News From Within December 1993

New Agenda for NGOs

Support for the Struggle for Palestinian Economic Independence

Shraga Elam

Shraga Elam, describes himself as a press-documentalist working at the largest commercialdocumentation center in Switzerland, where he has ready access to information from all over theworld in various areas, ranging from petroleum marketing to medicine. Having this access was veryhelpful to him in establishing and developing the olive oil project (described below), which can serveas a model for other solidarity organizations seeking production projects through which to supportthe Palestinian economy on a grass-roots level. The realignment of European and North Americannon-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the support of such projects would be a fittingmanner in which to continue the pursuit of their objective of struggling against the Israeli occupation,i.e. her economic occupation in the new era inaugurated by the Agreement:

The agreement between the PLO leadership and the Israeli government is without doubt anexpression of a new reality. With it, the economic aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflictbecome clearer than ever. This aspect must now be given higher priority. Instead ofconcentrating exclusively on the political, military, social, and human rights aspects of theconflict, the economic aspect should fina1ly receive the attention it deserves.Everyone concerned about the right of the Palestinians to independence and freedom, everyoneconcerned that there should be a just peace in this region, should be aware of the various dangersinherent in the new situation, while at the same time focusing on developing methods and ways toavert, avoid, and fight them. This requires more than just subjective emotional reactions ordemonstrations.Looking at the economic side of the new developments we can see a classical neo-imperialisticprocess going on. Instead of direct physical control over the colonized people, the tendency is towardsa remote control mode, in which the Israelis, in this case, simply leave the dirty work to thePalestinians, while continuing Moshe Dayan's old political line and "carrot and stick" approach withsome modifications.

But, and this is an important BUT, there are also opportunities to take advantage of the new situationin a positive way. For the first time there is readiness in the western world to do something for thedevelopment of the Palestinian economy. There is a unique, and most probably one time only,willingness to give financial support for this endeavor, which should be taken into consideration.The direct implications of this situation are that it is not sufficient just to expose the neo-imperialisticcharacter of the carrot and stick policy, but most of the energy available should be used to channel asmuch as possible of these newly available financial resources into endeavors which have the goal ofreal independent development. The main criterion in choosing what projects to support should be thatthey have existing means of production from the start. Our efforts should be directed towardsoptimizing methods of production9 i.e., using means of production better than they are currently beingused and modifying them to suit the new situation and context. This means taking advantage of allexisting but unexploited opportunities for production and marketing. In some cases it means revivingtraditional methods of production (such as pressing olives on the day of picking and organic farmingmethods) which have been abandoned or neglected for a generation or more for various reasons, andintegrating them with the modern practices currently in use.The main point is to actually develop a viable Palestinian production sector as soon as possible.Infrastructure should be developed to suit that sector and not the other way around. It is very

important not to let wishful thinking override cool analysis. Such dreams as "the Singapore ofthe Middle East" are more dangerous than useful.These may seem to be purely abstract considerations. But their application can be demon-strated by the example of the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees' (UAWC)Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Pilot-Project. This project, started two years ago, has proven that withhardly any financial or human resources a very concrete solution could be found for problemswhich other organizations had been seeking to solve for years, investing large sums of moneywithout having found anything useful.These problems were: why is it not possible to export Palestinian olive oil to westerncountries and to profit from the boom there, thus compensating for the loss of former marketsin the Gulf states since the Gulf War; what are the ways and means of raising the productivityof Palestinian olive trees, and of circumventing the biennial/cyclical nature of oliveproduction, whereby olives are produced on a commercially-profitable scale only everysecond year.The answers to these questions are of crucial importance, because olive production accounts for about13% of the GNP of the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and is therefore their most-importanteconomic sector. These answers turned out to be less complicated and elaborate than one might haveexpected.A very simple comparison with Italian production methods showed us that it is possible to solve allthese problems without huge investments, but rather through reviving "lost" knowledge and with asmall amount of transfer of know-how from Italy. What the project needed mainly to do in order toprofit from lucrative existing and potential markets in Western Europe and North America was torevive the old Palestinian saying. "from the tree to the stone." By picking the olives before they arecompletely ripe and pressing them on the same day, preferably in traditional Palestinian olive-pressesrather than the fully automatic Italian machines, one can produce a very high quality oil. This hasbeen clearly proven in the context of the pilot-project. and the oil thus produced is now experiencing

great success in Switzerland, where the first trial marketing is currently taking place (See below for

further details).Increasing olive production also requires neither magic nor complicated research. A rela-tively small amount of money (compared to the quantities flying around in other projects) canachieve this. A recent short visit by an Italian olive farmer with practical experience in this,Nicola di Capua, brought to light very simple and obvious facts, which all of the academicexperts somehow had overlooked. The olive trees in the West Bank are neglected andtherefore in very bad condition. The situation is rather catastrophic. the trees and earth areUNDERNOURISHED, there is a real FAMINE! In addition, most of the trees are notproperly primed. In Mr. di Capua's estimation, if nothing is done for the trees, they will stopproducing within twenty years. If, on the other hand, his simple recommendations arefollowed as soon as possible (preferably by spring 1994), there is not only a chance ofsalvaging olive production, but of increasing it dramatically.This would result in yields that are high enough to be commercially profitable even in "off"years, and should also reduce magnitude of fluctuation in yield size from one year to the next(Of course this salvage action and revitalization campaign needs financial and technical support).

The solution which we propose is not the industrialization of agriculture, but the other wayround, the "agrarianization" of the industry. This applies, not only to the production of oliveoil, but to the processing of picked olives. According to our research there is a very largemarket in the western countries for "home-made" products like pickled olives produced

without the use of chemicals and artificial preservatives, while on the other hand, the marketfor industrially-produced olives is saturated. Organically-grown produce in general is much indemand, and this clientele is also more sensitive than the general public to concepts like "fair

trade," which are very important to a developing economy. There is no need to mention the othersocial, political, and ecological advantages of this mode of production.

In producing pickled olives, there is also the opportunity of employing traditional Palestinianknowledge, held mainly by the women, to increase the producer's own independence -especially if the women organize themselves and work cooperatively.

The importance of grass roots organizations in initiating and developing such projects is great.

Once the creative and active process is begun, it may be expected to spread widely, because weare speaking here of pilot or model projects which may easily be copied and expanded. The

greater the number of people actively involved in such projects, the easier they are to realize.

The Palestine Construction Project (PAP)A model project

PAP was founded in June of this year by myself and several friends, most of them anti-Zionist Jews, with the primary objective of helping and promoting the development of grass-roots Palestinian production projects.After the second Gulf War of Jan-Feb 1991, I began to realize the importance of economicwarfare. After many years of political activity and work for the liberation of the peoples ofthe Middle East, I realized what a fatal mistake it was to neglect this field, while the Zionistsand their supporters are working very hard in this area. Even a very superficial study of theZionist movement must result in the conclusion that an important part of its political successwas due to its ability to build an economic infrastructure before achieving statehood. ForeignJewish capital was supporting socialist Zionist projects like the Kibbutz movement, becauseof the realization that purely profit-oriented, capitalistic projects would not help achieveZionism's national goals. I realized that there was a lesson here for anybody who cares aboutfreedom and independence for the Palestinian people. Through my acquaintance with theIsraeli system I knew of many loopholes which might be taken advantage of, and I also hadthe feeling that not every available opportunity was really being exploited. Having realizedthat the Palestinians are not only the political but also and perhaps even mainly the economicvictims of this war, I started to move the discussion and political activity in Switzerland andGermany in this direction. My main focus was on developing projects for the export ofPalestinian products to Western Europe and North America, and in this way giving concretehelp to the Palestinian people, while on the other hand making international solidarity workmuch more concrete as well. That means really working towards independence and freedomand not just supporting humanistic and charitable projects in the apolitical human rightssector, or concentrating only on building a welfare system (some kind of alternative toUNRWA). Without the construction of an independent economy, it was clear to me thatevery other struggle was going to be very hard.But it was difficult to convince the people supporting the Palestinian struggle to change theirmode of operation. Palestinians living in Europe also opposed this approach, saying that firstof all there must be political liberation, and only after-wards will come economicdevelopment. Others also were not ready to change their way of thinking and operating. Theywere not ready to realize that the "pure" fight for human rights has failed. People all over theworld are pretty well informed about the situation in Palestine, but nobody really cares orsees a way to change this situation. So resignation is growing, and it will not simply dissolvein the face of more information. My expectation was and still is, that getting Palestinianproducts over to Europe would not only be a form of economic support for the Palestinians, itwould also give our political activities on their behalf a new push.

The Olive ProjectUtilizing the access to information that I have in my job, I was able to get material about thedifficulties facing Palestinians from the territories occupied in 1967 in exporting their

products. Most of them had to do with so called Israeli security control. Therefore I waslooking for Palestinian products which were not overly perishable. From there the way toolive oil was very short. I found material attributing problems of exporting Palestinian oliveoil to Europe to its taste. I was able to utilize the resources of the documentation center whereI work to compare olive oil production methods in Palestine and Italy. This provided thebeginnings of the answer which was very simple. As mentioned above, the Italians press theirolives, while still unripe, the same day they are picked. Study of the world market hasrevealed a real potential for constant growth.I tried to convince various Palestinian organizations of this idea, but only the UAWC wasflexible, open, and courageous enough to embark upon this adventure. Then professional helpand some slight interest in marketing the product in Switzerland came along, and the wholething started to roll.The activities are mainly in three different interrelated directions: fundraising, marketing, andrecruiting technical support. For these purposes we sometimes use the press, but the mainfield of activity is personal contacts with people from different organizations like NGOs,political parties, and people who are members of parliament or involved in the Palestinesolidarity movement.For marketing, we have concentrated our contacts up to now on a commercial network for thedistribution and sale of third-world products, as the quantities we were dealing with were toosmall to try something bigger. On the technical level we are constantly trying to gather moreinformation and to build contacts, mainly with Italian experts.

Problems and Future ProspectsThe main problem lies with people who are still active in the solidarity movement. I thinkthat the whole project requires a different way of thinking and operating, and this is verydifficult to achieve. But over the last two years people are getting more and more convinced,especially since the delivery of the first shipment of oil to Switzerland and since theagreement between the PLO leadership and the Israeli government, which made the people ofEurope realize the necessity of economic development in Palestine.Another thing which is very difficult is that the reactions of Palestinians living in Switzerlandand Germany have been rather disappointing. Not much help has come from this direction,and one Palestinian, who used to be politically active, told me, "the idea is good, but you arenot going to get Palestinian support unless there is some personal profit involved."A crucial point is how much support can be obtained for the project among the Palestiniansthemselves. The principle is actually very simple and there are lots of possibilities, not onlywith olive oil, but also with whole olives and many other products, especially in the field oforganic farming. There are good chances of getting financial and technical support for suchprojects, on condition that proposals are serious and well-formulated. The Swiss government[e.g.,] is now considering what its policy will be regarding support for projects in Palestine.Now is the time to take advantage of this openness. This support would not only be financial,but would also include help in marketing. I think that more effort should be currently beingput into achieving these goals and thus profiting from this unique opportunity.As I was saying, UAWC was very courageous in taking upon itself the risks of starting such aproject. Several people invested a lot of energy in the development of this project, but onlyfor a very short period around harvest time, and that is not sufficient. The success of thisproject demands continuous work. I don't think that there is a real need for a hugeorganization to guarantee this success, because the many crucial steps are very easy to-understand and to carry out. But there is a need for people, not many, who really and deeplyare convinced of the project's chances and are convinced that it is possible. Without somepeople who will breathe and think olives, olive tree, olive oil, etc., there is hardly any chance

to produce a product of a quality which will have a chance of standing up in the WestEuropean and North American Market in the long haul.I believe that the role of grass-roots organizations, which are not motivated only by thethought of personal profit, is precisely to carry out such a project and to be interested insharing their experience with other farmers (something which a private farmer would not do)and to try to overcome the political barriers which arc blocking the way towards cooperationwith other grass-roots organizations.Anyone who is interested in more information regarding the olive oil projects or ShragaElam's ideas for grass roots development in Palestine can contact him at:

[Tel./Fax: ++41 1 271 63 94Mobile: ++41 76 472 13 00e-mail:shraga.elam (a) gmail.com ]