Picking olives in Nua'man
The penultimate day of the olive picking programme saw the participants travel to Nua'man village, near Beit Sahour.
Farmer
Olives were picked in fields which will be on the Israeli side of the Apartheid Wall, which means that it will be extremely difficult for the Palestinians to reach their own land. There will be a gate in the wall for the, but the experience of Palestinians in northern towns is that the gate is never opened on time, if at all. The farmer, Daoud Darawi, has suffered hugely because of the occupation. He has spent two years in administrative detention in Israeli jails, and was never given a reason for his imprisonment, and as a result has missed out on two of the five years of his eldest child, Mira.
Israeli soldiers harassment
Soldiers also arrived where we were picking olives, parked three jeeps along the road, and demanded to see all of the participants’ passports and visas, much like a flying checkpoint, as a method to ideally stop us from picking the olives, but if they couldn’t do that, at least as a way of slowing us down. It seems unlikely that the Palestinians would have been able to reach their own land, without the international presence. At least one jeep with soldiers was almost continually present throughout the time we were picking.
Inspired by their time in Hebron and the attempts of the soldiers to prevent us from picking olives, combined with the experience of a week of picking, had arguably their most productive day in the fields.
Presentation about the JAI
After the morning of picking, the participants ate their lunch at a restaurant in Beit Sahour, and then went to the YMCA for a presentation on the work of the JAI.
