After two days of running from Israeli military, tear-gas, and armed settlers, Palestinians and their supporters successfully picked olives in three locations today: Burin, Irak Burin, and Madama.
In Burin, a settler came and said that he was going to send in the military, so our Palestinian friends asked if we could help them pick quickly. We picked and left without incidents. We then split and successfully harvested in Irak Burin and Madama.
It’s no small joy to watch a Palestinian able to harvest olives from trees that have been in the family for generations.
Our Palestinian hosts also gave us a tour of the olive press and a lunch of Maqluba eaten on the tarps laid down to catch the olives.
The international volunteers arrived back at the house happy, tired, and dirty. Chopping vegetables for dinner, I said to a fellow volunteer: “You should stop and look out the window, the light is beautiful right now on the mountains.” We chuckled at how peaceful everything seemed. As if the people here were free and the military wasn’t coming in and out arresting people, and settlers weren’t chasing and beating people with pipes. I said: “It is true, right here, for this moment, people have olives and no one is being beaten and there’s the mountains.” And little by little we’re doing our small part to support Palestinians in expanding that space and this time when the sun is setting on the mountains and people are tired and dirty and happy from a day of good work on the land.
