Where Olive Trees Weep

Title: Where Olive Trees Weep

Artist: Farrukh Najmi

Date: December 2024

Description by the Artist
This painting is a tribute to the perseverance of the Palestinian people, their olive trees, and their deep roots in Palestine, desperately hanging on to their native land despite a brutal multi-generational, settler-colonial Israeli occupation.

The title of the painting is derived from the following verse by Mahmoud Darwesh, the national poet of Palestine.

"لو يذكر الزيتون غارسهُ .. لصار الزيت دمعا"

"If the olive tree knew the hands that tended them, their oil would be tears"

Palestine has been the land of olive trees for millennia. The oldest olive tree in Palestine, and perhaps, the world, is located in the village of al-Walaja, in the West Bank, and is estimated to be around 5,500 years old. Olive trees are intimately tied to Palestinian history, heritage, and culture. The olive branch is a universal symbol of peace.

The olive harvest occurs between October and November every year, while it can extend to December in good years. Olive harvest is a bounty of the land that brings together the community with hard work, feasts, joy, music, and dance. It is also vitally important economically and brings much-needed income to farmers.

For decades, illegal Israeli settlers have been vandalizing Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank. Olive trees, many of them hundreds of years old, are savagely cut down and burnt by Israeli settlers, under the protection of the Israeli military. In recent years, a group known as the International Solidarity Movement has provided Western nationals as peaceful volunteers to participate in the Olive Harvest. Their role is to deter Israeli settlers and the Israeli army from disrupting the Olive Harvest by their presence as eyewitnesses. Faced with no consequences for their crimes, the Israeli settlers are now even attacking these volunteers from Western nations.

Article: Israeli Settlers Stab Foreign Volunteer during Olive Harvest near Bethlehem
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/jewishsettlers-stab-foreign-volunteer-during-olive-harvest-near-bethlehem/

Article: ‘I lost my wife and my land’: A deadly olive harvest season ends in the West Bank
https://www.972mag.com/olive-harvest-west-bank-deadly-violence/

Film: Where Olive  Trees Weep
https://whereolivetreesweep.com/

Photo Credits: This painting is made from the photo below.

Paintings By Me

• Soul of My Soul

• Where Olive Trees Weep

• The Soul of Wellfleet