Olives (Where are you from?)

Town of Burin with Settlement on the top of the hill

We just finished picking olives in the town of Burin and our driver back to Nablus asks me where I’m from. “Canada!” he responded enthusiastically. “Are you from Montreal?” Montreal is not the first Canadian city Palestinians typically mention to me when they know one. The reason that he does is because his wife and her family are already there and he is looking forward to immigrating. The first reason he gives for leaving are the settler attacks on his village. Recently they set fire to his family’s home while they slept. The Israeli military agreed this was wrong, but did nothing to help lay charges and little to prevent further attacks. He says he is fed up of “these stories” and wants to leave.

In Palestine, leaving one’s country can elicit many strong emotions. Emigrating is saddening for most because they continue to see lands accessible to them shrink and their ancestral homelands disappear, either through annexation by the Israeli wall, evictions, house demolitions or building restrictions. The fact that the settlement practices in the West Bank aim to force away Palestinians or control their population’s prosperity and growth is obvious to most. Many who stay are proud that they practice “Sumud” or steadfastness in the face of these threats. However, many who can afford to leave often do. The criteria for immigration often depend on material wealth and education or skills, effectively draining the society under duress of its wealthiest and brightest.

I think of my own family history and I know that it is shaped by war. Conflict and displacement are the reason why the story of my origins is not a one-country answer. My grandmother’s family left Haifa after the massacre of Deir Yassin spooked them and many others away. They fled their homeland fearing for their and their children’s lives. My maternal grandfather was imprisoned by the Syrian Baath party for being a member of the political opposition and fled into Lebanon by night on a donkey when they freed all the prisoners during the six day war. He died in Jordan during the last years of the Lebanese civil war, never having seen Damascus again. I feel fortunate for the life my parents have given me, free of war and violence, many others were not so lucky.

The day we spent picking olives was beautiful. There is a sense of duty to be efficient in our picking, either by pinching the olives off one by one or gently combing the branches with a small orange rake, but we never feel rushed. We chat about the weather here and in Canada, children run around giggling and occasionally falling and crying, their parents ask me where I’m from. We break for lunch in the shade of the tree with three generations of the family and we are offered a beautiful spread of cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, zaatar, bread and last year’s oil. The olives we pick are for the moment hard, bitter and inedible and will have to soak in brine or oil for months to turn fleshy and delicious. The trees are slowly emptied of their olive loads and their branches are pruned to allow them to grow stronger for next year.

American volunteer with orange rake

Palestine FC

 There is a National Palestinian women’s football team. They practice in el Ram, in a stadium that is lined by part of the Israeli wall separating them from Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem. That section of the wall has an entire speech by South African scholar Farid Esack written on it.

A French documentary maker is interviewing some of them and the girls are beyond inspiring. They fully know that the mere existence of their team is political. It challenges perceptions of women in a predominantly Muslim society and according to one of them “sends a message to the world” announcing their existence and their strength. When interviewed, they are honest and open, answering questions about how men react to them playing sports and why some choose to wear a headscarf and others don’t. They talk about the Palestinian toughness and endurance, which allows them to accomplish anything. Your heart melts as they speak.

On October 27 they were scheduled to play the United Arab Emirates in Bethlehem. They practiced intensely for weeks, the prime minister and the Palestinian representative to the EU were going to attend and make speeches before a press conference and big banquet. Everyone was excited and no less than ten international volunteers are very quickly interested to come with me to Bethlehem to see the match up.

I am in a car on the way to the stadium when Gertjan, a volunteer from the Netherlands calls me:

-       There is no game today.

-       What do you mean?

-       Well, I’m standing in the stadium and people are telling me that there is no game.

-       Are you in the wrong stadium?

-       Um. No. I don’t think so.

-       Did you ask them in Arabic? Maybe they just didn’t understand you?

-       There clearly isn’t a game going on. I’m going to leave. See you in Nablus.

The UAE team had already gotten their visas approved days ago. They arrived at the border the morning of the game, right after spending the Eid al-adha holidays at home with their families and were held “for security reasons” by the Israeli authorities until it was too late to get to the game. The girls in Bethlehem are crushed. I speak to my filmmaker friend and he calls the day “a sad, but an incredibly appropriate end to my documentary”.

2 DAYS LATER
The game is rescheduled. After a strong effort, Palestine loses 4-2 to the UAE.

Hebron (Al-Khalil)

When I mention to a Canadian journalist in Ramallah that I have just been to Hebron, he smiles half-heartedly and says to me that there really isn’t anything subtle about what is happening there. Despite its beautiful old market, which resembles that of old Jerusalem, Al-Khalil has become somewhat of a destination for anyone wanting to see some of the strangest most disturbing aspects of the occupation in the West Bank. The city has administratively been divided into 2 zones (H-1 and H-2), which are controlled by the PA and the IDF respectively. Three large illegal settlements were constructed near the city, but the most shocking manifestation of the settler phenomenon is the settlements actually built above Palestinian homes and businesses.

Hebron is the burial site of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament. Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Issac, Rebecca and Leah are said to be buried in a series of caves under the Al-Khalidi mosque. There is thus a strong religious attachment to the city by Muslims and Jews and a strong push by religious Jews to increase the Jewish population in Hebron by any means necessary. This includes seizing any Palestinian homes that remain unoccupied in H-2 and harassing locals. The Israeli military maintains a constant presence in the city center as well as surveillance cameras everywhere including inside the Mosque itself. The Mosque has been divided into two sides: one for Muslim worshippers and the other for Jewish worshippers. Access to the mosque from settlements has been ensured by placing military checkpoints on numerous streets and even completely shutting down all the Arab businesses on the main Shuhada street and denying all access to arabs. This has turned the once lively commercial street into a ghost town only accessible to armed religious settlers and foreigners. There are a series of placards on Shuhada street as well as a website by the settler movement justifying these scenes.

Settlers living above Palestinian homes and businesses are known for throwing down garbage, rotten eggs and even bottles of urine onto the arab merchants with the tacit approval of the military in an effort to intimidate and force out the arab inhabitants. Metal grates have been installed above some sections of the market to shield people from the trash and projectiles.

Closed street with settlement above

The past century has seen a lot of violence in Hebron. In 1929, when Palestine was still under British Mandate an Arab mob killed 67 Jews because of the false rumor of the massacre of Arabs by Jewish immigrants. More recently, in 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a physician and American citizen, waked into Al-Ibrahimi mosque and opened fire killing 29 worshipers. In subsequent riots the Israeli army killed 19 Palestinians. The walls of the mosque still bear stickers from the forensic investigation by the Israeli government. Upon exiting the section of the mosque that has been converted into a synagogue, a tourist wearing one of the paper kippahs which are handed out to visitors strikes up a conversation with us. He’s a Carmelite priest from Germany leading a tour group. “Crazy isn’t it?” He says. “I tell everyone who wants to visit here that you have to see it to believe it”.

Oktoberfest in the occupied West Bank

   Here are some photos of the annual Oktoberfest in the West Bank town of Taybeh. There was beer, music and huge crowds of locals as well as expats. Although they played a very short set, the Palestinian hip hop group DAM from Lydd in Israel were there. There is a great documentary about them and hip hop in Israel-Palestine that everyone should watch.

Street hockey tournament at Oktoberfest

Pistachios

We had planned to spend a full day and a night at an organic farm outside of Bethlehem in Beit Jala. Hosh Jasmine, an organic farm and restaurant, grows an impressive variety of fruits and vegetables in the neighboring valley and proudly boast being only one of three farms in the West Bank using only sunlight and water to grow everything.  The ride from Ramallah to Bethlehem was the usual hour or so as our service taxi navigated the checkpoints, separation walls, settlements and towns and we arrived at Hosh Jasmine to pick pistachios in exchange for a nice dinner and a night camping on the farm.

Agriculture in the West Bank is subject to a lot of analysis. Most of the West Bank is designated as Area C according to the Oslo agreements meaning that it is under Israeli military control. This area, comprising 62% of the West Bank, also contains most of the arable land and water resources of the West Bank. The Israeli military will often swiftly deny access to Palestinians to certain sections of Area C by designating them ‘closed military zones’ only for the closed areas to become industrial agricultural areas for Israeli settlers. Although there are some areas, notably near Jericho, where Palestinians farm their own fruits and vegetables, most of the vegetable containers you see in the Nablus markets have writing only in Hebrew on them. For the Palestinians not to be able to farm their land and grow their own food only contributes to their economic distress and dependence on foreign aid.

Pistachios

Pistachios

Sticky sap from picking

 At Hosh Jasmine, we picked pistachios and our hands were coated in sticky sap that took hours to wash, scrape and pick off. A plastic sheath is place on the ground below he tree to catch any falling nuts from shaking and poking the branches with a stick. Bunches of pistachios are cut from the tree with sheers and placed into bags, leaves branches and all, to be cleaned and sorted by hand.

Woman inspects olive tree

Next week, Hosh Jasmine will pick its olives just as most of the villages in the West Bank will. Olives are a major contributor to the Palestinian economy and provide a sense of connection to the land where Palestinian’s ancestors have picked olives for centuries. Settler violence also increases during the harvest prompting many international volunteers and even a group of Israeli Rabbis to stand guard and monitor villages where settler attacks have occurred in the past.

Pistachio stages

Pistachios

Mousakhan and Maftoul

Almonds

Figs

I thought this post was only going to be about agriculture but it can’t be. One of my most striking personal discoveries of life in the West Bank is how normal life can seem to an outsider if you don’t ask people to share their stories or engage people on a deeper level. Stories of war, of occupation and of crushed dreams often emerge. Stories that I’ve read about time and time again, but seem almost unreal when a person in flesh and bone is telling you about them as part of their life’s story. Staying in that farm could have been a vacation stay on any farm in the world: the scenery, the food, and the fantastic weather. These all made the experience beautiful and relaxing. However, most of my thoughts while on the farm were shaped by the stories of three men I had met there.

Our host, Mazen, mentioned in conversation how he had spent nine years in a Jordanian prison. Why was he put there? “Because I was in love with the King” he replies followed by a slow and heavy smoker’s laugh. As a university student activist in Jordan, not only did he espouse communist sympathies but was also a PLO supporter, an organization which had been made illegal in Jordan. Upon his arrest he was asked to sign a declaration stating he renounced communism, the PLO and pledged allegiance to the king to which he refused. I want to know why he didn’t spare himself nine years of his life locked away for speaking his mind and sign anything they gave him. “Everyone I knew would have lost respect for me. In politics,  you always have to be clear about where you stand. This is very important.”

Sculpture in homage to poet Mahmoud to Darwish at the farm

The second man I meet is helping us pick pistachios. Al’ah’s father was recently released from prison in Israel after 12 years of incarceration. He was released at the end of his sentence with a heart condition and diabetes. As a nine-year-old child, the International Red Cross would accompany Al’ah to the prison near Haifa to visit his father as part of their program to ensure visitation of family members to their incarcerated relatives. He tells me that his father’s crime was being a community organizer, with no political affiliation, and speaking out against Israeli policies, especially their imprisonment of Palestinian children under the age of 15. The IRC administers this program but takes a non-political approach; issuing no public statements about the nature of theses prisons or their reason for people’s incarcerations. They monitor the situations, but aim to persuade the offending party to change practices through diplomacy. Al’ah father’s criminal record has caused his own applications for a permit to visit Jerusalem to be denied twice. He now studies economics in Al-Quds Open University.

The man sitting by the fire that night, drinking whisky and making jokes, was born in Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon, where his parents were killed by Lebanese Christian Phalangists with the tacit permission of then Israeli general Ariel Sharon in 1982.  He was orphaned at only a few months of age. His brother is a doctor in Canada but he says that Palestine is the only place, of the many places he was moved to by his adopted parents, where he says he felt happy.