, adding to the economic effects of the bombings and tightening checkpoints."
According to this article, the army has had a hand in the destruction of olive groves by not doing anything about the settlers who do the actual uprooting and burning. Also in this article, an edict is mentioned whereby some influential rabbis have stated that uprooting olive trees isn't stealing, but reclaiming, because the Palestinians are on Jewish land.
This article cites a figure of over 100,000 olive and fruit trees having been destroyed by Caterpillar equipment used by the Israeli government in the past two years.
A good summary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with many links, is on Wikipedia.
A current story on the uprooting of Palestinian olive trees is on the home page of Israeli Indymedia and a recent story can be found in the online edition of England's Guardian newspaper.
For images of uprooted trees, and other scenes from the conflict, see the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
Here's an article on the subject of uprooting olive trees, found as a link off the Electronic Intifada.
Finally, here's a story from Caritas, a Catholic organization, which calls attention to the problem.
Hope this helps. RR