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This is my first article for Newtime, so I guess I should start off by telling you a bit about what Olive Co-operative does and why.

Olive Co-op was set up in 2003 as a workers’ co-operative by a young Jewish woman, Jo Bird. She already had a background in co-operative housing and promoting co-op values – co-operatives being one of the oldest forms of ethical business. Through a growing interest in her own Jewish heritage, she had also become increasingly concerned about the situation in Palestine and Israel, and in the previous couple of years had visited the region several times as a peace activist and promoter of co-operative values.

Jo and I both found that, having done peace work in the region, we constantly encountered people who wanted to visit and to see the situation for themselves, but did not feel comfortable or safe doing so. So Jo came up with the idea of Olive Co-op, an ethical tourism business which would enable people from the UK and further afield to visit Palestine and Israel, to contribute to the struggling Palestinian economy, and meet with people from both countries who were involved in the movement for a just peace.

It wasn’t easy. The highly emotional, politicised nature of the conflict in Palestine and Israel means that many people react with hostility to the enterprise. As a Jewish woman, Jo faced suspicion from both Muslims and other Jews who questioned her attitudes to the region. But most ethical businesses are spearheaded by entrepreneurs with a great belief in the value of what they are doing, and the gift of conveying to people the importance of new ways of approaching old problems.

Olive Co-operative developed in many ways, trying to integrate its message of just peace with other ethical concerns. Olive’s tour customers are encouraged to offset the carbon emissions of their travel with www.climatecare.org.uk, an organisation which calculates the amount of greenhouse gases emitted during a flight and enables people to make payments to projects which reduce emissions and help people in the majority world, for instance by distributing eco-light bulbs in South African townships or building energy-efficient stoves in Honduras. Olive also developed a statement of principles, guided by ethical tourism website www.responsibletravel.com.

The thorny issues of Palestine and Israel, and the background of some Olive Co-op workers in organisations such as ethical shopping magazine Ethical Consumer (www.ethicalconsumer.org) means that Olive values transparency, and tries to promote this amongst ethical businesses. Many business claim to be ‘ethical’ or ‘responsible,’ but consumers can only be sure of the integrity of what they are buying if companies are as open as possible about their work.

As Olive Co-op members guided tours in Palestine and Israel, we also witnessed the terrible impacts that military closures and the Separation Wall had had on the Palestinian economy. Many families were increasingly dependent on UN food aid, and unemployment rates in some areas were estimated at 70%. Palestinians value skills and education very highly, and we encountered many family businesses and small co-operatives producing very high-quality goods which the military situation prevented them from selling. Some of these were traditional craft industries such as carving olive wood, inlaying mother-of-pearl or producing the wonderful embroidery whose designs change from village to village across the West Bank and Gaza. Others were newer ideas, such as books, music CDs or the production of candles and handmade paper by a workshop for adults with learning difficulties.

Olive Co-op does not just work with the organisations and individuals which produce the goods sold from stalls, a shop in Manchester and the online store at www.olivecoop.com. It also tries to help producers improve their chances of selling to organisations in affluent countries, for example by passing on customer feedback about designs and the kind of products they would like to see. We work closely with many of our Palestinian and Israeli partners, developing new ideas and helping to promote their work alongside their products.

Fair trade and ethical travel will not solve the terrible problems of Palestine and Israel. But they can help to alleviate some of the effects of the conflict, and to support some of the organisations which try to work through dialogue and communication between peoples, rather than violence.