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Flowers Fight Their Way Out
By Mohammed Omer
RAFAH, Gaza, Jan 13, 2012 (IPS) - Ayman Siam, 41, is not growing carnations as usual
this year. It´s limonium and statice flowers instead because they are hardier. Given the risks
of an Israeli blockade, it´s a political decision.
Earlier this week Israel allowed four trucks of strawberries and flowers out of Gaza, in a slight
easing of a stranglehold on exports. But as an exporter who has suffered heavy losses over
the past five years through the Israeli blockade, Siam needs to cut his risks.
"The business loss I suffered from growing carnations comes close to a million dollars,
including the cost of the plants and fertilisers," Siam tells IPS. Service suppliers have taken
legal action against him for an inability to settle payments due since 2006.
All this is besides the loss of income for his workers.
Siam, like others growing flowers in Palestinian areas, is hoping for better relations ahead
with the government in the Netherlands and the European Flower Exchange Market there
that he supplies to, for further export into European countries. The Netherlands has begun
to provide some financial support to Gaza´s farmers.
Siam produces far less than his capacity. "I had to reduce from eight dunums (a dunum is
1,000 square metres) of flowers, to only three dunums for the mid-November to mid-May
2012 season. The supply was good. The demand was good. But Israel´s blockade stood in
between."
Now Siam hopes his new flowers will "tolerate longer delays at the Israeli crossing points."
He is cultivating about 15,000 flowers, so a lot is at stake.
Siam is also happy that this year his flowers are not being labeled an Israeli product. In the
past, the Israeli company Agrexco used to buy the flowers and sell them to European
markets as its own.
Now, with more international groups boycotting Israeli products, the boxes and plastic bags
he uses for packing are marked `Palestine Crops´. "I am thrilled to see my product is being
sold as our own. So far, it is a good start as we have received more demands for the red and
white carnations."
There seems hope of support. "Gaza growers have a lot of potential and I hope they can
expand the business in the future," Ada Cohen, area manager of the company Floral
Holland tells IPS.
It´s looking brighter for some workers too. Mohammed Dahlez, 32, has got his old job back.
He is one of the few lucky ones; Siam has had to lay off most of his workers.
"Our lives are so dependent on the Israeli crossings, we hope we get our own independent
sea port to export our goods straight from Rafah to the Netherlands," he says, carrying a
collection of white carnations to be packed.
Mahmoud Khalil, head of the Flower and Berry Growers' Association in Gaza, hopes that
Gaza growers are gradually able to transport flowers outside of Gaza. "Before 2005, Gaza
Strip used to export 50-60 million flowers to the Netherlands...this year; we were down only
to 15-16 million."
Many have not recovered from the loss. At the peak of the blockade in 2008, millions of
Majed Hadaeid´s blossoms were served as food for goats, donkeys, camels and sheep. The
"loss was too big to compensate," he says. He laid off 200 workers. "I am broke, all I have is
this house for my children."
Hadaeid does not benefit from the Netherlands grant, since that two million dollar fund aims
to support smaller farmers.
Most business that survives is down. Khalil says the flower business in the Gaza Strip used
to feed 4,000 workers before 2005. The number has fallen to about 500.
"The challenge facing the farmers is the small quantity of flowers produced when the cost of
transportation is fixed," says Khalil. For the past two months his organisation has been
encouraging farmers to plant more flowers. "One hopes that we succeed in selling all our
products abroad, this will give an optimistic start for farmers in the coming seasons."
Siam is keen to expand his business, and "get back to the old days when we were present
in the market not only as flower farmers, but as Gaza´s ambassadors of love to the global
market of flowers."
But, he adds, "this all depends on how much pressure The Netherlands can exert on the
Israeli government to allow us to continue exporting our flowers." (END)
The rationale for the conception and creation of www.easi-piesi.org lies in the belief that few people would, knowingly, seek to benefit through theft from others. Likewise, few would consider taking advantage of the victims of terror and ethnic cleansing. Few would want to reward a military occupier where brutality and wanton killing, the demonising and brutalising of a subjugated people is the hallmark of the occupation
Increasingly there is awareness that trade has an ethical dimension -as witnessed by the plethora of ethical and corporate responsibility statements to be found in the literature of the UK’s major supermarkets. The formation of the Ethical Trading Initiative by the supermarkets is one manifestation of this.
However the defining of ethics as applied to international trade is not the monoply of the UK’s supermarkets. UK shoppers should have a say in the matter, should have a facility whereby they can sensitise the supermarkets to their feelings and demands - with the bonus of knowing that they are helping the supermarkets formulate policy based on what the customer really wants.
Crucially, shoppers should be able to identify products and produce on the supermarket shelf which originates from stolen land or from land under military occupation. Shoppers should be free to shop with a clear conscience knowing they have made an ethical decision to avoid such produce.
By making such an ethical decision they are telling the supermarket, in the most direct manner possible, to cease selling the goods they have chosen to boycott.
Palestine - a stolen land
It was on the 16th September, 1948 that the United Nations appointed mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, completed the report which outlined his plans for the return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who, in the space of a few months, had either been ethnically cleansed from their land or had fled to safety.
Twenty four hours later, the UN mediator was assassinated at the hands of the terrorist Stern Gang. It is worth noting that two prominent members of this terrorist group, Yitzhak Shamir (directly implicated in the murder) and Menachem Begin, both became prime ministers of Israel.
It is the legacy of this act of murder which resonates throughout the Middle East and the wider world to this day. And this legacy is summed up in the two words “stolen land.”
“Legal” theft
With the assassination of the UN mediator. The question of land ownership and looted Palestinian property was quietly dropped. Crucially, at this point in time, about 94% of land in Palestine was owned by Palestinian Arabs, churches and religious trusts. The remainder was Jewish owned. (In current circumstances, within Israel itself, these statistics are now reversed.)
And how did the state of Israel acquire Palestinian owned land?
Quite simple. In parallel with ignoring international law, it used (and still uses) any convenient laws dating from the days of the Ottoman Empire
- if land remains uncultivated for 3 years or more - regardless of the reason - it beomes the property of the state
- laws and military regulations used by Britain - under the Defence Emegency Regulations for example, Israel can and does carry out draconian collective punishments such as house demolition - as did the British during its time of authority over Palestine.
Israel used its own laws and Military Orders
- At the end of June 1948, for example, the first “Abandoned Areas Ordinance” was issued giving the theft, looting and seizure of thousands of Palestinian homes and businesses a first coat of legal gloss.
- For those Palestinians who fled even a few miles from their homes and land, for safety, they lost their right to ownership - even if they returned a few weeks later.
- Those so-called “present absentee” Palestinians can still look at their rightful property and land - but cannot enter. As for Palestinian refugees, Israel refuses outright any responsibility for their situation, never mind any guilt over stealing their land
- land declared “abandoned” was designated “state land”, passed to a Development Authority, transferred to Israel Land Administration and administered by the Jewish National Fund (the UK charity, JNF Charitable Trust, is a member of the extended Jewish National Fund family) for exclusive Jewish use.
If all else fails the excuse of “security” is invoked
By such means the Palestinian people were robbed, and continue to be robbed, of their land.
Continuing robbery
Every act of violence towards the Palestinian people, whether they be refugees in the Lebanon or residents of the West Bank and Gaza, contains the same message - we, Israel, have your land and have no intention of giving it up, so you give up your struggle.
Every act of resistance by the Palestinian people, violent or non-violent, conveys the message to Israel. We demand our rights, our land.We will never give up.
And Israel has become adept at responding to this message in an uncompromising manner.
The visit to Israel towards the end of 2008 by Gordon Brown and Barack Obama produced the usual pleas to halt settlement construction. Israel’s response was typical. A few days later the government announced plans to build settlements on Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley.
For 10 year-old Ahmad Husam Yousef Mousa, land theft by Israel was very much a reality. On 29th July 2008 he demonstrated with his friends against the separation fence which is being constructed on the lands of his village, Nilin, taking away the lands and sole source of livelihood of many of its inhabitants. At a distance of about 10 metres, as they were retreating from armed soldiers, he was shot in the head and murdered by a bullet from an M16 rifle.
Palestine Israel Ethical Shopping Initiative
At www.easi-piesi.org there is the belief that the international community, as represented by individual governments, has totally failed the Palestinian people. The responsibility now lies with civic society to show the way.
We believe that any solution to the question of Palestine and its people must be a rights based solution, based on international law. We believe that all aspects of Israeli society which give the state a civilised veneer should be boycotted until as such times as Israel ceases to boycott the rights of the Palestinian people
With the UK importing at least two thirds of Israeli produce, civic society within the UK has the responsiblity to consider the ethics of purchasing such produce. At www.easi-piesi.org we take this responsibility seriously. .
www.easi-piesi.org will be a vibrant, interactive site. It will, initially, encourage the shoppers of the UK to make the ethical decision not to purchase Israeli goods on the shelves of the supermarkets. It will, with the assistance of the shopping public, clearly identify these goods and publicise them.