By the end of March 2009 the Olive Tree Campaign (OTC) finished its seventh planting season. With this the Joint Advocacy Initiative (JAI) fulfilled its primary objective of planting and replanting 50,000 olive trees in places where olive trees were uprooted by the Israeli military occupation, nearby Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, near by or on the path of the Israeli Apartheid Wall, fields that are threatened to be confiscated by the occupation, and fields where planting is needed. This objective was the basis on which the OTC was launched back in 2002.
Throughout seven seasons, the OTC reached out to individuals and partner YMCAs, YWCAs, churches, church related organizations, NGOs and most of all activists and individuals who found the campaign an excellent tool to become personally engaged in the Palestinian struggle for justice. The campaign has also raised awareness about the injustices and atrocities committed against Palestinians in the Holy Land. In addition the campaign has helped to break down stereotypes about the Palestinians. Over the past seven years, the OTC has helped bringing hope not only to the Palestinians who are struggle to keep their property, land, trees, shelters and so on, but also brought hope to people around the world that change is possible, and one person can actually make a difference.
This planting season took place in a political and natural environment that put the campaign in real danger, to the point where planting could have been postponed for a year or more. A lack of rain was the major natural threat. Palestine has faced an unusual dry winter. According to the Palestine Water Authority, the country received only 30% of the average rainfall until the end of January 2009 (the peak of the rainy season). Luckily, the month of February brought enough rain to allow the planting season to go forward. The fact that there was not enough rain water during the past winter also puts the Palestinians at serious risk for the rest of the year, knowing that the Israelis who are already in control of nearly all the water resources, will be also in control of how much the Palestinians will be allowed to drink their own water.
The political environment was also another major obstacle, especially for the planting season in Gaza. For the second year, the OTC could not plant a single tree in the Gaza strip, as the Israeli aggression has showed the ugliest and most inhuman face since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Twenty-three days of continuous massacres, bombardment, destruction committed against every one of the 1.6 million Palestinians living in that tiny enclave on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Palestinians in Gaza were already under an inhuman siege, denying them the basic rights of access to food, water, security, health care, and education. This was the most recent and most deadly Israeli attack in a continuous series since Israel redeployed from inside Gaza to around it.
In West Bank, there has been continuous construction of the Apartheid wall and further confiscation of land to continue building the infrastructure of the occupation. Land and property have also been confiscated for expansion of settlements, military bases, bypass roads. This is added to already existing restrictions on lands that has not yet been confiscated. Palestinians face limitations on building shelter, access, installing water collection systems, using agriculture machinery, and developing fields, among other areas.
Also during this plating season, Israeli settler violence has been accelerating. Settlers’ attacks were reported in many locations throughout the West Bank. It is expected in the year 2009 that the settler population of the occupied Palestine will exceed half a million.
The Planting Process
The planting process began relatively late this year for lack of rainwater. On 7 February 2009 the campaign delivered 1520 sponsored trees to 23 farmers in the Bethlehem area. The distribution of trees went on until the end of March 2009 where the total number of farmers benefitting from the campaign was 130 and the number of trees planted was 9650. The fields are located in 28 communities in five districts throughout the occupied West Bank. The planting in Bethlehem was focused mostly in the western side of the district (12 communities out of 17) where there are 10 Israeli settlements and 17 settler outposts. The western side of Bethlehem has the most fertile land and is being separated from the city of Bethlehem by the construction of the Israeli Apartheid Wall, which in many cases separates farmers and landowners from their land, particularly in the town of Al Khader.
The Olive Planting Program 2009
The second annual olive planting program took place between the seventh and sixteenth of February 2009. Thirty-nine participants from Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK, US and volunteers and staff from the JAI and Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) came together to be part of this event.
During the program, the participants managed to plant more than 1200 olive trees provided by the Campaign through its various sponsors from all over the world. The planting took place in four different locations on the Western side of Bethlehem, each and every field with its own story and struggles against the oppressive and discriminatory measures of the Israeli occupation. The trees were planted in Al Walajeh, Husan, Al Khader and two fields in the small village of Jab’a.
The program provided a balance between olive planting, sight-seeing in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hebron and Ramallah as well as lectures by several active campaigns and organizations like the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, The Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ), The East Jerusalem YMCA, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, Defense for Children International, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Right to Education Campaign
to get to learn more about some different aspects of Palestinian life under the Israeli Military Occupation. Also the participants took part in an advocacy workshop to encourage them in passing on the experience they went through forward and be personally involved.
The outcome of this program had been greater than expected, thanks to the commitment, patience, openness to each and every person who was involved in the program, especially those who were driven by different motivations to travel all the way to the West Bank to take part in this eye-opening experience.
The ATG and The JAI will continue to carry out this event every February for years to come. As well as continue to implement the annual olive picking program every October.
Many sponsors friends, participants from several countries wrote letters to Israeli officials in their countries seeking explanation for why the Israeli military uprooted and stole the trees from that field. You are encouraged to continue sending letters seeking explanation and response from Israeli representatives in your country as well as your country representatives in Israel.
Olive Tree Campaign Sponsors
The OTC has been working on supporting initiatives around the world in order to recruit more sponsors. The target of the campaign in this sense is to enroll at least 350 new sponsors every year between 2007 and 2010. Sponsors of the campaign have received certificates throughout the year either directly from the campaign here in Palestine or from our partners around the world. The increasing number of sponsors is a good sign for the campaign and its future. We are working to mobilize as many people as possible, members of YMCAs, YWCAs, churches, and activists, not only to be aware but also involved in Keeping Hope Alive in Palestine. With this goal in mind, we are focusing on building coalitions with partner organizations and individuals who use the campaign to recruit new people for the mission of Keeping Hope Alive. The campaign tries to make as many resources as possible available to people who see a chance for activism related to Palestine through the campaign’s work and massage. These resources include brochures in several languages, posters, and other materials. The campaign also sends out bimonthly calls to its members and partners and a newsletter.
The Campaign’s Growth
This year the Campaign sought to achieve its primary objective that was set when JAI launched it back in 2002: to plant and replant 50,000 sponsored olive trees in places where olive trees were uprooted by the Israeli Military Occupation, nearby Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, near by or on the path of the Israeli Apartheid Wall, fields that are threatened to be confiscated by the Israeli Military Occupation, or fields where planting is needed. The total number of trees planted throughout the past seven seasons has now exceeded this goal at 50,729 sponsored olive trees. This would not have happened without the serious commitment of partners, friends and supporters who found ways to advocate for peace with justice in Palestine through the OTC. We look on improving ourselves as well as our outreach to various partners around the world to continue our advocacy work for the coming years.
The OTC benefits numerous people on the ground in Palestine and throughout the world. Among these are:
1- Sponsors of olive trees, friends and partners of the JAI, as they continue to become involved and be part of a growing number of people around the world advocating for peace with justice in the Holy Land.
2- Participants of the olive planting program during the season.
3- The JAI, through the increase of its local and international network of friends, partners, sponsors and beneficiaries.
4- The global YMCA and YWCA, as the campaign is considered to be a direct tool to renew the movement’s commitment to peace with justice.
5- The 130 farmers and landowners are considered to have benefited directly from the actual planting, as well as the communication through the campaign of their life stories under ongoing occupation. The campaign continues to focus mainly on farmers whose land and life is affected directly by the military occupation in its various modes of oppression.
6- Laborers, transportation workers, fieldworkers and many individuals who took part in providing the campaign’s services during the planting season
7- The olive tree nurseries as where the trees where purchased from, mainly the Olive Tree Cooperative where agriculture pipes purchased as well as trees and other items.
8- The communities where the planting took place. The Olive Tree Campaign managed to plant trees in 28 communities throughout the West Bank. The lands of these communities are located near settlements, on the other side of the Apartheid Wall, threatened with confiscated by military orders and other kinds of orders. We believe that these communities benefit from the campaign as it provides trees for their lands as well as highlighting the kind of oppression and injustice the live through in daily bases.
Challenges and Risks
The OTC continues to work in an unstable political environment that continues to worsen over the years, which makes it hard to predict the future. The major difficulties and challenges we faced this year can be summed up in the following:
1- The climate: the Campaign had to work through the driest winter in its seven years of operating, putting this seventh planting season at real risk. Due to this the campaign started the planting only after the first week of February 2009, and had to work as quickly as it was possible to finish during the time that Palestine received rain, which was until end of March 2009.
2- Israeli war crimes in Gaza: The olive tree campaign did not plant any trees in Gaza for the second year. This is still happening due to the merciless blockade enforced on Gaza by the Israeli military occupation, which still considers Gaza as a “Hostile entity” where nothing is allowed to get to the Palestinian population there without the approval of Israel. Gaza remains the major target of Israel’s common policy of collective punishment of the Palestinians.
3- Israel’s total annexation of Jerusalem, which resulted in focusing planting only on the outskirts of Jerusalem rather than inside it.
4- The high demand for olive trees from the targeted locations in the West Bank is still a major challenge for the campaign. The increase of the campaign’s local services drives many farmers and landowners who are in need for their land to be planted and their stories to be shared to approach the campaign. The campaign is simply unable to meet the needs of every potential beneficiary. The campaign keeps records of all farmers whose land meets our criteria for future seasons.
5- The Israeli military’s general conduct in the West Bank which includes, restrictions of movement, water cuts, preventing planting, destruction of agricultural paths and access roads, backing settler vandalism, and all common behavior of Israeli occupation in controlling Palestinians lives and property in the West Bank.
29/9/09 have Holiday in Drammen
ere 80 participant and meet the group and introduce our self to them and meet in hall room and have good serves with coffee and cake in second day they gave us 45 minuet to do something so Tania from Kenya she present about YMCA in Kenya and Ghaida talk about Siraj the aims to create links between Palestinian people and people from around the globe through educational tourism, interfaith and ecumenical dialogue, and culture and youth exchange programs and show a film about Siraj work and I present about olive tree camping and the aim of The Olive Tree Campaign seeks to replant trees in areas where they have been uprooted and destroyed or in areas where the fields are threatened to be confiscated by the Israeli Occupation Army and settlers, in afternoon the weather was good and sunny so we going to play football and it was nice for me to join them and had great time and we talk to about how to conduct the youth in programz and after dinner they make competition games for all the group and the last things for the day make a prayer event
ortherly cathedral in the world it is the Norwegain national sanctuary and the laregest church in Scandinaiva. Building began in 1070 over the tomp of Saint Olav. King Olav Haraldsson was buried by Nidelven, the river Nid, after he was killed in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Tradition has it that the high Altar of the Cathedral now stands on the exact spot of this burial site. One year and five days after he died the King was declared a saint, and pilgrims began to flock to Nidaros and the King’s grave.
where the weather was rainy Upon arrival to the area it’s called Ludvik will have a training there were two people waiting us in the large courtyard and through the shed has been divided students which was the 23 into groups so that each group will go and hanging and camping in the rainy and cold weather and the Language was a Norwegian not English so its hard for me to understand what they says but some time they translate to me in English so I can understand and after that they make a roles for the participant not using the phone and not allowed to know what the time is and we spend maybe 2 hours under the rain and after that the group start moving to camping in out door and me and other friends we home in Souassli aria to have some warm and to dry our clothes.
On the morning of Friday, was I would go with a group of people working with the Red Cross and go to one of the Highlands to teach students to break down barriers of fear and leadership, where I learned how to bind the ropes as we spend hours waiting for groups to train their descent from the highlands and after this they preparation to give the student a first aid training and coz of the bad weather coz it was raining all the time and not allow to do the first aid course 
Frist i wana say ohhhh i miss the day i was with my friends in :FK Fredskorpset first course one week of classes, workshops and exercises 
i went to 
VAR FRUE KIRKE The oldest part of this distinctive church – The Church of Our Lady – was erected in the 12th century. The victim of many fires, it was restored in 1739, but parts of the thick, solid walls of the Church are obviously much older.
Shbanato 