So much has been said and written about the Palestinian story that the core issue has been mired in controversy and even buried in a seemingly archaeological site.
Unearthing it, one learns that the issue is all about the land; having led to decades of conflict, intifadas and which continues today with the daily suffering of Palestinians.
Green Palestine — a not-for-profit entity established in 2010 that seeks to make food security and development for rural and underserved Palestinians a priority — is the brainchild of a group of six like-minded Palestinians: disillusioned with the so-called and never-ending “peace process”, coming together from diverse backgrounds and eventually surmising that the struggle is all about the land.
Bassem Al Masry, the head of the initiative and the person who is passionately driving it, emphatically states, “We should settle our land. Palestinians should take back the land, not Israeli colonists. Our farmers are leaving their farms to work in Israeli colonies.”
“If we can produce organic, clean and better food, control more of it and make it safe, we make Israelis lose business and leave. At present we buy most of our products from Israel.”
Dr Haytam Hassan, the president of Green Palestine, has noted an increase in the incidence of cancer, and attributes this to poisonous foods sold by Israel and the colonists to Palestinians without any controls.
Masry adds, “For us to survive, we have to produce cleaner foods, use clean energy and recycle the limited water we possess.”
“Israelis are pushing us out of the land, by any means possible. The same colonists who burn our olive trees, sell us our food. Palestinians, who work for these colonists have noted that Israelis have two separate production lines, one for us and another for them. We are convinced that our food is not only impure but also unfit for human consumption.”
Travelling with Masry and viewing an envisaged project in the West Bank village of Der Ibze, the struggle is in “Area C”, where Palestinians live but Israel has full security/military control over their lives and the terrain where colonists are slowly but surely grabbing the land away from them.
This is a classic case in point. An old Roman-era water well, which Palestinian farmers have always used to irrigate their lands, is being usurped by colonists under the protection of the Israeli army. Regular visits by them to swim there is their first step. Green Palestine has entered into the fray to assist the farmers in this battle.
Masry meets with the local farmers at the village community centre, to determine their needs, align with Green Palestine’s vision so that, instead of being prescriptive, in a cooperative effort, they can reclaim not only the water well but the land that they are being systematically driven off.
The intent, according to Masry, is to secure funds to use in rehabilitating the water well and in doing so, reclaim it while also providing a steady stream of water to the farmers and encourage them to adopt Green Palestine’s methodology, with organic farming so hopefully one of the by-products of this struggle may even be tourism.
Masry explains, “While everyone is focused or fixated on the politics of the conflict, the real battle is at the level of the land. Ours is a nonviolent and constructive way: no demonstration, no confrontations, but a simple assertion of our rights to our land and resources. Most of all, we are making farming economically viable, something that is neglected at present.”
Travelling to another project in the village of Beilin — renowned for its weekly demonstrations against the Wall and recently for one of its residents, winning an Emmy Award for “5 Broken Cameras” — an old house has been renovated and converted into the Green Palestine Women Centre.
The centre has already begun to bear fruit, with the cultivation of organically grown mushrooms in the damp rooms within, regular training provided for women from the village in skills such as jam making and others related to adding value to farming products and woodwork skills for the youth.
Masry explains, “This centre is a place where the productive energies of the community shall be channelled and we envisage establishing a restaurant serving organic foods to visitors from the surrounding towns and cities. We have set up solar panels, a recycling water system and all the farming in the land around the house shall be organic compliant. Also we intent to showcase the project to farmers in general, who may have strayed from traditional farming methodology,”
Green Palestine is also involved in a project in Martyrs Square, which is housed around the land that was reclaimed after the sacrifices of locals led to the change of the route of the wall.
Moving on to Jenin in the north of the West Bank, Masry points out, “We planted 7,000 trees provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, and through UNRWA we created work for many farmers. Thereafter, we began an ‘adopt a tree’ campaign through our website, which interested people are welcome to visit.”
The next project is a greenhouse for which UNDP provided the initial funding. Organic strawberry farming, a prototype for local farmers, with two families working it for the second year, is being facilitated by Green Palestine, which also markets the strawberries and shares in the accrued profits with the families and the local farming association partnering them.
Near the seam line, and opposite the road, a European funded “industrial park”, a joint Palestinian Government/Israeli project is being constructed and which is bound to take farmers away from their land. This is what Green Palestine is up against.
Masry explains, “Compounded by all the difficulties that Palestinian farmers face when compared to their Israeli counterparts, we pay almost four times more for water but we believe that through organic farming we may be able to not only keep our farmers on the land, we shall also be able to assist them in making farming economically viable.”
Masry walks the walk, as he personally puts his shoulder to the wheel and builds the infrastructure for the project and shows the farmers how to do it.
Down in Jericho, the lowest point on Earth, Green Palestine has initiated a pilot project that recycles green waste through a fermentation process to provide feed for the sheep and goats.
Masry explains, “By placing all the waste greens in the ground and mixing it with a local plant, the sugar content turns into protein, from 9 per cent to 40 per cent. As 70 per cent of cost to farmers is feed, we create a 40 per cent reduction and make it economically attractive”.
In the south of the West Bank, in the Hebron district, a park project is in its planning stage.
Masry, who all affectionately refer to by his nom de plume Abu Rami, is adamant, “Our focus is on rural Palestine. We want to keep our people on the land, make it economically viable for them. We don’t want them to leave the land for the cities and in the process lose Palestine.”
Green Palestine has taken on a challenge which is not only a Palestinian one, but a universal one that affects us all.
–Rafique Gangat, author of Ye Shall Bowl on Grass, is based in occupied Jerusalem.
