Special to Rebel Youth
Beside the rubble—perhaps a Palestinian home once stood there—olive trees grow. Beside highways, roads where for years Palestinians could not even traverse by foot, shrubby boughs of olive trees overhang the asphalt.
On Gazan soil, where Palestinians inhaled burning phosphorus into their lungs, trees bear olives ripe for the picking. These trees bear more than olives: memory is born into its bark.
As if to unravel the colonial tapestry of tales that spoke of a barren Palestine, the trees roots latch onto an earth which has born the brunt of the occupation. In the Mediterranean basin, what does it mean for Palestinians to extend an olive branch?
