Cultivating Hope in Palestine

Amid the dead­liest year of con­flict between Israelis and Palestinians since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005, the non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion Human Appeal is work­ing to bring hope to con­flict-engulfed com­mu­ni­ties in the West Bank and Gaza through an olive tree plant­ing pro­gram.

According to Tor Wennesland, the United Nations spe­cial coor­di­na­tor for the Middle East peace process, more than 200 Palestinians and 30 Israelis have been killed in ongo­ing clashes across the region.

“This vio­lence is fuelled and exac­er­bated by a grow­ing sense of despair about the future,” Wennesland told the U.N. Security Council.

Owais Khan, Human Appeal’s deputy chief exec­u­tive, told Olive Oil Times that his orga­ni­za­tion is work­ing to improve the eco­nomic out­look of Palestinians by plant­ing olive trees, a his­toric sym­bol of peace and a dri­ver of the region’s econ­omy.

“Human Appeal is sup­port­ing the plant­ing of tens of thou­sands of olive trees in Palestinian farm­lands in the West Bank and Gaza, in spite of recent dis­rup­tion to the region’s olive tree farm indus­try,” he said. ​“The olive tree holds a spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for Palestinian farm­ers as it is both a means of liveli­hood and his­toric source of pride and a sym­bol of regrowth.”

Khan added that the 31-year-old non-profit works in 26 coun­tries to pro­vide dis­as­ter relief and estab­lish self-sus­tain­ing devel­op­ment pro­grams.

“Our work is always guided by five eth­i­cal, par­tic­i­pa­tory and sus­tain­able prin­ci­ples: gen­der par­ity, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, inclu­sion, pro­tec­tion and value-for-money,” he said.

Despite the con­flict, the International Olive Council esti­mates that Palestine, includ­ing the West Bank and Gaza, pro­duced 23,000 tons of olive oil in the 2022/23 crop year, slightly exceed­ing the five-year aver­age.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil made up 2.54 per­cent of Palestine’s total exports in 2021, the last year a com­plete data set is avail­able, earn­ing $36.9 mil­lion (€31.2 mil­lion). Refined olive oil exports that same year were val­ued at $6.65 mil­lion (€5.62 mil­lion).

Most of these exports were des­tined for the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United States.

Khan said Human Appeal has been work­ing in Gaza and the West Bank since 1991 to plant 100,000 olive trees.

“The farm­ing project pro­vides each farmer with 30 to 40 prime olive trees so they can estab­lish a vibrant, sus­tain­able crop that yields not just food but income for gen­er­a­tions,” he said.

Khan added that Human Appeal works with local experts and farm­ers to ensure olive trees are planted sus­tain­ably and can become self-suf­fi­cient, allow­ing farm­ers and the com­mu­nity to main­tain and har­vest them with­out fur­ther inter­ven­tion from the NGO.

“One of these projects [in the West Bank] in total assisted in the cul­ti­va­tion of 200 dunums (20 hectares) of land with an aver­age of 15 to 16 seedlings per dunum (0.1 hectares) across 20 local­i­ties in the West Bank, directly sup­port­ing the incomes of nearly 200 farm­ers and 1,200 indi­vid­ual ben­e­fi­cia­ries,” he said. ​“Once har­vested, the ini­tial plan­ta­tion is expected to yield approx­i­mately 4,000 kilo­grams of olive oil.”

Echoing the sen­ti­ments of Wennesland, that extrem­ism on both sides of the con­flict is fueled by a sense of despair, Khan and Human Appeal believe the olive trees offer a glim­mer of hope and hold the key to rebuild­ing both land and lives.

Khan added that these projects con­tribute to envi­ron­men­tal restora­tion and fos­ter eco­nomic sta­bil­ity, cul­tural preser­va­tion and emo­tional heal­ing for com­mu­ni­ties in war-affected areas.

“The olive tree project assists the Palestinian National Olive strat­egy in achiev­ing its goal to plant an addi­tional 50,000 olive trees in Palestine over five years,” he said. ​“With olive seedlings bear­ing fruit after one year of plan­ta­tion, the project will have a pos­i­tive impact on the tar­get ben­e­fi­cia­ries’ liveli­hoods for many years to come.”

“The olive oil indus­try makes up 25 per­cent of the agri­cul­tural income for Palestinians and sup­ports the liveli­hoods of approx­i­mately 100,000 fam­i­lies,” he added. ​“The value-added of the asso­ci­ated olive oil indus­try reaches an aver­age of $5.4 mil­lion (€5.0 mil­lion) per year, accord­ing to data from the Palestinian Olive Council,” Khan added.

Projects of this nature often pose sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, demand­ing a con­certed effort and resource­ful­ness to over­come obsta­cles and achieve their objec­tives.

While a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge comes in the form of Israeli set­tlers destroy­ing Palestinian olive groves, Khan cited cli­mate change as a more con­se­quen­tial chal­lenge fac­ing olive farm­ers across the region.

“Aside from the destruc­tion local con­flict causes to dis­rupt human­i­tar­ian project work on the ground, we have also faced a chal­lenge with dete­ri­o­rated water sup­ply in the West Bank and Gaza that is needed for the irri­ga­tion of farm­lands,” he said. ​“Working with local experts and our own water-related ini­tia­tives, we have man­aged to find solu­tions to ensure olive plan­ta­tions get the water needed and are sus­tain­able.”

The olive tree has long been a sym­bol of peace, from the Biblical tale of Noah’s Arc and Virgil’s Aeneid to the uni­form of United Nations peace­keep­ers.

Khan thor­oughly believes the olive tree can be a tool of peace and said Human Appeal plans to con­tinue its oper­a­tions in north­west­ern Syria, where a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake killed tens of thou­sands of peo­ple and destroyed local groves and olive mills in February.

“We are expand­ing our olive tree plan­ta­tion ini­tia­tive to north­west Syria to assist the liveli­hoods of the local pop­u­la­tion there,” he con­cluded. ​“Our olive trees are three years old and deliv­ered along with other trees, allow­ing farm­ers to have a viable means of liv­ing.”

• United Nations
• Observatory of Economic Complexity