An Israeli soldier and police officer prevent an international volunteer from harvesting olives alongside Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron. (Mamoun Wazwaz, Maan Images)

It is no wonder Jewish settlements are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only do they usurp Palestinians from land and water and cut into their territory with Jewish-only bypass roads and checkpoints, they are filled with hostile settlers. Never is the clear dichotomy between these Jewish squatters and the Palestinians so pronounced than during the season of olive picking.

Every year in October, thousands of Palestinians take a few days off for the olive picking season. Given that Palestinian society is predominantly agriculture-based, this is not a small event. The Ministry of Education gives school students three days off and many people decide to use part of their annual vacation so they can lend a helping hand. It is communal work at its best. Men, women and children wake up at the crack of dawn to carry blankets, big burlap sacks and a picnic breakfast down to their family orchard to pick as many olives as possible before the sun sets.

While many areas of the West Bank begin and end the olive harvest peacefully, this is not true for others, namely those living adjacent to Jewish settlements. Each year, settlers come down from their hilltop homes, attack olive pickers and literally steal their olives before marching arrogantly back up to their fenced-off, security tight houses, which by the way, they know cannot be infiltrated by any Palestinian who plans to get out alive.

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The idea, like so many other inconsistencies in this troubled area, is absurd. There is no justification under the sun for attacks on families out picking olives, many of whom depend on this season as a main source of income. Palestinian olive oil is world renowned for its rich color and sharp taste, and families across the West Bank depend on the amount of olives they press into jars of oil for sustenance throughout the coming year.

However, Palestinian olive pickers in the northern West Bank and those in the Hebron area are well aware of the risks they take each time they go to their olive groves. Two days ago, on October 20, approximately 100 Jewish settlers attacked and beat farmers and olive pickers just outside Kufr Qaddum in the Qalqilya area. The farmers, who had come with international volunteers apparently in anticipation of settler trouble, were blocked from reaching their harvests and were forced to back away after several were injured in the attacks. The settlers mainly came from Qedumim, a settlement which is built on land confiscated from Kufr Qaddum itself.

Earlier in the week, 63-year old Mustapha Al Khaleq was picking olives in his orchard near the Nablus-area village of Azmout when he was assaulted by Jewish settlers from Alon Moreh who threw stones at him, toppled him off his ladder and stole his mobile phone. Al Khaleq was taken to hospital after sustaining moderate wounds to the head and hands.

On October 15, settlers from Yitzhar near Nablus set loose a flock of sheep in nearby Palestinian orchards. The sheep proceeded to ruin olive and fig trees, causing irreparable damage to this year's harvest.

The list goes on but the gist is more or less the same. Jewish settlers go on rampages into Palestinian olive orchards, attack the pickers, steal the olives and leave unpunished. There have been feeble attempts at times to "disperse" settlers by Israeli army forces but none have been arrested or otherwise punished for this blatant violation of basic rights. All of the settler attacks have been carried out in areas B and C, which according to the Oslo Accords, are under full Israeli security control. Hence, it goes without saying that Israel's ever so meticulous security system (when it comes to Israelis that is) has failed miserably when it comes to safeguarding the Palestinians.

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