Charities Advisory Trust

Peace Oil is an initiative of the Charities Advisory Trust, a UK-based registered charity which supports fund-raising by other charitable organisations. The chariry describes the oil as "is produced in Israel by Jews, Arabs, Druze and Bedouin working together ...(it) encourages co-operation between communities". The project has been running since 2006 when the oil was launched at an Israel Expo Day organised by the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, which promoted it as a way "to support Israel’s vibrant trade...to make a difference to the actual future of Israel."

According to the project's own web site, the oil is produced in Israel by Jews, Arabs, Druze and Bedouin working together. The olives are grown in the foothills of the Carmel Mountains and pressed within hours of picking to produce a prize winning extra virgin olive oil. The charity claims that its activities promote peace, though this has been challenged by campaigners, who accuse it of misleadingly attaching a "peace" label to an Israeli product which relies on continuing injustices suffered by Palestinians.

Critics argue that Arab workers being employed to work for an Israeli company does no more to promote a peaceful resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict than Black workers being employed in the production of South African gold, wine or diamonds did to end Apartheid. Under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, Palestinian olive groves are regularly destroyed and uprooted, farmers are denied access to their own land while checkpoints and discriminatory regulations routinely disrupt Palestinian economic life. Olive trees and oil have been central to many disputes in the occupied territories with well documented accounts of the destruction of Palestinian olive groves by both Israeli settlers and the Israeli Army.

The Charities Advisory Trust has been asked to explain which disadvantaged communities benefit from this enterprise and to justify their claims about the benefits of Peace Oil. It has been suggested that the oil is a distraction from fairly traded oil being being produced by Palestinian farmers in the occupied territories.

An unrelated product, marketed in the USA as Peace Oil, is produced from Palestinian olives, and marketed in cooperation with Israeli and Palestinian Fair Trade groups. According to supporters, "Unlike the London version, it is mostly olive oil from the West Bank where economic assistance is most needed".

External links

• Peace Oil website
• Fairly traded olive oil from the occupied territories from Zaytoun
• Charities Advisory Trust website
• Uprooting Olive Trees in Palestine, report from American University, Washington DC
• Guardian article: Is charity Peace Oil really the best way to help the Middle East? 20/12/2007
• GOOD GIFTS FROM THE HOLY LAND – ARE THEY REALLY?