Photo by Zain Jaafar/ AFP via Getty Images

The border guard with the M-16 slung across his chest looks very confused. He scans our group as we sit on the prison bus: 40 international volunteers here in the West Bank to help Palestinian farmers harvest their olives, half of us old enough to be his grandparents. The rabbis among us launch into the Jewish prayer-song, “Oseh Shalom”. It’s a profound moment of faith and resistance, and the Israeli guard’s expression dims. One suspects he didn’t expect to be detaining rabbis and retirees.

We’re here with Protect the Harvest and have spent some joyfully sweaty days harvesting olives with our hosts, Palestinian farmers routinely prevented from harvesting by Israeli authorities, and under violent attack from extremist Israeli settler factions. The idea is our presence might be calming – small acts of repair in what can seem a hopeless situation. And it had been going well, until the army came.…