The Olive Trees
How the Israeli occupation controls the industry
Each and every year Palestinians experience the hardships of Israel’s prolonged military occupation. The military occupation cuts into the hopes and dreams of every aspect of Palestinian life, from pursuing an education to building a home, or just having basic needs such as electricity and water.
Some of the biggest effects can be seen on the olive tree industry. Olive trees can live up to thousands of years and survive harsh conditions, naturally making the tree a symbol of resistance for the Palestinian people to remain in their homeland. The olive oil industry makes up 25% of agricultural income for the occupied Palestinian territories and supports the livelihoods of approximately 100,000 families. The value added of the associated olive oil industry reaches an average of USD 5.4 million per year. Additionally, Olive trees also account for 70% of fruit production in Palestine, and contribute around 14% to the Palestinian economy.
As the Israeli government builds the Separation Barrier in the West Bank, the result is the uprooting of thousands of olive trees. The Israeli policy of uprooting trees has been executed for a number of reasons, including the construction of Israeli settlements, the construction of the separation wall, and settlements infrastructure; all of which exclusively benefits the settler population.
Hundreds of Palestinian communities have land located behind the wall of separation built by the Israeli government in the West Bank. To access this land, Palestinians are required to have special permits, which often only allow for a couple of weeks each year. This results in farmers not being able to prune their trees or to fully harvest the land. The consequence is that the profitability of the olive trees is greatly reduced, leaving the farmers to struggle.
The situation gets even worse when you add in the problem of settler attacks. Farmers live in constant worry about attacks from Israeli settlers; thousands of olive trees are set on fire, uprooted, stolen, bulldozed, or chopped down each year. Overall, around 2.5 million trees, one-third of which are olive trees, are believed to have been uprooted since 1967. Estimating the average annual productivity of an olive tree to be 70 kilos, and the price of olive seeds 1.103 USD/Kilo, Applied Research Institute Jerusalem estimates that the Palestinian economy has lost about 55,133,602 USD since 1967 to 2009.
Palestinian imports and exports are under the authority of the Israeli Institute for Standards. Therefore, restrictions placed on Palestinian imports by Israel are common, in order to protect Israeli companies. While this impacts the olive industry directly, Israel’s economic model also shapes the olive industry pricing artificially. Israel creates a monopoly by forcing Palestinians to buy Israeli gas, when importing gas from Jordan or Saudi Arabia would cut the cost by nearly half, for example.
This paradigm of controlling the Palestinian economy continues to reflect how the Israeli military manages Area C, an administrative division of the West Bank, set out in the Oslo II Accord. The Palestinian Authority lacks any control over borders between Israel and Area C regions of the West Bank. Value Added Tax collected on goods that are imported from Israel coming through Area C is completely based off the self-declaration by the importer, again leading to an incomplete collection of Value Added Tax. Because the Palestinian Authority is not allowed control over these Israeli-specified portions of their own land West Bank, The Ministry of Finance estimates that this loss of VAT costs around 15% of the VAT revenues from imports from Israel, equivalent to NIS 296 million, or USD 85.4 million per year.
Taxes on Palestinian imports that are coming in from any country other than Israel are based on the declaration of value from the importer, which more often than not is an under-estimation of the true value of the goods. On everything but secondhand car imports, Israeli restrictions make it impossible for Palestinian customs to double-check the actual value of imported goods, resulting in significantly lower collection of tax revenue from imports than if Palestine was a sovereign state. Preliminary estimates from the Ministry of Finance suggest that the revenues lost through this channel are about 10% of the total customs taxes. As in 2010 these taxes totaled NIS 3.73 billion, therefore it is expected that around NIS 370 million, or USD 106.6 million, in import taxes is lost annually due to the occupation.
For Palestinians to enjoy the full potential of their olive trees, Holy Land Trust has created a model of engagement, specifically centered around international educational tours and direct support for local Palestinian farmers.
As we move forward with advocacy and direct nonviolent interventions, we ask for you to join us. Register here for the olive harvest.
