Palestinians like to compare themselves to the olive tree. You can chop it down, they say, you can burn it, but it still grows back.
Nov. 3, 2006- As the harvesting of the West Bank's most profitable cash crop gets under way, the resilience of both is paying off. Thousands of trees in the rocky hills around Tulkarm are cascading with the ripe green fruit.
Despite a campaign of intimidation by militant Jewish settlers, confiscations of land for Israel's security barrier, and travel restrictions that make it difficult for farmers to tend their trees and move their crops, 2006 promises a bumper harvest - if only the Palestinians can market it.
They certainly need to. Abdullah Abdel-Khader, a 70-year-old farmer from the border village of Deir al-Ghusoun, said his 950 olive trees were now his family's only source of income. His six sons lost their jobs in Israel after the army withdrew their permits. "We've hit rock bottom," he lamented. "We eat chicken once or twice a month, mutton three times a year on Muslim festivals."
A razor-wire stretch of the Israeli barrier cuts him off from 300 of his trees. Sometimes soldiers let workers through a gate, sometimes they don't. Only Palestinians with security clearance are allowed to cross. At the moment, Mr Abdel-Khader said he was managing.
But another farmer, loading bulging olive bags on a donkey, said: "Today the soldiers said, 'Fine, go ahead'. But other days they curse us. Who are they to tell me every morning whether I can work my own land?"
Khaled A'alayan, chairman of the local district council, reported that 60 per cent of the 10,000 villagers were unemployed. "We, as a council, are owed 3 million shekels (£375,000) for electricity and water bills. Women have started selling their jewels. Many people depend on charity, local and foreign."
The barrier had made things worse, he added. Israel had confiscated 625 of the villagers' 4,000 acres to build the barrier. More than 500 families had lost their main source of income.
After rampaging settlers stole or destroyed their crops in previous years, Rabbis for Human Rights won a high court decision ordering the security forces to ensure that the farmers could harvest their olives.
Arik Ascherman, the rabbis' leader, reported: "There is a great improvement. The army organised much better this year. They're taking things more seriously. They ask the farmers where they want to work, instead of telling them.
"We still have problems on the ground where foot soldiers kick them off the land, but because the senior officers know they shouldn't do it, we usually can find solutions."
Nonetheless, other Israeli human rights monitors received 20 complaints last week from Palestinian farmers of harassment by settlers. In one case, settlers attacked farmers from the village of Farata, near Nablus. After soldiers arrived, the settlers charged the farmers, who retaliated by throwing stones. Five Palestinians were injured, one seriously.
The settlers stole sacks of olives as they left. In another case, farmers from As Sawiya, near the militant Eli settlement, arrived for work to find that half their olive crop had already been picked.
Palestinian officials are predicting production of 35,000 tons of olive oil, five times as much as last year and more than double the average yield. The United Nations estimates that this could contribute more than $118m (£62m) to the fragile West Bank economy.
"The problem," explained Shaker Judeh, an adviser to the Minister of Agriculture, "is marketing. We face a very hard problem because we have a surplus of more than 15,000 tons."
About 2,000 tons is exported to Jordan, but Mr Judeh said they couldn't compete with cheaper olive oil from Syria and Turkey in other foreign markets. Israeli closures and restrictions had pushed up production costs.
Talal Dweikat, the Palestinian governor of the Tulkarm region, called on European Union governments to support the Palestinian farmers by buying their oil and olives, but all they have imported in previous years is small quantities of extra virgin oil.
The UN's World Food Programme is buying 1,500 tons. Arnold Vercken, its regional director, sampled the oil at one of Deir al-Ghusoun's two presses and pronounced it tastier than that of his native Provence. It will be distributed to 600,000 non-refugee Palestinians that the programme is feeding (an increase of 120,000 in the last year).
The UN Relief and Works Agency, which looks after 4.3 million Palestinian refugees, prefers to buy cheaper vegetable oils.
The rest of the olive crop will stay in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Mr Judeh forecast thatprices would drop. If previous years were any guide, Jewish merchants would buy at bargain prices,relabelling the bottles "Produce of Israel."
* Israeli forces have tightened their grip on Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, killing an elderly civilian, two militants and a police officer in Israel's biggest push in months to stop Palestinian rocket fire. Men between the ages of 16 and 40 were ordered to gather in one of the main squares, but few complied. Those who did were questioned in the town, and some were taken for further questioning.
