W(h)ither the seeds of peace?

Three months after the Gaza disengagement, Palestinians export their first crops from the territory, while Gaza's former Jewish farmers have mixed fates

By Rafael D. Frankel, with reporting by Y. Berman

Over three months after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, good news emanating from that coastal strip of land is still hard to come by. In a sea of 1.3 million people, vying groups of militias deal in their own form of justice. Rocket attacks on Israel spawn deadly reprisals on a regular basis. The construction of new homes and infrastructure expected in the wake of Israel's retreat has stalled so badly that the rubble from the dismantled Jewish towns has yet to be cleared.

So when the first shipment of vegetables grown in former Jewish greenhouses left Gaza for Israel last week with little fanfare, it marked a rare but significant success story of Gazans taking advantage of their newfound opportunities.

"It's a message of hope," said Bassil Jabir, CEO of the Palestinian Economic Development Company (PEDC), a firm owned by the Palestinian Authority which is in charge of the greenhouse operation. "We've been able to make it work with all the difficulties that we've faced."

For years, the Gaza greenhouses were both the pride and the main source of income for the 8,500 Jews who lived in Gaza. In the lead-up to Israel's withdrawal from the territory, Palestinians hoped they could inherit the greenhouses and their benefits along with the land.

Just days before Israel began forcibly removing its citizens from Gaza, a deal was struck whereby a group of American philanthropists - among them many Jews and Quartet Middle East Envoy James Wolfensohn - put up a total of $14 million to buy the greenhouses from the departing Israelis as a gift to the Palestinians.

However, in the aftermath of the Israeli army pullout, prior Israeli damage and days of Palestinian looting left many of the greenhouses in disrepair. By the time the Palestinian Authority assigned its security forces to guard the greenhouses, more than half, covering 3,200 dunams (800 acres), were without their most valuable equipment, such as the electronically regulated water pumps, metal support beams, and irrigation hoses.

The failure of the P.A. to guard the valuable structures, and the willingness of the Palestinians to loot what was to be a main source of revenue for their own people cast doubt on whether the Palestinians were both capable and responsible enough to grow food on the Gaza sand dunes as the Israelis had done.

But on December 6, 10 tonnes of strawberries and cherry tomatoes made their way through Karni - a goods-only crossing - into Israel. The day after, 15 tonnes went through, and even more the day after that. By the end of the harvest season, Jabir said, Palestinians are hoping to export 30,000 tonnes of produce from Gaza, which would bring in "a very good sum of money."

The quick turnaround from the looted greenhouses to fully functioning ones did not come cheaply. According to Jabir, the Palestinian Authority spent $14 million on their rehabilitation and other start-up costs. But if estimates on revenue per ton of produce harvested prove correct, the greenhouses could produce revenue of around $50 million a year if the operation reaches its potential.

They are already employing, directly and indirectly, around 6,500 Palestinians - nearly 4,000 more than the 2,800 who were previously working in the greenhouses under the Israelis. At wages of $13 a day, they are earning well above the $2 a day that the average Gazan lives off.

At least those are the official figures. However, one Palestinian worker told The Media Line he is sorry the Israelis are no longer his employers. ‘Sabri A-Sdoudi worked in the greenhouse at Peat Sadeh for one Ya’akov Aberjil. “Since the withdrawal I’ve stopped working in the greenhouses,” he said, adding that he sought a job with the new owners. These days A-Sdoudi is employed in Israel, earning $26 a day.

Sdoudi used to earn $13, which he said was sufficient to make a living. These days, he said, the greenhouse workers earn the same $13, but while he was paid weekly, they receive their cash at the end of the month. It is not just a problem for those Palestinians working in the greenhouses, he mused. It is like that across Gaza. “The situation has really changed a lot,” he said. “Today the economy is in decline.”

The PEDC is shooting for 20,000 tonnes of sales within Israel and the Palestinian territories, though it is cautious about advertising that fact. When asked who his clients were in the Israeli domestic market, Jabir refused to name them, saying, "There is a lot of hostility regarding our products," within Israel.

The PEDC is also attempting to pick up where the Israelis left off by exporting their produce to the United States, Europe, and Russia. With the previous firm which exported Gaza produce, Alei Katif, refusing to do business with the Palestinians, they have turned to Adafresh, another Israeli firm with strong sales in those international markets.

"We're still at the beginning," Jabir said of the Palestinians' relationship with Adafresh, "but we are working together as partners."

Adafresh Managing Director Avi Kadan echoed those sentiments, saying that the two sides are using the first year as just a small start to what he is hoping will be a "long-term, profitable" enterprise. "I'm a businessman, not a politician," Kadan said. "We want a long-term, real business partnership. I'm looking at [the PEDC] as a partner to develop the Palestinian market from Gaza and maybe the other territories, and to build together a strong business and a business relationship."

So far, the politics have caused the partnership to be slowgoing. Though Jabir and Kadan met recently in Jerusalem, travel restrictions from Israel, and possibly the P.A. as well, prohibit Kadan from entering Gaza to survey the greenhouses with his team's hi-tech equipment to gauge both how productive the land can be and what quality produce the Palestinians are growing. "This is the biggest problem so far," Kadan said.

Before the Israeli withdrawal, the produce grown by Gaza's Jews was known around the world for its extremely high quality. In order to maintain that reputation, Adafresh is testing the initial shipments it is receiving from Gaza in its Israeli-based laboratories before shipping the produce overseas.

With the initial crops of strawberries and cherry tomatoes passing the test, Kadan said the first shipment of five tonnes of Palestinian produce from Gaza left Israel last Thursday and arrived in Europe on Monday, in time for Christmas.

How much more Adafresh can ship, and how soon, depends on a host of factors. At a recent meeting, Kadan gained assurances from Israeli officials at the Karni crossing that shipments of produce coming out of Gaza and meant for Adafresh would not be delayed, as are many goods which leave Gaza due to security concerns. So far, that deal has held up despite a total closure on the movement of Palestinians out of Gaza enacted by the Israeli army after the latest rounds of rockets launched from inside the territory struck two southern Israeli cities.

Kadan is also anxious to test the other crops Gaza is producing: sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, herbs and beans. "There are always problems at the beginning," Kadan said. Still, he hopes to be able to ship around 8,000 tonnes of Gazan produce to Europe in the coming year. That would bring in revenue of around $24 million, 40 percent of which - the share he gives all his clients - would go to the Palestinians. If all goes well, he would begin shipping to the U.S. and Russia the next year.

Since the PEDC is owned by the P.A., for the time being revenues generated by the greenhouses would be returned to that body. However there are plans to privatize the company once its actual and potential revenue streams and costs are better understood.

Building a successful business, Jabir said, could prove to be a model and motivation for all Gazans who want to see their economic prosperity increase just as their freedom has following the Israeli withdrawal. "If we managed through all these hardships to make this business work, it shows the possibility for other businesses to work as long as we have the means and the access to international markets," he said.

While the Palestinians left in Gaza are beginning to benefit from the greenhouses left to them, the fate of the Jewish farmers who were forced to abandon them is mixed.

One group of farmers who owned greenhouses around what was the Jewish town of Kfar Darom in Gaza, has already built greenhouses and begun to harvest their crops in Kfar Maimon and Sderot, Israeli cities just east of Gaza.

Alei Katif, which also handles its own exporting to Europe, the U.S., and Russia, says that its produce production is already at 70-80 percent of what it was when it had greenhouses in Gaza, and that its exporting business is at 90 percent of pre-withdrawal levels.

"Except for one week at the very beginning after the expulsion we continue to supply all our customers," said Roni Ben-Efraim, the foreign business manager for Alei Katif. Despite the fact that "the majority" of its production came from within Gaza, Ben-Efraim said Alei Katif managed to keep all its international contracts and will probably be at 100 percent production levels by the next harvesting season.

When asked if Alei Katif - which unlike most Jewish farms in Gaza did not use Palestinian labor in the greenhouses - would consider exporting produce grown by Palestinians in Gaza, Managing Director Amir Dror said, "Heaven forbid."

However that mentality is not typical among the Jewish ex-farmers of Gaza, many of whom have maintained contacts with the Palestinians who worked in their greenhouses.

Yichiam Sharabi now lives with his family in a small, prefabricated home in the quickly built "town" of Nitzan, about 15 miles north of Gaza. In his late fifties, he says he is "too old to start building greenhouses again" and is working in construction instead, which he did in his younger days.

Despite his forced removal from Gaza, Sharabi said he is in touch "from time to time" with the Palestinians who worked for him there and that he will always think of them as friends and "wish them well."

"Family" is what Ya'akov Aberjil called the Palestinians who worked in his greenhouses in the former Jewish town Peat Sadeh. In the aftermath of the Israeli pullout, when the greenhouses were damaged and the income of his former workers was non-existent, he continued paying them for weeks so that they could feed their families.

Like Sharabi, Aberjil went from farming his own land and living in a large villa to being unemployed and living in a prefabricated home. And like many of his neighbors in the town of Mafki'im, so close to Gaza one can see the lights from Gaza City along the Mediterranean Sea at nighttime, he has not yet obtained land to resume his farming.

©2005 The Media Line, www.themedialine.org