Olive Tree Planting

One of the things that Sabeel tries to do are interfaith programs, where you can encounter people from different walks of life and learn from their experiences. Saturday, March 7, the youth programs from both Sabeel Jerusalem and Nazareth, joined together for a weekend. The Saturday program involved planting olive and almond trees. The group included young adults from Jerusalem, Nazareth, and other areas in the West Bank, as well as internationals and Israelis.

We began the day by driving to the farmland of the Sabri family. The Sabri family’s land is located right near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. They have been cut off from their land because their house is on one side of the security wall and this land is on the other. In order to tend their land, they must get a permit to go to it. It is therefore, very hard for them to be able to get to their land enough to tend it as much as it needs. Another law that threatens the Sabri family’s land states that if land is untended for 3 years, the Israeli government will confiscate it. It seems very counterintuitive to prevent people from tending their own land and then confiscating it because they have not been able to tend it.

As a group of young adults, we went to the Sabri family’s land in order to help them plant olive and almond trees in land that they have a hard time getting to often enough to finish the work that they have to do. It is hard work digging holes in rocky ground with a pickax. It was a hot 80 degree day, so we finished hot and sweaty.

After we finished, we went to the Sabri family’s village: Beit Ijza. The community center, of which they are a part, invited to cook us a meal, since we had helped plant the trees. They served us a wonderful dinner of mujaddara: Rice and lentils, accompanied with Arabic salad (the main ingredients being cucumbers, tomatoes, and parsley). Before we were served dinner, however, one of the community members stood up to thank us for helping the villagers. In his speech, he mentioned that because of the ban on the farmers from their land, they had been able to harvest the olives that year, but had not been allowed over to harvest their grapes and almonds. The security wall had prevented them from benefiting from two out of three of the harvests that are their livelihood. He also expressed his gratitude that we had planted the olive trees for them, because they had been waiting to plant these olive trees for two months, but had not yet received permits to go to their land.

Although it was hard work, I was glad that we were able to help area farmers in some small way. You could see the gratitude on their faces. I only wish that I could do more.