Original subtitles

We were born, we have lived,

and the land was here.

Our elders say our ancient olive trees are five thousand years old.

From five thousand years to this day, we are caring for them.

Walking on the land brings me peace.

I thank God for these trees

and the blessing he’s given me.

A human without land, without trees,

is like a human without air.

May God give you health.

– Welcome.

What’s going on?

– Come have coffee with us.

Didn’t you know?

It’s time to get to work.

I’ll set it up going up and down.

– Up and down?

Yes, up and down.

Place it here.

Just toss it, there’s no wind.

Just let it be, it will fall naturally.

My family were farmers.

As a child, I used to work the fields with my father.

Then it became my wife and I, our family.

Peace be upon you.

Wait a second, my girl.

The rain came for you.

The rain came for you.

The rain came for you.

– The rain came.

When we first started, I found it really hard.

Little by little, I started to learn.

Now it bothers me if I’m not on the land everyday.

I truly love it now.

I look forward to the sun rising when I go to the land.

It lifts my spirits.

Silly, silly!

Pick up that little branch and move it away.

During olive harvest season,

even the kids pick up their buckets

and go pick olives with their parents.

The spirit of cooperation persists to this day.

Come and help us, come and help us,

my homeland's olives are the best out there.

Come and help us, come and help us,

my homeland's olives are the best out there.

Green ones and black ones,

a table is not complete without olive oil.

Come and help us, come and help us,

we have the best seat in the world under the olive trees.

I'll go up.

God, give me strength!

These trees were planted by my grandpa,

they were cared for by him.

And then my father was caring for them,

and then myself.

When I was age 11 or so I started caring for them.

Of course, I left to the U.S. for a long time.

And I was fortunate, after my father,

to have taken this plot over as my own.

And to continue the service of these olives because this was

my playground when I grew up in Palestine.

As a youngster, I used to walk the mountain

and always loved seeing the new flowers, the spring.

Drinking from holes in the rock,

looking for vegetations, collecting wild mushrooms.

It’s really a joyous childhood

if I look back at it.

Here, take it my beloved.

Oh how beautiful Shasha is!

– Their olives are ripe.

How many olives do you have?

Four?

– Shasha’s turn!

This is my homestead, this is where I grew up.

And I’m happy to pass it on to my children.

How are you?

When he comes back, he’ll come this way.

When I was young, I wanted to be a nurse.

But agriculture was in my blood.

For the past 25 to 30 years,

I’ve been working in this field.

Day after day and year after year,

I love the land more and more.

Every time someone comes here and sees this view,

they tell me to build a little house up here.

– Where are the spoons?

Come sit here.

Here.

They know that I love cats and dogs.

The land gives you as much as you give her.

If not for the land, I would be nothing.

In many Palestinian towns, there’s an economic slowdown.

Fewer people farm the land.

Those who are able work in Israeli cities.

They trudge back home behind the wall,

and the barbed wire.

This is the most important thing.

I was working in Israel until I got married

and wasn’t able to come home.

So I was looking for work where I could live at home.

Come on, Amira, hop on.

I remember working in the fields with my parents,

and now I am working in the fields with my children.

Hey, dad. Should we offload here?

Dad. Take this.

And my kids,

they learn we don’t just work for other people.

We work on what’s ours, too.

– Which one’s the tea bag?

Give me the third bag.

Is it possible we forgot the peppers?

No, here they are.

My wife helps me in all stages of life.

She’s a mirror that reflects my image and I hers.

We move hand in hand.

We work together, because I can’t do it alone.

My kids understand farming.

Everything they know, I taught them

and their father taught them.

Come on, kids!

It’s hard, I mean seven children is a lot.

I don’t want to lie, it’s not easy.

But to be honest,

I sit with them for just five minutes,

all my worries fade away.

What’s better than that?

All my worries – gone.

How do I pick them?

Pick them slowly, don’t cut the leaves.

See, look at this. You see?

This is how you do it.

Ok, come here.

Do this one, on the ground. Come on, hold it.

Pull them off. Slowly!

Don’t overexert yourself!

Once you’ve got it off, leave it on the ground.

Don’t keep holding it.

Ok enough, I get it!

Ok so now you know! You can help us!

Let’s go!

I’ve been farming since I was four years old.

I would help my dad and grandfather,

I would go to the land and work with them.

They never spoke to me about the land.

They taught me on the land!

They were teaching me a lesson.

This is your heritage,

this is your culture,

this is your homeland.

Hold onto her.

These stories remain in my memory.

I grew up

during the height of suffering of the Palestinian people,

the beginning of the occupation.

In the 1970s, my father had to work in Israel

so that we could live,

and so I could go to school.

I would come home from school and go to the olive trees.

Taking care of my land until sunset.

I never stopped to this day, 60 years now.

She is my life, she is in my blood.

I could never let her go.

Not me or the generations before me,

and not the generations to come.

We have to preserve this wealth.

It’s such a wonderful feeling

when you plant an olive tree and she grows with you.

She grows a year, you grow a year.

We grow up together, we are established together,

as friends!

Friends in the true sense of the word.

The olive tree in Palestine is the majestic tree.

It’s a symbol of our identity,

our identity as people.

To us it represents a continuation of our community,

from the ancient time.

The olive tree is our history.

Our life is the olive tree.

The olive tree is our anchor to everything.

It’s so powerful that

when it’s burned down, it can grow back again.

In light of all the conflicts

and challenges in today’s world,

these olive trees have survived thousands of years.

So olive trees is us.

A farmer raises her as his daughter.

He sees her when she is young,

and as she grows up, he is happy.

We long to God for the day they are grown-ups and we sit in their shade.

The sitting together is beautiful.

And you may tell this tale to the olive tree one day, you never know!

I consider the tree,

she contains my humanity

my civilization, my culture.

This is the home of the olive tree.

It’s indigenous to the land,

so are we.

Peace be upon you.

– Hello, Abu Raed.

What is that, ‘khurfaish’?

Yes.

Did you know that its edible?

Yes it’s edible.

I want to show you this tree

that I’ve been interested in for a while.

I was passing by the wall here to see the gate,

which they let people get through,

and this tree caught my attention.

I still visit her,

and I named her Sharifa.

I named her Sharifa because she really is noble.

This is all one tree.

It’s all originally one tree?

Yes, it’s all one tree.

The roots of the tree start here

and they go round and round and round....

and round.

Then they branch out to multiple trees,

but the center origin is gone.

But this is where the original structure of the tree stood.

This tree, I estimate her age to be over five thousand years.

More!

More, more!

There are more Roman olive trees here.

She’s been abandoned and neglected.

No one takes care of her, kids make fires here,

and they don’t clean up after themselves,

and the land has been neglected.

And with the wall, the Israelis took her surroundings.

This tree has seen a lot in her life,

that’s why I’m paying attention to her.

If you look over here, you can see that the area

has all been neglected. Why?

I know, the wall is nearby.

Because when a Palestinian or a farmer gets close to the area,

the soldiers will tell him to go home

and to get away from here.

“Keep 300 meters away.”

This tree has lived here for five thousands years.

Wall or no wall, she will survive.

I grew up in a farming community

helping my father in the land,

learning from my father to work with the land

and to work with the plants.

I live in a village that lies right at the border

between the West Bank and Israel.

We lost all of our lands that are north of the village.

So my father lost half of his plots or more

into Israel in 1948.

So that relationship of expressing the loss

and experiencing the loss of land

has been strong in our family.

My dad taught me a lot of life concepts when I was growing up.

It was a time when

we’re still under the Israeli occupation,

direct Israeli occupation

with the army stationed

at the gates of the school most of the time.

People were so fearful of Israeli army.

The colors of the flag were

reason for arrest and putting in jail,

if the combinations are found in your schoolbag

as a child.

One time,

we were beaten in the...

in the front yard of the school.

And I remember one soldier was,

while I was on my stomach,

dashing at me.

And with his steel-toe boots,

hit me on my chest.

And saying,

as he hit he said,

“Palestine my ass, huh?”

Something like that.

This kind of domination only asserted

the concept of Palestine in our mind.

It wasn’t planned that I go to the U.S.,

because my dad couldn’t afford to send me to the U.S.

But I wanted to see the world.

I wanted to bring some experience

from outside of Palestine,

that was my dream.

But it’s always been in my mind,

I want to go do something and come back.

I was fortunate to move to the U.S. in ‘85,

and there I went to college

at Wayne State University in Detroit.

And there is that cultural shock, it’s like,

I’m from Jalameh,

less than a thousand people.

This is a different world.

Two months later, I’m telling my father over the phone,

“I think I’m gonna come back.”

And my father was so proud that,

there’s no way you’re gonna come back.

Even if I can’t afford it, you’re gonna...

I remember those words, he said

“You break the wall, and go through it.”

“You don’t come back until you graduate.”

I had to work night shifts at the gas stations

and go to college during the day.

I worked in very tough neighborhoods,

lots of risks involved.

It’s a thorny field

being an unfinanced boy

in the U.S. alone.

I decided to continue until I graduate

and find my way.

...and the chicks were in his mouth.

The rooster said,

“the fox dies with its mouth open.”

The fox heard this.

One of the chicks got away.

One of the chicks got away.

The fox heard this.

And the chick...

I want them to take their studies seriously.

I want them to be independent and to work hard for it.

I was 15 when I got married,

so I left grade 9 with no idea of what life I would be leading.

I always wanted to be a teacher.

Or anything, as long as I aspired to it.

When we were newly married,

Khader was working in Israel.

We needed money.

So he went to make some money and bring it home.

As a 15-year-old girl who just left her family home,

I was alone.

That was the most difficult time of our lives.

For my first job in Israel,

I went to Netanya.

I got to the factory.

The manager told me I’d be working night shifts.

He would say if anyone knew you’re here

and you’re from the West Bank, they’ll beat and kill you.

Even speaking with my Jewish co-workers was forbidden.

Yes, I went

and I saw the racism,

but I had to work, it was more money.

They covered food, drink and accommodation.

It paid the bills.

I worked nights and stopped seeing the sun.

There were no phones, no calls.

From the factory to your room, anything else is forbidden.

I was considered a moving body.

Moving arms and that’s it.

At first I could go home every month,

then it became every month or two,

then three, four months.

Worse still, then came the intifada (uprising).

I wasn’t allowed to leave at all.

I was thinking I have a wife and family now.

There was a part of me, however small,

that was thinking: I’m working in Israel,

I need to come back and work here.

To my hills, my town.

After a long period of time,

I came home with hair this long.

When I was there, I was isolated.

I suffered from it.

I didn't salt the cheese yet.

– No worries, I'll use the other cheese.

I came back to a very difficult situation.

The second intifada was raging.

There was no freedom of movement.

Agriculture was marginalized,

olive oil was worthless,

people were abandoning the land.

In our village, very few families were working with olives.

At first we were only breaking even,

because olives were priced low.

A tank of olive oil

sold at market rate,

would not make a profit for us.

We didn’t have enough to deposit at the bank.

– Is there any tea left?

There’s tea but it’s cold.

How about you take some tomatoes?

We were just living day to day.

Just surviving the time we were in.

Everyone was badly affected.

Would you like some lentil soup?

Start eating, I’m going to serve them dawali.

– Everyone help yourselves.

Is it delicious?

Do you love it?

I have a home and responsibilities.

My family, my olive trees.

In 2006, my son Kamal graduated from high school.

He got an excellent grade,

96, 97.

He should go to medical school.

But I couldn’t afford the tuition,

not for medicine, not even for Arabic.

Traders decreased the price of olive oil to 7-8 shekels,

less than 2 dollars.

And I couldn’t even sell that!

There was a trader in the village of Kafr Ra'i,

which is next to our village.

I told him I had two tons of olive oil to sell.

He said he’d take one ton,

under one condition.

He’d buy it for 7 shekels, not 8.

And I wouldn’t get paid for three months.

“In three months,

you can come get your money.”

I told him I have a kid going to university next year,

and I need to pay his tuition.

All I have is oil.

He said if you don’t like it, don’t sell to me.

In a manner that was

arrogant.

Necessity makes you rash.

When you’re in need, you’re rash.

During those three months, I was struggling.

Each day felt like a month.

I needed money.

I have obligations, I need to live.

So I went back after three months.

He opened his log book

and said “oh, it has been three months.”

He didn’t believe me.

See how they controlled us?

How they’d pressure us.

I was raging inside.

I wanted to hit him just to give him some trouble.

But I needed him.

He wrote a check I couldn't cash for a month.

So it became four months.

We had suffered for 20, 30 years

from the monopoly of traders pricing oil dishonestly.

It was like a rock weighing down on our chests.

I finished college, and I came home

towards the end of the intifada.

And I thought,

it wasn’t right for me to come.

I could do better where I am in the U.S.

And I realized also, I’m not ready.

I was struggling with the weight

of this experience,

of this connection,

of this identity

that’s called Palestine in me.

So I decided to go back to the U.S.,

to go back to school and do anthropology.

Anthropology opened up my life,

my mind,

into human thinking.

And that helped me

to see our struggle in the human eye.

In 2003, I was doing the research

for my PhD thesis.

Moving from one village to the next

to do my interviews,

and seeing the position of the farmers

throughout the West Bank.

The talk of the farmers is that we can’t find

a venue for our olive oil.

Middlemen were exploiting the farmers,

and paying in trickles.

Farmers had to beg to sell,

had to beg to collect.

I had a friend in Madison, Wisconsin.

And he was serving something

called fair trade coffee.

And he was explaining to me

the concept of fair trade,

I was intrigued.

It became like, ok wow,

if this concept can be brought into Palestine

to help the farmers.

So in spring of 2004,

I started organizing.

I first led a series of workshops

explaining what fair trade is to the farmers.

And from these workshops, I formed collectives.

And in January of 2005,

we held the first meeting

for the Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA).

It was theory at the beginning.

And some people were suspicious if this is true.

How to make fair trade have a life

among farmers was challenging.

What do you have?

– I have beans.

– What are you holding?

Black beans.

– How many of these lines do you want to plant?

You can start from the second one.

Dad, give me one to plant.

I’ll plant one more.

I’ll plant one more, I’ll plant one more!

– This row is fully planted.

When we started in 2006,

we couldn’t believe there was something called fair trade.

I mean, we’re talking about

something beyond the imagination of a simple farmer,

man or woman.

We were called on the village mosque’s loudspeaker

so we could go to a meeting.

Nasser was wearing the hat that he wears to this day

speaking like he’s a Westerner.

We the farmers would say “foreigner.”

They wanted to buy our oil above the market price.

They wanted to certify our land

to see that it’s all natural.

They want us to grow more plants,

to market abroad.

The marketer will come to you.

The buyers themselves will come to you.

We thought they were tricking us.

All of this was a pipe dream.

Days have passed and come again.

We said, what do we want?

We want something to give us a push forward.

It was my opportunity to prove myself in this field.

There were several meetings in my town

where people from the cooperative came.

In the beginning, I was hesitant.

Because I told myself, I would be a woman between 50 guys.

At the time they were 50 guys.

But the truth is, I am very comfortable.

It is a trade, but this trade is fair for the farmers.

It treats all equally.

And from an economic perspective,

for sure there is 100% change.

After we joined the association,

we were able to buy some land.

And then we bought some more.

Our land is our life.

They set up a women’s cooperative.

When I harvest and sell thyme,

that money is mine.

It means I am productive. I can help my husband.

Now there is more freedom,

and openness.

We are more open-minded

since joining the cooperative.

– Will every blossom become an olive?

No, this olive is male and female.

Half of the blossoms are male and half are female.

So I only count on half of these blossoms.

How did I feel when they accepted me into the PFTA?

It’s like when someone is drowning in the sea,

and someone comes to rescue him.

He feels he’s got a new lease on life.

He can breathe.

Something new happened,

there was a breakthrough!

It was like someone pulled me out of the sea,

and life began anew.

I started thinking about how to expand my field.

Figs, prickle pears, almonds.

I need to have a well-rounded field.

I was able to take better care of my kids,

and send them to university.

I began to live a decent life.

The true fair trade philosophy, done right.

Done right!

With the right practices in the field,

now I’m a friend to the land,

to the environment,

to animals,

and to the birds living in the field.

Our brothers, farmers...

I advise not to plow under the olive tree

late in the year.

At the beginning of the year, you can plow.

– What is the alternative then?

The alternative is to clean up the grass by hand

because plowing does more harm

than if you were to do it by hand.

When there’s not enough rain,

we need to prune the tree.

And if natural manure is available, that would be better.

Natural manure, organic, is much better.

And its effects last for more than one year.

Canaan and the PFTA don’t allow us to use chemicals

because in reality, they harm the environment.

There are some herbs and flowers that don’t grow anymore in Palestine,

because of the use of these herbicides.

And the quality of olive oil goes down.

All these instructions are from the Canaan company,

they want olives that are organic and 100% pure,

didn’t just come out of nowhere.

It came from experimentation.

– From studies.

It came from experiments on a specific farm,

and they followed through with these experiments,

and these experiments were done

both abroad and here at home.

The wood that you’re pruning from the olive tree,

what are you doing with it?

Why don’t we buy a machine that chops it up,

and it becomes compost?

With cooperation, anything is possible.

A machine can work for a whole village.

Everyone, please!

I am pleased to welcome you all to Canaan,

to the land of Canaan in Burqin.

Our company Canaan

works with around 2,400 Palestinian families

from 54 Palestinian villages.

Through our olive oil,

we introduce Palestinian farmers to the world.

We now have the opportunity to share with the world

our products more and wider.

We thank our brothers who organized this tour,

so thanks for visiting.

You can make for the kids like this.

The beginning of the olive harvest

has an amazing feeling and appeal.

The light changes in the fall,

that’s an experience in itself for me.

When the olive harvest season arrives,

I feel like I’m being rewarded for my hard work.

I took care of the land,

and the land gave to me from her wealth.

During olive harvest season,

whoever finishes first helps others.

Helps their neighbors, their family.

And you’re happy being surrounded by everyone else.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

It’s a feeling that we have.

A natural connection between

a land, food, our cultural history.

We connect the fresh olive oil

to homeland,

to good times,

to family.

They have a special taste

when they’re under the olive trees.

In the harvest season,

the trees tell me,

Abu Kamal, whatever you need.

I want to give you oil!

I want to give you money!

Have a good life so you keep coming back to me!

Where is Abu Kamal?

Welcome, welcome, welcome!

May God give you health!

I know you know the way.

Yes, I know the road well.

– How many times did you come here? – So many.

Welcome.

We picked some oranges and pomegranate for you.

– This should be on us, Doctor. – Don’t worry about it.

My family went home just a few minutes ago.

They took home 350 kg of olives.

350 kilos a day? That's awesome.

These olives are pampered, Abu Kamal.

When I come to the olive trees when they’re full of olives,

if somebody saw, they would laugh at me, Doctor.

I kiss the olives and the tree.

I would walk into the olive tree and start kissing her.

Jarou’a (harvest festival) is not happening this year, right?

It's hard because of the situation.

- Currently, there is no option. - Exactly.

The situation is not stable.

But things seem to be calming down, Doctor.

No guarantee.

Yesterday they said they are calming things down, and they shot three.

In Nablus, they removed two roadblocks yesterday.

It does not work.

Come on, let’s go to the well.

You should come here in the spring, when it’s thyme season.

This mountain becomes full of thyme.

Is the market increasing this year?

God willing, we are working on it.

We hope to have something new.

I hope so.

It’s sweet.

Yes, it's the best time for clementine.

The most beautiful thing you have here is the calm.

This calmness...

when I come here in the morning, I feel so happy.

– I should have brought a hat like yours and Abu Kamal's.

Yeah.

Like each other.

You feel left out.

Olive harvest without a hat doesn’t work because you’re working through mid-day.

Yeah man, olive harvest without a hat does not work!

The moon has set, my cousin.

Come on, take me home...

The Palestinian olive harvest is a celebratory tradition,

it goes back hundreds of years.

Today the annual harvest is risky.

Palestinian farmers across this area

are facing heightened risks because of access restrictions

and also widespread settler attacks,

severely undermining their livelihoods.

Rights groups say since the beginning of the harvest,

armed Israeli settlers have assaulted Palestinian farmers,

cut down trees, and set fire to olive groves.

The United Nations documented a large increase in Israeli attacks

and restrictions against olive harvesters this year.

Income last year was well down,

and they fear that this season will be even worse.

Still, like every year,

the olive harvest goes on.

Do you want to separate them?

– All together.

It looks like he doesn’t have enough workers this year, correct?

– There are none!

Forget about them, they all went to Israel.

When they want to obstruct the farmers,

they would give a specific time frame.

Meaning, from this time to this time,

that’s your only chance to go to the olive trees.

They would have the roads dug up.

From early morning, they ambush them in the middle of the road.

And they stand them up and trap them for two hours.

Now we take any possible path to reach our land.

Our village is far from the wall.

When I want to go help my sisters pick olives,

we need to get permission first.

And you need to keep your hand on your heart

not knowing if someone’s going to attack you,

whether it’s the Israeli forces or the settlers.

You run away from one,

and the other comes after you.

How much do you carry?

– A box and a half.

Do you want to provide all the oil to Canaan?

– Yeah, yeah. – Do you want to keep any?

No. I have enough oil to last until next season.

Abu Hashish, you get the best seat in the house.

The olive tree is like hope.

The hope of the son,

the hope of the young, the hope of the old.

It’s the whole life of everyone here.

For me, give me olive oil,

I can live.

I’ve sold my olive oil and made money.

I’ve benefited.

But the community around me has to

benefit from me.

All our revenue is used to serve our village.

God has fed me,

and I want to feed others with what I’ve been fed.

This is my purpose in life.

Slow down, slow down!

When I hear people from other countries

are tasting our olive oil,

I feel really good.

I love the fresh oil as soon as it comes from the press.

From the tree to the stone to the stomach, it's done!

Pass to taste.

Are these all full here?

– This row all the way to the end are full.

These are the samples that we take to Jordan.

And we'll document the flavor descriptions

when a client requests this profile.

There's pepperness but...

– Yes, there's bitterness.

...but light pungency.

– There's normal pepperness. It's reasonable.

Yes, it's reasonable.

Look, bitterness and pungency is normal.

May God give you health.

In many ways,

Palestinians have been denied a space in the world.

We are finding a way to belong to the world

through this project.

My father was a pioneer.

In 1942,

he was the first person to bring

the tractors to the meadow.

By 1948, he was

bringing his brand new tractor from the United States.

And while he’s bringing it to Jalameh,

the meadow was being taken away from him.

When we lost the land,

behind the fence,

he paid attention, he started

digging for water.

In the 1960s,

a whole array of

citrus and guava orchards filled the town

and started life again.

But it was short-lived.

‘67, we got an occupation.

By control of water,

farmers started not having enough

water for these citrus groves,

and uprooted them by the early ‘80s.

And that,

between 1940 until the ‘80s...

consumed much of his life,

but certainly not his legacy.

May God have mercy on you, father.

There is a letter that my father sent me

when I left from Palestine.

He closed it by saying:

“And I don’t have to repeat

what you already know,

is to stay true to your homeland,

true to your community, to your people,

and true to your family.”

And so,

in a way he tells me, live your life

the way you wish, the way you want,

go to America,

because he wasn’t sure I should go to America.

Be whatever you want to be.

Just...

stay committed to the land,

and to the people.

It shouldn’t be hard to do.

But,

every Palestinian is a carrier.

A carrier of a big burden

that’s called Palestine.

That...

we cannot shed,

but it’s a...

it’s a huge load on all of our shoulders.

We cherish the land.

We cherish our cultural...

heritage in this land.

And that’s who we are.

Yet,

I’ve lived moments

where I have to calculate when I say ‘Palestine’.

I have to calculate when I say ‘Palestinian’.

I have to calculate

when I express my passion

to what Palestine is.

As long as that lives in you,

there is a challenge.

To forget it, you just cannot,

it’s your cultural heritage, it’s your sense of identity.

But still there is a challenge to have it,

to live it,

and to have it be lived in you.

So this is really the Palestinian story.

We are born today, we are born 50 years ago,

but we have a cultural heritage that

spans over 5,000 to 10,000 years.

Who is the Palestinian farmer?

What do they endure?

It’s an economic war.

It’s a message from the occupation:

give up on your land.

But they can’t make us.

And despite all the struggles,

and despite all the problems,

and despite all this oppression,

and the killings,

and the destruction that happens to people’s lives,

and the trees they cut down,

we are steadfast.

We’ll keep planting olive trees.

They cut down 10 trees,

we plant a thousand!

They cut down 10 olive trees,

we plant a thousand.

And at the Palestinian Fair Trade Associaton,

we run the Trees for Life program.

Every year, we distribute nearly 30,000 olive trees to farmers

who have been affected,

and to those who want to start planting.

Son! Let’s go back to work.

Trees for Life were granted to all farmers,

especially to those whose land is targeted by the occupation.

This has become our life.

I mean, the program’s called Trees For Life, but it is life.

Because when you give a tree, it means life.

Welcome everyone,

thank you again for coming.

Jarou’a Mubarek as with every year!

Welcome everyone.

I swear, seeing you all here, with these olive trees,

brings me comfort and soothes my soul.

We’ll fight for all we’ve got

for the olives of my homeland and the heritage of my forefathers.

Because you all are like the olives, our greatest assets.

In this gathering, we renew our commitment to our land and trees.

They were fairly large trees.

They started to produce like I had never seen.

– Look, Faisal, you can’t challenge me.

– He who plants his olives, takes first and second place.

– Believe me, I plant them and uproot them, you can’t be trusted.

– God willing, we will plant the figs and renew the crop.

– Let your eyes water in tears if you step into this battlefield!

– By God, be warned of kneeling down, careful not to challenge me!

In spite of all the conflicts, here we are.

Working together in the land,

harvesting together,

and then celebrating together.

Why do Khader and I work?

We don’t work for ourselves.

It’s all for our children and their future.

What do they want to become?

Do you want to go?

You want to ride?

Wait until your siblings arrive.

Where will we build their homes? Where do they want to live?

This is the future we’re thinking about.

Clap your hands!

Now wave at them.

No, kid, sit down.

– He’s just like you.

Keep holding on.

Someone asked me a question,

he said: what have you done for your country?

I committed myself to farming

and planting a tree, even if it’s just one.

We make roots in the land.

I believe that a tree has a soul.

A stone has a soul,

a plant has a soul, a seed has a soul.

When the air is all the same air,

and the sky is the same sky,

and we all share the same sun,

then what does it matter if you’re Jewish, Muslim or Christian?

I see a lot of peace here

in the way people are living.

Yes there are a lot of political challenges,

but nature has its course.

Nature is more powerful.

I see the power of our ecosystem.

The power of us,

when we are in harmony with nature.

Our ancestors taught us how to take care of our land.

It’s passed on from generation to generation.

We say:

“They planted so we ate,

“They planted so we ate, we plant so they will eat.”

They planted so we ate,

we plant so they will eat.

Because our ancestors planted

and we ate from their planting,

we must plant

so that our children and their children can eat

from our trees.

So this is what we leave,

a living thing.

It’s land.

It’s life-giving trees that will continue.

This is our contribution to the world.

Our contribution to the human community.