Palestine: The Olive Picker
by Felicity Arbuthnot
When Bristol, U.K., based, Ed Hill's elderly mother persuaded him to accompany her on a 'Holy Land Tour', as a committed atheist, he was underwhelmed. He returned from Palestine a changed man, in love with the place and people, enraged at their plight. He joined solidarity movements, campaigned and with Bristol Palestine Solidarity Campaign helped raise money for an orphanage in the northern town of Tulkarm, to which Bristol mosques contributed generously. Then Palestine's life blood, olives, touched his heart. He had learned of olive groves, some over a hundred years old, bulldozed by the Israelis. Then he heard of the Zaytoun Co-operative, formed by a group who put their scant savings, student loans, unemployment money, to export olive oil to the U.K. He started selling Zaytoun's oils and the project became a passion: 'I had crossed the line, I became a Zaytoun Zealot!', says Hill.
Last year, Zaytoun organized an olive harvest trip. Farming families now depend almost entirely on their land for survival and the olive harvest has anyway, ever been one of the year's key events for every Palestinian villager. Now Israeli settlers and soldiers harass, attack and deter villagers traveling by cart, donkey and battered pick-up, armed just with tarpaulins and blankets, to catch the olives as they fall - and whatever celebratory picnic they can afford, at a time celebrated over millennia. Zaytoun had decided to ask those from other countries for the occasion in the hope that, as with the 'internationals' that travel with ambulances, there might be less harassment. Hill needed no urging, but, he says, a lot of advice on convincing the Israeli authorities to let him in and persuade them of his reasons for visiting Palestine. Ironically this self confessed non-believer, now on a different kind of 'Holy Land Tour', decided that donning a large cross and declaring himself a born again Christian would be convincing. It worked.
In the old city of Jerusalem, where Zaytoun had arranged to meet their guests, he quickly discovered reality under occupation. Walking through Damascus Gate and : 'suddenly in a mediaeval maze of narrow streets and alleyways', he encountered a: 'gang of incredibly young, arrogant and undisciplined Israeli soldiers', and was struck by how big their guns were. Later he learned that someone had thrown a stone at soldiers in the area that day, who had exacted revenge by: 'throwing sound grenades into groups of school children, injuring some.' And he discovered the Separation Wall: 'As tall as a house', being built to separate Israel from Palestine, separating families, farmers from their land and destroying swathes of ancient citrus orchards, figs, olives. ' The apartheid system from South Africa, is being perfected in the West Bank', concludes Hill.
Traveling to the first picking venue, the town of As Sawiya: 'We passed the settlement town of Ariel, with swimming pool, fountains, lawns with sprinklers. The water comes from aquifers under the West Bank, supplied cheaply to settlers - the Palestinians have to buy their own water back at inflated prices - and rationed so that on average they only get half the U.N. (considered adequate) quota.' Below Ariel, is the little town of Marda, the wall snaking round, looking likely to completely maroon it. Settlers, learned Hill, from the Head Mistress of a girls high school, sometimes come in to the school, attack students, break windows and furniture, steal computers and also block children from getting to school. Teachers are turned back at checkpoints. The Head Mistress described a pregnant woman at one, who had become so distressed she had struck a soldier - who shot her and left her to bleed to death. 'Between September 2000 and December 2004, sixty one women gave birth at checkpoints, thirty six babies died as a result, according to the UN', says Hill, adding : 'Near Jenin, Israeli soldiers even forced residents to undress at a roadblock.'
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20061118&articleId=3902
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
