From an Olive Grove, Near Beit Leid
It has been couple of weeks since a postcard last tumbled through your letterbox/twitter/facebook newsfeed, so I thought it was about time I gave you all a bit of an update. The main reason I wasn't available to treat you all to a missive from Palestine towards the end of the week was that I was merrily pulling green beads from gnarled and twisted trees on the stony side of a mountain just outside Nablus. That's right: it's olive picking season!
Olives are a vital part of the economy for people living in the villages of Palestine. Historically, the olives and, more importantly, the oil they produce, have been used in everything, from cooking to lamps. It's even used as an excellent massage oil in the local baths. Barrels and barrels are sold around the world, and provide a key source of revenue in the West Bank. And every olive on these barren hills must be picked by hand. The trees can last for hundreds of years, but it takes a decade of growth before they bear any fruit. A local English teacher, with whom we struck up a conversation in the taxi, even went as far as to describe the trees as "sacred", citing God's command to Moses to anoint with Olive oil.
But olive picking is under threat. The land on which the olive trees grow is often some distance from the village, and falls in land which is under Israeli control. Palestinians are often required to obtain permits from the Israeli authorities, or be forced to harvest illegally. In many cases, the olives are in close proximity to Israeli settlements. These settlements have been built in the occupied territory of the West Bank, and are considered illegal under international law. They are populated by Israeli citizens, who receive huge subsidies from the Israeli government. Inevitably, these settlers are often hard-line Zionists, who wish to see the whole region under the control of a Jewish Israeli state, free from Arabs, and who see their homes as part of a mission to claim the "Promised Land". The settlers are, more often than not, deeply antagonistic towards the farmers.
Often, the farmers must harvest their crop not only with the threat of the Israeli Defence Forces, but also with harassment from the settlers - who may throw stones and insults, or (much worse) they may burn down the farmer's trees). Sometimes they are armed. And the IDF? They're there to protect the settlers, not the farmers. So it can help to have an international presence with the farmers when they are picking olives, so the settlers and the IDF know they are being seen (and filmed, and photographed), and so the farmers know they are being represented. It is the sort of thing the ISM do all the time.
Anyhow, a handful of us trekked out to Beit Leid for a couple of days to stay with a farming family there. They were wonderfully warm and welcoming, and fed us very well indeed. Although I got very sleep the night before (I was being eaten by an army of mosquitoes), I was up at the crack of dawn to journey out to the olive grove (telephoto lens at the ready), and assist in the tiring work of laying out tarpaulins, before pulling the olives from the trees either by hand, or with a small plastic rake. The sun was beating down, and it was dry, dusty, thirsty work.
Fuelled by a hearty mid-morning breakfast, we carried on working until late afternoon, when we finally collapsed in the shade of one of the trees, surrounded by five bags brimming with the fruits of our labour. That's worth about £250 when it's sold to be pressed into oil. That evening, we were escorted around the village to see the factory where the olives will be pressed, and to meet the extended family of those that we were staying with. We were relieved, and in a strange way slightly disappointed, to have got to the end of the day without any encounters with local settlers. However, we were very pleased to have got out of the city and been part of rural life, and incredibly grateful to our hosts for their hospitality.
