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.