Israeli and Palestinian Farmers Unite Over Olive Oil – Can an Agricultural Project Really Overcome Years of Bitter Tribalism? | GOOD Magazine

Israeli and Palestinian Farmers Unite Over Olive Oil – Can an Agricultural Project Really Overcome Years of Bitter Tribalism? | GOOD Magazine

“There is no real border between Israel and Palestine,” says Muhammad Hamudi, an olive farmer and olive oil producer from Asira al-Shamaliya, near Nablus in the West Bank. He has been working with the ongoing USAID-funded project Olive Oil Without Borders (OOWB) since its inception in 2011. Hamudi is in his mid-50s, with smiling eyes and palms so big an olive looks miniscule in them. “Today the border is here, tomorrow it will be there. The olive oil market has no borders as well. The bridge to the global market is the same bridge for everyone.”