This paper examines the history of Palestinians from 1945 to 1955, using the olive tree and olive-derived commodities as a way to trace the effects of the monumental ruptures of this period and explicate the resultant effects on the lives of ordinary Palestinians. Drawing predominantly on the American and British diplomatic archives in addition to a variety of Arabic sources, I trace the consequences of the cataclysmic events of this period through the loss of the olive tree and its products—once some of the most lucrative exports of Greater Syria—despite Palestinian resistance to Arab and Israeli military administration and occupation. The periodization seeks to bridge the catastrophic rupture of 1948 to its aftermath. All too often, 1948 in effect marks the end of Palestinian history, as if Palestinians simply ceased to exist with their conquest and exile. In connection, 1948 also typically marks the birth of the “Israeli Arab,” as if this newfound minority had no history before the creation of Israel. The rupture is thereby doubled, severing both the history of Palestinians from post-1948 developments, and severing Palestinian Israelis from their pre-1948 past. Furthermore, 1948 did not mark the end of what the Palestinians refer to as al-Nakba, or the catastrophe. The second essential reason to bridge the late Mandate and the early histories of Egyptian-administered Gaza, the Jordanian-administered West Bank, and Israel is the continued dispossession and expulsion of the remaining Palestinians within Israeli-controlled territory. This ongoing process of expulsion and land appropriation is illustrated through a focus on some of the most lucrative Palestinian landholdings: olive groves. Historically, most Palestinians were rural subsistence cultivators, with the olive tree and its products a central means of subsistence and revenue generation for cash expenses, such as to pay taxes. Even in 1948, roughly two-thirds of settled Palestinians lived in villages. While highlighting the continued processes of colonization through the destruction, forced neglect, and illegal appropriation of olive groves on some of the best and most fertile Palestinian-owned lands, this paper also seeks to draw out the understudied Palestinian peasant resistance to confiscation and discrimination. But resistance has its limits. Although, by the early 1950s, the majority of Palestinians remained agricultural workers and cultivators, it was increasingly no longer on their own property. In the longer term, continuing colonization and dispossession set in motion and accelerated trends toward the urbanization and proletarianization of the Palestinian peasantry.