“Zatoun is Palestine in a bottle”
Fair Trade Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Soap
The Olive Tree as a Symbol of Palestine
"It is the symbol of being steadfast on the land"
Mohammed Ali Taha, Palestinian writer
For centuries this ubiquitous tree, with its characteristically gnarled trunk and stately branches, has given a muted color scheme and visual texture to Palestine’s terraced highlands. Today it has moved from the countryside to grace paintings, book covers, university logos and even websites.
In the face of great dispossession, Palestinians have clung more earnestly to the land about them and the olive tree is a symbol of their ties to the land. The humble olive tree also has real practical worth as the tree of wealth, protection and security, of shelter and sustenance.
Even if a peasant has but a small piece of land, he will plant five or ten olive trees. Much of Palestinian peasant culture centers on the cyclical rhythms of planting, pruning and harvesting of olives.
Since the 19th century, olives have been a major commercial crop for Palestine; not only is the oil a major source of nutritious food, it is used for lighting and for soap manufacture.
When West Bank land is cleared for Israeli settlement expansion, centuries-old olive trees are destroyed and some are transplanted to Israeli urban median strips thus giving instant history. In the language of poetry that Palestinians use to describe their injured landscape:
Left: Jayous: A Palestinian olive tree is loaded onto an Israeli truck. The driver says he will bring the trees to the Tel Aviv area, to be sold. Photo: Christoph Gocke
See video: Palestinian olive farmers struggle in Israeli fence's shadow BBC 10/9/2003
The Tree of Eternity
The olive tree (olea europaea) is a tree of great beauty. It has a low gnarled trunk that is resistant to decay.
It is called the "tree of eternity" because of its ability to regenerate. After 150 years of olive production the tree begins to yield a lower harvest, then around 200 years the cap of the tree dies leaving the roots and base of the trunk. This base is able to produce sprouts, regenerate and begin its life process again.
No other tree carries the heritage of the olive. It is at once the symbol for life, hope, peace, wisdom and victory.
Remembrances of olive oil
I am sure olive oil was the first thing I felt and maybe smelt the minute I was born. Khayeh Boer, the Jewish midwife who helped my mother deliver me, took me directly and rubbed olive oil into my skin as was the custom throughout our land.
The olive tree is an evergreen tree that gives shade when farmers till the land. It lives longer than the other trees in the area. You can hear old men saying, "this olive tree is rominyyeh," meaning it was planted during the Roman occupation. Ramallah, my second home from 1949-1967, was surrounded with terraced hills full of fig trees. Olive trees and grape vines. Those hills are now lost to Israeli settlements and roads. Before, all families owned olive trees in ample amounts for their daily meals and other uses.
Most Palestinian families eat olives three times a day. There is always a plate full of different kinds of pickled olives, green, black, brown, unpitted, whole or crushed, big, medium of small depending on the areas and the soil. It is home-pickled with water and salt or olive oil.
The main breakfast is tea drunk with a bread dipped first in olive oil then in a mixture of thyme and spices with sesame. A big pita loaf or loaf soak with olive oil mixed with thyme, salt and sesame is the cheapest filling meal you may get when you are hungry, something even a poor farmer could count on before the occupation and the arrival of the bulldozers. When baked it is delicious.
Our soap was also made form olive oil, a craft I remember learning in my home economics classes. After the oil is pressed, the pulp that remains is used as animal feed. When necessary, the residues of the olive processing are used as fuel for heating or baking. A bread winner and a mother at home would fee secure when they had their annual supply of olive oil (zeit), olives (zatoun) and thyme (zatar).
We should not forget that the olive branch was the first sign of life that the dove brought back to Noah’s Arc to hale the end of the flood as the biblical story goes. It is only a symbol o peace by a sign of livelihood as well, especially for the Palestinians.
Nahil Aweidah is Palestinian woman three times displaced (Jerusalem, Ramallah, Beirut). She now lives in Canada.
