The four-minute video and 13 photos posted on the website of the Palestine News Network tells the story vividly. Members of various diplomatic missions to Palestine joined Palestinians in picking olives.

The exercise was no simple picnic or an innocent act of voluntary work. It was another visible manifestation of the major problem of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the struggle for land.

Palestinian land outside built-up areas is most frequently planted with the evergreen olive tree. The trees require little upkeep during the year, and its fruits yield the popular olive oil, a major staple in Palestinian homes.

Olive trees, which have resembled a sign of peace since doves brought them back to Noah’s Ark, are in the forefront of the struggle between the Israeli occupiers and settlers on the one hand and the indigenous Palestinian population on the other. Nothing exhibits the Palestinian connection to the land more than these fruit-bearing trees. Olive trees are often inaccessible as a result of the Israeli wall built deep inside Palestinian territories or are unavailable to Palestinians as a result of barbed wire placed by Israeli troops under the pretext of an exaggerated security policy.