For the Love of Olives and Palestine

Symbol of peace

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

It has been well over a month since I have published here. It's not been a brat summer for me. It has been a season of illness, death, and utter despair. I lay awake at night thinking about how cruel the AmerIsraeli empire is, how the goal of total Palestinian erasure seems to be coming to fruition right before my eyes, and how helpless I feel. So, this is where I am starting.

When I think of the olive, several images and ideas come to mind: the Mediterranean diet, the silver-green leaves, history, timelessness, cooking, soap, symbols of peace and life, and romantic Italian scenery. It seems that the olive has shaped Mediterranean culture. It has been a source of fat, food, and fuel for thousands of years and is a symbol of the Palestinian people.

Photo by Don Fontijn on Unsplash

I will start prepping for the 2024 olive harvest this weekend to produce our olive oil. We haven't done so in a good 7 years. The last time we harvested, we had the problem of the dreaded olive fly, and the oil was rancid. In 2021, we decided to do heavy pruning on the trees, so it has taken another 3 years for them to recover and produce olives. I am excited about it because EVOO is starting to get expensive here. This is due to climate change and the disease pressure it causes. We don't have real winters anymore, so the pests and diseases that would typically get frosted are able to flourish. So last year, very few producers in my area produced any oil. We certainly did not, and it wasn't a problem until this year. I'd buy "good" oil at the local farmers market and cheaper oil for cooking at the supermarket, but that has changed. In the past year, supermarket oil, of mediocre quality, has become the same price per liter as the very high-quality stuff I buy at the farmers' market. Anywhere from €10-13 a lt. That's insanity in a country covered in olive trees. If you drive around on any countryside road in olive oil Italy (butter Italy exists), countless abandoned lands covered in olive trees have gone a bit feral. Fewer people are making oil, the risk of disease is high, and in Puglia, they are under the pressure of Xylella destroying centuries-old groves. EVOO feels so ubiquitous in Italian food culture; it is a shame to see its fall.

Italy and Greece are not the indigenous homes of the cultivated olive. That history goes back at least eight thousand years to the Levant in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. For the last 76 years, that history has been constantly under threat as Israel tries its best to erase Palestinian culture through forced displacement, illegal settlements, targeted starvation, and the bulldozing and burning of ancient olive groves. This is all by the design of course. American settlers did the same thing to indigenous populations when they killed so many bison they almost went extinct. This was not just to obtain meat and hides; it was because the cultures were so linked to the bison, and the bison was the culture. The mass slaughter was symbolic and purposeful, and so it is in Palestine and the olive tree.

The olive industry is crucial to the livelihoods of 80,000 to 100,000 families in the Palestinian territories. It constitutes about 70 percent of local fruit production and contributes approximately 14 percent to the local economy. These resilient trees are deeply ingrained in Palestinian art and literature, symbolizing stability during displacement, self-reliance in adversity, and peace during conflict. The olive tree represents the resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of challenging circumstances. In fact, the patterns on the keffiyeh, the woven scarf that has become a global symbol of resistance, hold significant symbolism for various aspects of Palestinian life.

from https://natakallam.com/blog/meaning-of-the-keffiyeh/

That symbol is a threat to the genocidal Zionists who continue to try to erase them, but as they are not of the land, they do not understand how resilient the olive tree actually is. It is damn hard to destroy an olive tree. I would know, I have tried to cut them down to make space, and they keep sprouting back. Their roots are deep and spread out. They don't need much to thrive, especially the older ones. They need regular pruning to stay productive, and unless there is a certain pest, they only require a little input. They also seem to thrive where no other tree can. They love dry, rocky, and difficult terrain. They are the perfect symbol of the resilience of the Palestinians.

And so, this year, my olive harvest is especially important to me, not only because we haven't harvested in so many years, but because it is something to not take for granted Thousands or millions of olive trees across Palestine and Lebanon will not be harvested because of genocidal Israeli actions. Either Israelis have expelled people from their lands, or it is simply unsafe to be in olive groves.

I am a strong believer in dedication and meditation. This probably came to me due to books about the Arthurian legends, Lord of the Rings, and the magic spells sorcerers and sorceresses or elves wove into objects their heroes would wear to keep them safe and aid their victory. When I became a more regular yoga practitioner in my 20s, my teacher would always open up the practice and invite us to dedicate our practice and breath to someone or something. I often devoted my practice to factory-farmed animals or my grandma when sick. When I garden, I feel like I am in meditation and dedicate my cultivation to the earth. It is a practice of gratitude and of peace. I dedicate my meditations to reduce suffering in the world, to cause as little harm as possible, and to do so in gratitude.

This year, my harvest is dedicated to the people of Palestine and Lebanon, the Levantine people who first cultivated this tree, which has become the symbol of many Mediterranean countries. I don't produce enough oil to sell or make a difference, but I understand the weight of this year's harvest. It is a spiritual endeavor linking me to the land I live on, to the Phoenicians who spread this tree across the Mediterranean, and back to the ancient Levantine people who first cultivated it.

Here is a beautiful poem that I feel encapsulates the power of this tree.

The Second Olive Tree

By Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Marilyn Hacker

The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive tree

Is the hillside’s modest lady. Shadow

Covers her single leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.

Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.

She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of time

That helps her stock her luminous oil and

Forget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, who

Coexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branches

To weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of war

But as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignity

Swords shatter. In her reticent silver-green

Color hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behind

The portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.

The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace needed

A color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!

But: How noble and how splendid! And she,

She who teaches soldiers to lay down their rifles

And re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go home

And light your lamps with my oil! But

These soldiers, these modern soldiers

Besiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineage

Of earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,

Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.

She did not weep or cry out.  But one of her grandsons

Who witnessed the execution threw a stone

At a soldier, and he was martyred with her.

After the victorious soldiers

Had gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deep 

Pit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we were

Sure that he would become, in a little while, an olive

Tree – a thorny olive tree – and green! 

If you are looking for ways to help people *and animals in Palestine and Lebanon, First, I urge you to contact your representatives and demand a Ceasefire and to Defund Israel IMMEDIATELY. There is a great list of resources for Palestine on this post by

anam raheem

and in Lebanon in this post by

Farrah Berrou

. Don’t forget how important the BDS movement, boycotts work. Read more about boycotts by

Marwa Essam

. I personally support Sulala Animal Rescue in Gaza, Seeds of Resilience which helps organise gardens, seeds sharing, and tree planting, and finally, Animals Lebanon

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What I am reading on Substack:

Thomas Balistrieri, Ed.D.

Vittles

Mohammed Mohisen

Palestine Will Be Free

Farrah Berrou

Diana van Eyk

"Oh Mother, my olives !"

Stone and Seed

Doses of Daily Life in Beirut

What just happened in Lebanon?

A life unheard

How Bad is it really in Gaza?