Blended olive oil may promote Mideast peace

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Quite a bit of it is still hush-hush, but a proposed joint Palestinian-Israeli demonstration peace project to co-market a blended olive oil is evolving into a tri-national effort that also will involve mixing in some olive oil from neighboring Jordan.

 Oren Blonder, director of the Peres Peace Center’s agriculture, water and environment department, and Bonnie Stewart, executive director of San Diego State University’s Hansen Institute for World Peace, (both pictured above near Cowles Mountain in San Diego) disclosed that a well-known company in Israel has indicated it is ready to put its expertise and contacts in service of the project that has been years, even decades, in the making. 

Before the project could even be conceptualized, Arabs and Israeli agriculturalists had quietly conducted meetings over the years in San Diego first to argue about their political differences and later to talk about possible avenues of cooperation under the auspices of the Hansen Institute for World Peace.

Asked the identity of the company that will blend the olive oils, the two colleagues said that information is not yet ready for public dissemination.  However, they added, in Israel the company is considered a leader in its field.  They noted that a meeting involving the various parties—Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians—is planned in Israel during December.

Finding a business partner to produce the new olive oil product is an important step towards the dream of creating a line of “peace products” from the Middle East both to bolster the idea that peace is possible among Palestinians and Israelis and to create cash flow to underwrite development of other peace products promoting regional cooperation.

Ever since the story of Noah and the Ark was written, the olive branch has been a symbol of peace—because it was an olive branch that a dove carried back to the Ark in demonstration that the flood waters were receding and a new era for humanity was dawning.

So whereas symbolism almost demands that a blended olive oil become the first product in the cooperative ventures, other fruits and vegetables grown in the region—including dates, figs, melons, tomatoes and others—eventually could also be marketed for consumers around the world.
Already, through the efforts of the Peres Center for Peace and the Hansen Institute, farmers of the three nationalities have been swapping information about seeds, fighting pests, irrigation and other agricultural concerns relative to each specific crop.

The Hansen Institute is part of San Diego State University’s Entrepreneurial Management Center (EMC) within the College of Business Administration.  Sandy Ehrlich, the center’s Qualcomm Executive Director, has been closely associated with the project to bring blended olive oil to market.

There are various marketing steps still to be taken before the product launch.  For example, a brand name for the peace products has yet to be decided upon, and similarly a logo remains to be designed.

Blonder was in San Diego not only to share information with his San Diego State University colleagues but to meet, where possible, with potential San Diego donors to brief them on the potential for lasting Middle Eastern agricultural partnerships.

Having grown up in a rural area near Israel’s Mediterranean border with Lebanon, Blonder is quite knowledgeable about olives, which, as a young man, he persuaded his parents to substitute as a crop for water thirsty avocados on  their 2 ½ acre orchard.   

Of the various varieties of olives, barnea is particularly favored by Israelis because it produces a light oil.  In most Palestinian areas, the nabli variety, which produces a stronger-tasting, heavier oil is grown.  In  developing a blend that can compete with other olive oils on grocery shelves, agricultural experts recommended that a third olive variety—tsuri—which is grown in the Shana area of Jordan (across the Jordan River from Beit Shean, Israel) be added to the blend, Blonder said.

He said tsuri olives produce an oil lighter than nabli, but heavier than barnea.

Stewart, who as executive director of the Hansen Institute has been shepherding this project for many years, said that before the blended olive oil goes to market, joint teams will do market research in the North American and European markets.

As important as the ultimate products will be, said Stewart, the process of developing the products in which Arabs and Jews are brought together as colleagues, is a vital part of the program. 

“Participants have developed friendships they never thought they’d have,” she commented.  It’s not simply a matter of Arabs and Israelis becoming friendly at the meeting place, “they ask each other about their children, they talk about each other to their families.”

Blonder said the Peres Center for Peace believes that economic partnerships among Arabs and Jews can build a momentum for peace.  However, he said, the Center does not believe that economic development, alone, will bring peace; at the same time, there must be political progress toward a two-state solution.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.