IN STEREO

[Our olive tree] campaign started in 2002, and it was as a reaction [to], or resistance against the separation wall, because they started to build the wall [then]. So you know, a big part of the West Bank is Area C, under Israeli control by building a lot of Israeli settlements. They just build the wall around many huge spaces of land and then they annex them to Israel. One of the reasons – or the excuses – they use is that these lands haven’t been cultivated for five years. And this is a very old Ottoman law, you know, that the Ottoman people used to use to take the land. So the idea came that if we fill these empty lands with olive trees, then we will keep these lands, you know, and protect them from Israeli confiscation. Also, in our organisation we can’t [support] violence, so this is like a nonviolent resistance tool. The olive tree has been in our resistance since the beginning.

Olive trees are connected to the Palestinians because this country is rich with olive trees. So in each corner, in each backyard, in each street, on each mountain, there are a lot of olive trees. And the olive trees witnessed the harassment and the violence and everything. Wherever you turn your head, you find that people are resisting under the olive trees: holding the olive trees, protecting the olive trees. So it became like a theme, in a way, of our resistance. We thought about this – to use the olive tree as a tool, you know. Not only to protect the land, to support the farmers to maintain the land, and to make a sustainable project. It’s also to use it as a tool to bring or to involve people from abroad. That’s how we use the olive tree as a theme: as a tool, to get what we want. – Muhanad