olive picking (an introduction to the skills required and some anecdotes)

Apple picking is a pretty ubiquitous activity in Maine in the fall. I always enjoyed it when I was in college. We would go pick apples, get away from school, from studying, etc. It was relaxing and felt so wholesome. Later, when I worked at Willow Pond Farm, apple picking took on a different meaning. I no longer went out to the farm to regain that feeling of connection with the earth that seemed lacking in college. It became work, exhausting work that held a certain satisfaction at the end of the day, when the other farmers and I would sit down to a huge supper that we had harvested and cooked that day.

Apple picking is the nearest activity I can relate to olive picking. There are some important differences to note. For one, apples on the tree are fragile, if the picker grasps them too hard, they bruise and are no longer fit for sale, only for cider. If an apple falls on the ground, it is automatically a cider apple, although the FDA and USDA are trying to make that illegal out of concern for food borne disease. I could get into the politics of orcharding in New England, but I'd rather talk about olives and their politics.

Olives are neither fragile nor tender when they are on the trees. In order to eat them, one needs to cure them for a month or so in a fairly strong brine. There are two uses for olives, to eat and to press for oil. Most of the oil in a olive is actually in the pit, so if one is cultivating olives for oil, than it doesn't matter anyway if the olive bruises.

This leads to the primary method of collecting olives for oil. Lay tarps and other drop cloths out on the ground. The smallest child in the group climbs into the tree, he begins to shake the branches as best he can while an older family member goes around beating at the branches with a stick. Jill,my farmer at WPF, would have drawn and quartered me if I had done this to her apple trees. What's left, one goes through and rakes by hand (something like raking blueberries, but without the benefit of those nifty ergonomic rakes). All the olives fall on the tarp and then get put into giant bins, bags, whatever is at hand really, until they get taken to the olive press (which is more like a cider press than I would have thought).


The biggest difference though, between olive picking and apple picking is the political climate in which these lovely fall time activities take place. In Maine, apple picking was an escape for overwhelmed students and families looking for "agri-tainment" (this is what the USDA calls it). Then apple picking became an exhausting but satisfying job for a student who didn't want to be a student anymore. The olive harvest has far more political implications.

In 1949 during the armistice, a group of diplomats and generals drew a line (with a green pen) on a map that became the accepted border between the new state of Israel and the Jordanian administered Palestine. The saying goes, and It seems like there is a fair bit of truth in this saying, that the green pen was wide and the map was small. And based on my own observations, none of the diplomats or generals had any idea of the either the geography or the demographics...I guess that's not a huge surprise, when do they ever?

This is by way of introduction to the idea that the green line was never perfect or sacred or well thought out. It is however, internationally recognized as the closest thing to a border between Israel and the future state of Palestine.

After the second intifada began in 2001, Ariel Sharon began construction of a "fence" to separate Israel from Palestine. It very loosely follows the track of the green line. But it cuts broad swaths of what would otherwise be Palestine and effectively makes it Israel. Water sources, arable land, and olive groves often end up on the "Israel" side of the line. Farmers who own the olive groves between the wall and the green line are supposed to be able to attain permits to harvest their olives. The permits are at the discretion of the army and don't necessarily line up with the agricultural calendar. Often the IDF will issue a permit only to one member of a family for one or two days during the harvest. It just isn't enough time or labor power to get everything done.


The wall where it is really more of a fence (above) and the gate where farmers are let through to pick their olives with the proper permits (below)

Another and slightly more difficult problem arises in areas of Palestine that are near Jewish settlements. The settlers are an interesting group of people. They are by no means homogenous, but tend towards the very orthodox and fundamentalist. They are not particularly open to non Jews, and not particularly respectful of any law but their own (which they misinterpret as God's). They resent the IDF (although they rely on the IDF for their security) because the IDF removed the settlers from Gaza. They resent Jews who don't agree with the settlement policies. They resent the Israeli Government for the possibility of dividing the land (the two state solution).

The settlements are built high up on hills, surrounded by walls, fences, floodlights and guard towers. The follow the ridge-lines. As a settlement grows, it expands by setting up an outpost further along the ridge-line. The outpost grows until the two connect. I wrote, in my post about Tzfat, about heights and the safety of the hills (thousands of years ago when Tzfat was founded). It didn't occur to me just how much height still means security.

Itamar (above) and one of its outposts (below)


I should mention something here about the landscape of the West Bank. As I was driven through the West Bank, I saw more olive trees than I have eaten olives in my entire life. It is a forest of olive trees, thousands, millions, I don't really know. But everywhere I looked was filled with olive trees. Except on the hilltops, where the settlers, in their western style ecological arrogance, have planted many other non-native trees. Like kudzu (in the American South East) or zebra muscles (in the American North East), the result is something of an ecological disaster.

Regardless, olive trees, everywhere, as far as the eye can see. They are beautiful, silvery grey, short trees that require almost no irrigation after the first four years. They are a wonderful crop, perfect for this area of the world.

The settlements are built on top of the olive groves. I can't find a good verifiable statistic, but many of the settlements are built on seized land, land that was, before the settlement, filled with Palestinian olive groves. To compound the problem, Palestinians are not allowed within 200 meters of the settlements, even when they have trees within that 200 meter ring. Permits are hard to come by, and by the time a family has received a permit to pick its trees within the 200 meter boundary, the olives may have already been picked (by the settlers presumably). Even with the permits, the settlers often harass and throw rocks at the palestinians, or sometimes worse. The army is supposed to protect the Palestinians in this case, and, so far as I've seen their presence does differ violence. But their presence is neither guaranteed nor is it a guarantee that the settlers will behave. When the settlers misbehave, when they assault and attack Human Beings, they are given a slap on the wrist if anything... When the Palestinians misbehave, they end up in prison without any pretension of Habeas Corpus. Sometimes Palestinian misbehaving is as violent and destructive as a suicide bomb. Sometimes it isn't. One of the days I went to pick olives the IDF had arrested two men for not having the proper permits to harvest their olives. The IDF had been alerted to their presence by the settlers who claimed that they were Jewish olives (there are no Jewish olive trees in the territories outside of the walls of the settlements, and there is almost no chance that the Palestinian men could have gotten inside those walls). The Palestinians were arrested, their olives and identity cards seized, and they were put in what's called administrative detention (the inspiration I think for Guantanamo Bay). The same settlers could have attacked and thrown rocks and even wounded the men, and unless the IDF had witnessed the incident, there would be no consequences.

A quick note on time frames.

Jamal, and his extended family have many olive trees near their village, Awarta. Awarta is near the settlement Itamar. The settlers arrived in the early 1980s. Jamal's great grandfather planted the trees, I don't know exactly when, but I can guess that it was around 90 years ago, give or take. This is long before the establishment of the State of Israel (60 tears ago), and long long before the Itamar was established.

Awarta

Jamal works as a building contractor during the rest of the year, he takes time off for the olive harvest. His brothers are electricians and mechanics. His son Jihad is in primary school, but also takes time off to help with the olive harvest. The oil they make from the trees is their oil for cooking throughout the year, and a nice secondary source of income. But it can be difficult to obtain the permits and to pick the trees when the settlers are feeling feisty. The army helps but is inconsistent in its help.

A group called Rabbis for Human Rights is working to help (in the short term) with the problems of the olive harvest. They organize trips to help the farmers who are stuck between the wall and the green line, and to help the farmers who are attacked by the settlers. To help the farmers stuck between the wall and the green line is easy, help them pick their olives, and act as mediation between the army and the farmers.

To help the farmers whose trees are around the settlements is more difficult. The settlers are better behaved if Jews and foreigners are present, especially if those Jews or foreigners have cameras and video cameras. One of the settler tactics has been to throw rocks at the Palestinians then claim in court that the Palestinians attacked them. The courts have been less favorable towards the settlers since RHR started video taping the interactions.

I've now gone out on both types of trips with RHR. The activity itself, as apple picking used to be, was a relaxing and fun way to spend a morning, feeling connected to agriculture. But the political climate changes everything.

It was interesting to hear the perspectives on the conflict here from the farmers who are so often victimized by it. Jamal for instance, who is both secular and moderate, told me in some combination of Hebrew and hand gestures (our common languages) about how the Palestinians blame the settlers for everything bad that happens to them. And that the settlers do the same thing. But he also talked about how much more power the settlers have. Although they aren't supposed to, they come into Awarta and exact eye for eye types of retribution. If the Palestinians get anywhere near the 200 meter fence, first the private security forces of Itamar and then the IDF arrest them. Jamal didn't dwell on this point though. What really struck me about his viewpoint was that he wanted to move forward, past the injustice, towards reconciliation (which isn't exactly the sense of what he was talking about, but peace and justice don't seem right either)... Maybe the best way to describe it is to say that he just wanted to move on with his life.

Jamal with his son Jihad (above) fed us massive amounts of coffee, spiced with cardamom, in little tiny glasses (below). I like anyone who force feeds me coffee.


There wasn't as much in the way of conversation with the family between the fence and the green line. I was with a group of Rabbinical Students from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS, one of the two Conservative Jewish seminaries). I let them speak in their much stronger hebrew, and did my best to listen. The story was much the same. Instead of coffee, this family fed us tea from small glasses. The recipe was simple. Fill the glass half full with sugar. Fill the rest with tea and fresh mint (a particularly strong and fragrant variety of which grows in and around the olive trees). I wont' tell my dentist if you won't.

A teapot (above) and a break for tea (below)


The Palestinians are not allowed to use mechanical equipment near the settlements. Donkeys are okay. Working between the wall and the green line, we got a ride on a tractor. It was a Fiat, an Italian brand. Jill at Willow Pond had a beautiful Fiat that I sometimes still dream about, it was also orange and two sizes up from the tractor pictured here.

I do so love tractors...

p.s. here is an article that just appeared in the New York Times that is pertinent to this entry. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/world/middleeast/14settlers.html