Mohammad's words are strong but softly spoken. He is certain. His
eyes are clear. He taps the podium as he speaks. There is a determination in
his voice. Defiance. Courage.
The youngest of the 1,700 fair trade farmers, Mohammad is gathered
with us in the upper room of the London Muslim Centre, next door to the East
London Mosque in Whitechapel. As a Palestinian fair trade farmer, he describes
to us life under the harshest conditions; an attempt for survival and to uphold
the inalienable right of an indigenous people to farm the land of their
ancestors. It is a struggle against an industrial opprimere from Israel.
Mohammad Irsheid is the youngest of nine children, from a farming family in
Siir which is situated 18 kilometres south of Jenin. His family own around 300 dunums (approx. square kilometres) of
olive groves. He speaks with a quiet burning, of illegal settlements that are put up in hours and how 10,000 olive oil trees - some dating back to before the time of Christ - are uprooted in the process. The Israeli state, an unfettered industrial military and agricultural behemoth, has now destroyed 2.5 million olive trees to build the apartheid wall. They have tapped into natural
springs on Palestinian land which feeds these people just as it fed the people
of antiquity. Like almost all Palestinian water resources, these are diverted
to supply illegal settlements, agricultural and industrial projects. The trees of the Palestinian Jordan valley are left to compete for drinking water
with an oppressed indigenous population living under occupation, with thirsty
children and families attempting to eek out a meagre existence.
Whether in Europe or the Middle East, farmers have a no nonsense
way about them. It is perhaps their connectivity to the earth and to the
seasons, to a life of struggle and survival, that means they have little time
for excessive words and displays of superficiality, artifice or grandeur. These
Palestinian farmers are no exception. Mohammad's sun-kissed face belies the
challenges he has faced to get here. But it is a thing written in his eyes. The
honeyed tones of his Levantine arabic has the audience hanging on every word,
conveying messages from a farming community who against all odds, create
produce we in Britain must buy for their continued survival. It is a dire
situation. Their plight is from a time and place long passed, where Prophets of
scripture walked and preached, where they ate from these olive trees and drank
from these springs. It is a struggle lifted straight from the pages of the
history of the region: an innocent and indigenous people against overwhelming
forces of malevolence. Mohammad describes the inhumanity of an Israeli state
which endeavours to crush the spirit of the Palestinian people. It is the
cruellest of oppressions. Slow. Painful. Deliberate. Access to aquifers is
restricted, springs are walled off. Checkpoints are put in place. People are
degraded and dehumanised on a daily basis. The farmers persevere, far removed
from the gaze of a Western public who continue to be reared upon a diet of
hand-picked media junk food that excludes the nutrition of inconvenient truths.
Mohammad asks that we go to visit him in Palestine. When middle England raises her
hand to ask why, his answer is definitive. He says it is so that we can see
with our own eyes, to experience and learn firsthand, so that we can tell
others, because his words cannot complete this journey alone. It is an
undeniable argument.
Despite an ancient tradition of glassmaking in Hebron, Palestinians
today are prohibited from having their own bottling plants, on their own soil,
to help their own olive oil trade. The Israeli state fears that Palestinians
will use those precious glass bottles to make Molotov cocktails to attack them.
It is interesting to note however, that Palestinian fair trade farmers are allowed to purchase glass bottles for
bottling their olive oil, so long as they purchase them from the Israeli state.
The money finally ending up in the pockets of Palestinian fair
trade farmers is miniscule but that which does, makes a huge difference. For Palestinian
Fair Trade produce, you have to also include the price of getting through
checkpoints and barriers. After these costs, there is little left. When Zaytoun first cold pressed olive oil reaches Made in Europe, who are promoting the
#BuyPalestinian campaign, a small profit needs to be made to sustain the trade. MADE tell us that 50% of Palestinians suffer from food insecurities and that 800,000 Palestinian families rely on the annual olive harvest for their livelihood.
I meet with Zaytoun's Palestinian Director Taysir Arbasi, a community leader
from the Salfleet district, to talk about life and the realities of creating
Fair Trade produce in Palestine.Taysir has been promoting Fair Trade Palestinian goods for over a
decade now and launched the first Fairtrade Certified product from Palestine in
2009. Taysir’s wealth of experience has helped to lift farming communities out
of poverty and his advocacy is now vital to their survival. He tells me that
the cost of producing olive oil is about 15 shekels per kilogram (approx.
£2.50). It is then sold for 25 shekels and the fair trade premium is
2.5 shekels (41p), with 1.5 shekels going back to the farmer and the
remainder to the co-operative. I ask Taysir about the production of first cold press olive oil. I’m
told that it takes about 3 kilograms of olives - these ancient, precious Palestinian olives that grow in the hills of the West Bank from Bethlehem to Jenin, fed by Palestinian rain and the scarcest of water
resources - which after filtering and pressing produces my 750ml bottle of
Zaytoun olive oil.
Facts and figures aside, there is something more significant going
on here. The move by the Löfven government in Sweden to recognise Palestine,
made it the first major European country in the world to do so, much to
the chagrin of the Netanyahu government. Increasing numbers of Jews in the US no
longer see the support for Israel as part of their Jewish identity; many more
actively lobby against it. We have seemingly reached a point where the world has
finally begun to accept that the plight of the Palestinians, the ethnic cleansing and horrific aggression they face, is no longer something that can be
ignored; critical mass. The blank cheque provided to the Israeli state by the
US and UK may soon be a thing of the past. As the call for full, free and
democratic elections with the right of return, continue to echo around the world, open and active support for the Israeli state becomes an increasingly toxic political legacy. It is also now time that activists realise that BDS isn't going to be enough, and whilst it has made important inroads, in some rare
cases BDS is not always practicable. The best and most lasting option is to put
money into the Palestinian economy. Into Palestinian homes.
We need to crowdfund Palestine.
An English woman creates welcome laughter at the event which, like
a break in the clouds for sunshine, pushes away sombre tones of fighting
oppression and the search for justice. Her hand raised and tongue-in-cheek, she
fervently demands more of their wonderful sun-dried tomatoes.
The Palestinian farmers assure her: “we're on it”.
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