Transcript: PLANTS ARE POLITICAL on the Lifeways of Olive Trees S1:1
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Ayana Young Hi For The Wild, it’s Ayana. Today, we’re bringing you a new series made in collaboration with Olive Odyssey, a Palestinian olive oil brand that serves as a gateway for Palestinian farmers to connect with people around the world and tell their story through the foods they produce. In this series you’ll hear from Aya Gazawi Faour, Olive Odyssey’s co-founder, about plants indigenous to the Palestinian landscape and their deep ties to culture, resistance, and enduring lifeways.
Amid ongoing Israeli occupation and violence against Palestinians, we hope this series serves as a reminder of not only the lifeblood of Palestinian land, but also of the sacredness of land itself and all the life it holds. Plants Are Political calls on us to consider the way landscapes, food ways, and connection to the earth are intertwined with systems of oppression and movements of resistance. May this be an invitation to reflect on the central role land and the more-than-human world plays in movements for justice everywhere.
In this episode, we focus on the lifeway of the olive tree.
Thank you for listening.
Ayana Young Hello and welcome to For The Wild. This is Ayana, and we are speaking with Aya Gazawi Faour. Well, Aya, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm really so excited to talk to another plant person and get into some deep conversation with you.
Aya Gazawi Faour Thank you so much for having me. I'm also very excited for this talk.
Ayana Young So I think it would be lovely to start this conversation if you could introduce yourself, your work, and the land that's around you right now, just to give the listeners a bit of a grounding moment into your world.
Aya Gazawi Faour So my name is Aya Gazawi Faour and I am from Palestine. I am loted currently in Haifa, in Palestine, in the occupied territory. My home is on a mountain called Mount Carmel. And my house, my window, right now, I'm looking over at the sea. I'm surrounded with a lot of native plants and some invasive as well, but mostly native in my area. On the other side of the mountain, there's a lot of pine trees which are not native, but where I am, it's a lot of native plants.
So I am an artist, and I am cofounder of Olive Odyssey. We are a Palestinian brand. We sell olive oil, single state, extra virgin olive oil, to be precise. We work with today, almost 20...Oh yeah, we work with 20 different farmers—small scale, very small farms, family farms, usually. And basically, we tell the story of our people and of our land through the medium of Olive, of olive oil. This is basically our mission.
One of the most important things, I think, for Olive Odyssey when we set up to start the brand, was to work with small scale farmers in areas where they wouldn't be able to sell their olive oil outside of Palestine, maybe, due to restrictions and borders and checkpoints. It's basically what we're trying to do is have this, the voice of these small farmers be heard by a lot of people. Another thing that we're trying to do along with this, along with working with small farmers and now helping the economy in Palestine and telling the story of our people—the other thing that we wanted to do is connect Palestinians to one another, whether in Palestine or outside of Palestine. Palestinians are divided into a couple of groups, one being in 48, which is the occupied territory, and then, the West Bank, Gaza, and the diaspora. And all of us are divided by borders, checkpoints, and we wanted to create a place where all of us can be together again. So this is another one of our missions, and another one thing that is very important for Olive Odyssey.
So we work with farmers from both 48 Area and the West Bank. Before the beginning of the genocide, we had a content creating team in Gaza, so all of our content was done in Gaza, and we worked with food creators in the diaspora that are Palestinians. And this way we kind of connected all four groups together. And, you know, trying to reconnect all of these people back to the land and to talk more about the plants, not only about olive oil, right? About every plant in Palestine. And to kind of try and reconnect people to the land and tell the story of the land through the plants.
Ayana Young That's such a beautiful introduction, Aya. I really was just holding on to every word you were saying and in it with you. And I am wondering, as part of this content creation and storytelling and unifying you're doing, you have this series called Plants Are Political, which I really was drawn to myself. And I'm wondering if you could tell us a bit more about the terminology behind Plants Are Political, and what brought you to start this series.
Aya Gazawi Faour Honestly, I think everything is political, but I think you can see in the history of colonization everywhere that plants become a tool used by the colonizer to kind of take control over the colonized. And here, in Palestine, I think plants have taken a big part in that, whether it's new plants introduced to Palestine that have corrupted the land and caused a lot of ecological problems here in Palestine for other plants, for animals, for humans. And whether it's plants that people were connected to and relied on for nutrition, for economical reasons, and these plants were forbidden. Some are destroyed, cut, burned. The fact that plants are political...a lot of people who have lived through colonization feel connected to. Because it happened all over the world. We just wanted to talk about what's happening in Palestine, in that subject. And almost every plant in Palestine has something to do with the occupation.
And I think, honestly, a lot of people don't know a lot of these stories. You know, we want to tell the story for people who are outside of Palestine, whether they're Palestinian in the diaspora or non Palestinians. But also this information that is sort of buried, and people, you know, just kind of look over, it's very important for Palestinians in Palestine also to talk about it and to be aware of it. This disconnect that they're creating between humans and plants is a big part of the colonization and a big part of the occupation. The moment people are disconnected from their land, from the plants around them, it's easier to, you know, control them because they don't feel the spiritual connection to the land.
Ayana Young Yeah, I think about the Indigenous People of North America, or now-called North America, and that was a huge tactic of colonization—taking away plants and subsistence foods, language, culture, spiritual connection to the land. And it seems like this is a global tactic of colonization—to remove people's connection to their spiritual and cultural and food ways-sources. Yeah, it's not surprising to hear this from you, but it's so heartbreaking and disturbing, and I want to explore this topic more through three or four or five plants. We'll see as we get into this conversation. But at this point, let's start diving into the world of olives, and obviously your work centers so specifically around olives. And as we begin, I would just love to hear more about your relationship to olives and their cultivation.
Aya Gazawi Faour For me, I was born and raised in a city next to the sea, a very old city. Our houses are kind of on top of each other, so we didn't have any land to plant trees, but a lot of people had olive trees on their balconies. Olive trees are the most important of trees, I think, in Palestine. So almost everybody tries to have an olive tree. If you have a small piece of land, the first tree you plant is an olive tree. Growing up, we used to go to my family to their groves for the harvest. And, you know, in Palestine, you wait for the harvest. Harvest season is…It's almost like a holiday. It's not almost, it's like a holiday. In a lot of areas in Palestine, you know, school is over very early during the whole month of harvest, so that people can go home and, you know, be with their families and their growth. So, it's a huge part of every Palestinian life.
We had an olive tree in our garden that I think ever since I remember myself, it was almost 80 years old when I started to understand what this tree is, and it was the sun in the center of the garden. It was the most important thing in the garden. My dad loved that tree so much. But other than that, you know, every year, when harvest comes and you get your olive oil, it's a day of celebration, even for people who don't actually harvest because they don't have lands or they don't have trees. Just buying the new olive oil is a whole thing within itself. All the whole family would gather around to taste the olive oil. You'd have these small plates of labneh, za'atar, makdous. And you put a lot of olive oil on top of everything. And you know, you just dive in with your family. And it's a really beautiful day when you get your olive oil.
And even in school, we have a day dedicated to the olive tree. We have a whole week in every school during the harvest season that is dedicated to the harvest, where you learn how to harvest. You go out. The whole class goes to different groves. You harvest with people. You help people around. And I don't think I can even explain to you what the vibe and the feel of this month is. It's just the most joyous time of the year for everyone. Like you can feel it in the air that something is different—going to the grove at five with sunrise and leaving at sunset to go to the press, waiting there in line with your family and friends who came to help you with your harvests. You know, sit there for a couple of hours to wait your turn and then see the first olive oil drip. That's just a wonderful feeling that I really can't even try and put into words. And you know, for a lot of people, you know, you try your olive oil in the press. You don't wait because sometimes it's really late at night, and you know, you just don't wait anymore. You just try the olive oil there. So it's a time for being with your family and friends. If you have a big land, you know, and a large amount of olive trees, and you can't harvest them on your own, your family and friends would come and help you out. And everybody is a part of this, right.
Ayana Young I loved hearing the love and excitement in your voice. Although I know you can't fully explain it in words, I could pick up the energy from you, and it sounds so special. And yeah, I'd love to hear more about the process of making the olive oil and what that's taught you about time and seasonality.
Aya Gazawi Faour So the cycle of the olive tree is, you know, it's a very interesting one because you kind of serve the olive tree throughout the year. And then, in the end of the year, you have the fruit, and then you serve it again throughout the year. Caring for an olive tree is a phenomenal thing to do because you, you take care of a tree, but while you take care of it, it's still, you know has, you feel like it has more wisdom and more knowledge than you. And it doesn't matter the age of the tree, right? So, and this is why I say you serve the tree because in many ways, a lot of these trees are our actual elders. But even when the trees are small and young, you still feel very, very blessed to be caring for an olive tree, especially knowing that the outcome of this is something so nutritious and so important in the culture, and something that the colonizer tries to take away from you throughout history.
So it starts once the season of harvest comes, which is usually…We wait for the first rain, just for the olives to get cleaned a little bit of dust that they've been accumulating the whole summer. And for the land. For a lot of places in Palestine, the land needs to be wet so that you can actually walk on it. Otherwise it's really dusty. And then the olives are cleaner, ready to pick. You can't wait until the second rain, because then the olives will have more water in them. So you don't wait for the olives to actually take in the water. And ideally you would want to pick your olives green. This is the time where they would have the most nutritious values. You try and pick it, for most of the people do that because not a lot of people have machinery. And you know, we're talking about every family having a small grove. So almost everything is picked by hand so the fruit is not damaged. And then, you would go to the press the same day. So you start picking at sunrise, and you go to press at sunset. And the reason you do that is while pressing the olives, you need to maintain a cooler temperature. So you go when the sun is down, it helps a lot. And, basically, that's it. A couple of hours later, you have your olive oil, and then you know the cycle begins again—which in, you let the tree rest for a couple of months. And then, December-January, you go and you prune the tree. You cut the older branches, and then two months later, you go clean around the land, around the tree. And you know, you keep maintaining that throughout the year—the cycle goes on.
Ayana Young I really appreciate hearing this process and how you serve these trees, the elders, but even the youngers, who are wise and worthy of serving. I can really feel your relationship to them through your words.
And there's something you were talking about earlier that I wanted to discuss a bit more. I'll read something from the Olive Odyssey website. It says, quote, "Our journey began amidst the rolling olive groves of Palestine, where we aim to connect farmers from diverse corners of the land to come together with a shared purpose. Our mission is simple, yet profound—to tell the story of the Palestinian people through the medium of olive oil. With each drop, we paint a portrait of connection to the land and a commitment to sustainable practices." I'm wondering if you could talk more about this mission and the relationship you have with the farmers?
Aya Gazawi Faour The whole idea of Olive Odyssey came four years ago during one of the harvest seasons. You go to your friends and families, and every time you go to anybody, they bring you their olive oil to try, and they tell you where the olive oil comes from, about the farmer, the land, the cultivar, how it was harvested, how it was pressed. And there's this small competition, kind of, between people—like whose olive oil is best. And everybody says their olive oil is the best, and somehow everybody is correct. So we wanted to kind of capture that and bring it to people outside of Palestine.
So one of the most important things about this is the farmers who care for these olive trees. In the beginning, we started to work with four farmers. Last year we had 16 farmers, and this year we will have 20 farmers. Since the beginning, hearing what these farmers have to say about their land, about their trees, and about the work they're doing, which is a very difficult work to do within itself, but doing it in Palestine specifically is even harder. So having the voice of these people be heard and their story be told is really one of the most important things that we do, and this is why we aim to work with as many farmers as we can. Also, because every farmer has his own story, their own experience with these trees. And obviously economically, working with these small farmers helps them secure whatever amount for the rest of the year, right—to be able to sell their olive oil for sure. So yeah. So I think today, having so many farmers work with us and hoping for this to continue to grow and to have more and more farmers is probably one of the most rewarding things about working in Olive Odyssey.
Ayana Young I want to talk a bit more about the importance of olive oil to Palestine. And there was an article I was reading from Atmos and it said, quote, "According to the United Nations, nearly half of all cultivated land in the West Bank and Gaza is planted with approximately 10 million olive trees. Between 80,000 and 100,000 families in Palestine are estimated to rely on these trees, their fruits, and oil as primary or secondary sources of income. They compromise 70% of all fruit production and make up about 14% of the local economy. Olive Trees are more than fruitful. They are vital to life in Palestine." Yes, so I'm wondering if you could speak to the ways you felt and witnessed this vitality?
Aya Gazawi Faour If you ever visit in Palestine, specifically in the West Bank—driving there, you see a lot of olive trees. I think having 10 million olive trees, which is more than the number of Palestinians in Palestine, it just speaks on its own, right? And having the important role that an olive tree plays economically in the Palestinian life is huge. Because, again, like you said, around 100,000 Palestinian families rely on these olive trees—on these 10 million olive trees—which a lot of them, by the way, are uprooted and burned. And you know, every single year, just in August, the Israeli army uprooted over 10,000 olive trees in my village. And this is just one incident that we're talking about.
Important to mention, also, that with all of these olive trees that we have every year an amount of olive trees that are uprooted. All these families are tremendously hurt economically. I think the reason people plant olive trees is not only, you know, the economical aspects. It's because you're familiar as a nation, we are familiar with the olive tree. We know how to care for it. Almost every person here in Palestine knows how to care for and for an olive tree and what needs to be done, how to harvest, and how to press. People choose the olive tree. I think also, you know, because it's probably easier to care for and instead of a seasonal fruit or vegetable that you plant. But also it's the deep connection that we have with the olive tree.
The numbers you speak of are very high, I think, to any other country in the world. Another number that is very high is the amount of trees uprooted in Palestine since 1967—which stands on almost 800,000 trees. Which means the amount of lives lost since 1967 is 800,000 trees. The loss economically for Palestinian people is around $12 million annually because trees are uprooted and burned and destroyed. So the number doesn't really change because they uproot trees, and Palestinian people replant, right? This is one of the missions that is very important for Palestinian people. Wherever they uproot, we plant. Sometimes, they uproot trees for roads and things like that, and then you can't tree plant, or they uproot and they confiscate the roads. But you know, people still try and plant the same amount of trees in different areas, I think, to maintain this relationship with the olive tree.
Ayana Young I want to talk more about the uprooting and burning and the destruction of these olive trees. It's hard to know how to ask the right question about it, but I am just trying to understand amidst the utter destruction of the genocide, these trees being burned is a part of that—is a part of the genocide. And so, you know, there's, there's a question about how we could hold on to hope, for resilience, for both the people and for the land? And yeah, maybe just hearing your personal experience with this all.
Aya Gazawi Faour There's a lot of different aspects because if we're talking about the destruction in Gaza, it's obviously very different than the destruction in the West Bank, which I'm not able to speak of the feeling. I do have family in Gaza. I have a friend who, her father…Their olive grove was uprooted for the third time and every time he kept tree planting. I'm honestly not sure what they're going to do now—if there is hope for this grove to be planted again. In the West Bank, when these things happen...Let's say, I think the last last occasion this happened was last month in the village where they uprooted 10,000 olive trees, and, you know, filmed the whole thing. You know, you hear this person, this soldier, saying all sorts of things that, "That will teach you," or, you know, these kind of things. And having her not understand what she's doing, you know? "You are killing a creature right now." Most of the trees that were uprooted in that village are 100 years old. The amount of knowledge, the amount of wisdom, the amount of love this tree has—you can't put it into words. This tree is older than the occupation. The amount of disrespect these people have for life? Really...I can't comprehend it really.
And when I talked before about people being disconnected from land and trees—I think this is exactly this because if you're connected to the land and trees, you won't be able to do this even if the tree isn't yours. Even if you didn't plant it, it doesn't mean it's less important. I don't think any Palestinian farmer would be able to uproot a tree that belonged to an Israeli or a non Palestinian. This is just not something I can imagine people doing. This, it goes, you know, against all beliefs—everything that we're taught throughout...from day one, really. It's shattering. It's the amount of devastation. I'm not even talking about how we're feeling like the humans looking at these trees being our elders or being our family members, or, you know, being the thing that they rely on economically. But imagine the devastation of these trees themselves. And I know this is gonna sound maybe a little bit weird, but all of these trees share a connection. They share a network. They speak to one another. They feel one another, so imagine the horror these trees felt in that moment. And you know, just watching the devastation. I was there afterwards watching this grove and seeing all of these trees. It's just heartbreaking, doesn't even begin to explain being in that place of, you know, total destruction.
Ayana Young What are the soldiers or how are they justifying this? What is the reason that this is performed? I'm curious…What are they proclaiming when they come and say, "We're gonna burn these trees, or we're going to uproot these trees because of..." What?
Aya Gazawi Faour Honestly, right now, let's say this specific thing that I'm talking about with the 10,000 trees, they were just doing it because they can. And they were saying they're doing it because they can. I don't think they're even trying to justify anything anymore. Honestly, with the genocide happening in Gaza and everything that we've been seeing the last couple of years in Gaza, nobody's trying to justify anything anymore. I think, like, you know, sometimes the Zionist state, they would say, "We'll look into it," but you know...I mean, it's pointless really. It's even pointless, I think, to talk about, what is their justification? I mean, what could the justification be for killing 10,000 trees? What could be the justification of killing over 180,000 Palestinians in Gaza?
Ayana Young Thank you for saying that, because that's true. I'm just trying to imagine. You know, a lot of times colonization will use rhetoric. You know, they'll blame their actions on security, safety, some story that they're telling themselves in the world of why this must be done, or why it's okay to be done, or why they're in the right. And so, I'm trying to just...I don't know why I'm even interested in the psychology of this, or this foundational belief system.
Aya Gazawi Faour I think it's very important to not wonder about these things because we spend a lot of our energy by talking about what they're thinking, why they're doing what they're doing. It's been, you know, not even if we're talking not only about Israelis. If we're talking about colonizers in general, it's been generations of generations, and the history just repeats itself. The same tactics that were used in the Americas are used here, are used in Sudan, or used in Congo. So we have a certain amount of energy that each person has, and I think it's important to use this energy towards making a change. And I feel like this is what they want us to do, you know? Because we can't understand how would a person do this? Like, why would they do this? And yes, it sounds insane that a person would do such horrific things, but to them, it's not. It's not insane. And, this is what they've been doing since 1948 in Palestine, right? Even before that. The occupation of Palestine happened in 1948, but it started long before that. But they've been doing that for generations, and we keep, you know, being surprised— shocked—by their action. And we, like our souls, kind of need to find a reason for them. Like, how could a person be this evil? But honestly, it's just not our job. We need to focus on building communities and helping our communities and, you know, organizing the people who think like us to create a better world for us and not worry about why they're doing this because we'll never understand it. We'll just never understand it because we don't think the same. We don't feel the same. It's never going to make sense to us.
Ayana Young That is a really wise reframe, and I really appreciate hearing that. And yeah, it reorients my mind. It's like, Okay, hold on. Yeah, nobody has endless energy to navigate through something so horrific, and I really appreciate thinking about reorienting energy to community care and organizing and supporting each other.
We have a few other plants to get to. And so, I just want to give you the mic, so to speak, and see if there's anything else you want to talk about or share or riff on around olives.
Aya Gazawi Faour This is, again, one of the most important trees for every Palestinian. It's a national symbol. It's a metaphor, kind of, for rootedness and resilience and endurance. Olive trees can live thousands of years, and actually the oldest olive tree in the world is in Palestine near Bethlehem. It's estimated to be 6,000 years old. And again, the first documented olive tree was documented in what is now known as Syria. So it's in Bilad al-Sham in greater Syria. So whatever I say about the olive tree, it's always going to be more than that. You can see it in our art, in our poetry, in our folklore, in everything that we do. And honestly, I'm really blessed to have my life right now centered around the olive tree, and I feel really blessed and fortunate to do what I do.
Victoria Pham Thank you for listening to this episode of Plants Are Political, a collaboration with Olive Odyssey. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Julia Jackson, and Victoria Pham. Music for this series is by Doe Paoro, with this episode featuring the tracks “Language of Past Lives” and “Living through Collapse.”
We extend deep gratitude to Aya from Olive Odyssey for their generosity and guidance in the groves. In these lands, where plants stand as witnesses to both heritage and struggle, we honour the enduring resistance and solidarity of the Palestinian people whose care for the land continues to inspire movements for justice and liberation everywhere.
For more information, you can visit our website at www.forthewild.world where you can discover more details about Olive Odyssey in the episode description. Thank you for listening.
Audio Source
“Plants Are Political on the Lifeway of Olive Trees.” For The Wild, Season 1, Episode 1. December 8, 2025. https://www.forthewild.world/listen/plants-are-political-1
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