For three weeks during the fall of 2024, we brought more than a dozen CJNV activists to support the Palesitnian olive harvest in Burin, a West Bank village near Nablus.
Just one year earlier, in 2023, we had planned to join the harvest in the fall, but due to Israeli settler-state violence and military-ordered closures after October 7th it was basically impossible for Palestinians to access their groves. Palestinian communities suffered extreme economic losses during this time, as they were unable to harvest their crops. This made the olive harvest in 2024 ever more important.
Despite almost daily raids on the village and constant settler-state surveillance, we were able to support Palestinian farmers by harvesting a lot of olives, including in lands that the farmers had not been able to access previously.
Our work in the field was led by Ghassan Najjar, who is a founder of the Land & Farming Cooperative in Burin, a collective of farmers who work to create sustainable farms, achieve food sovereignty, provide free education, and combat environmental destruction and exploitation of the land under Israeli occupation and apartheid. Ghassan’s work is focused on building trust and connection among farmers in the area in order to strengthen the movement for liberation, and he sees our work and participation in the olive harvest as an important part of that.
Under Ghassan’s leadership and in partnership with a number of local farmers and families, our group’s central mission was to support Palestinians to harvest as many olives as possible. In order to do that, we aimed to avoid soldiers and settlers whenever we could – waking up and getting to work early in the morning, so that we could finish the work with as little interruption as possible. If approached, we were prepared to document, deescalate, divert, and deter settler and army harassment and violence. And we moved as swiftly as we could in groves close to settlements and outposts where settlers often attack and near army bases where soldiers often stop Palestinians from harvesting their own lands.
Ghassan sent us this message as he reflected back on our work together:
“We are working for two things: First, we believe that our struggle is also your struggle, because we are all human beings. Second, we are trying hard to tell the entire world what’s happening here and the media isn’t telling our story, so you are witnesses. This also makes you a target of the Israeli police, settlers, and army because they know you will share about all the attacks and violence against the Palestinian people who are working here. When internationals come and work with the farmers it gives hope to the farmers and reminds us that we are not alone, and there are real people who believe in freedom and who are ready to be in solidarity with us. We are working to build trust between people like you who come in solidarity and the farmers here. What you’re doing in Burin is one of the best things to happen in more than ten years, because we were very organized, we achieved our goals, and this bothers the army and interrogators. Your work here is very important for us.”
Given the devastating losses of last year’s harvest that never was, it was incredibly important that we helped farmers access and harvest as many of their trees as possible. And that’s exactly what we did. It seemed like we surpassed expectations in terms of how helpful we were. I am proud of the contributions we made and of the risks and obstacles our group of incredible volunteers took and overcame to be here. And I am incredibly grateful to our hosts who welcomed us to work alongside them for these three weeks and Ghassan, who led us and taught us so much so that we could play a part in making this olive harvest as successful as it was.
The relationships we are building with our partners in Burin are relatively new and this was the first time we brought a group to this region for this kind of solidarity work. It felt like a really big win, which is no small thing in such a horrifying time. We’re looking forward to returning in 2025 to harvest alongside our partners in Burin again.
