Under Pressure From Uprising Leadership, Israeli Army : Jericho Farmers Circumvent Order, Sell Some Produce

Jericho has long been one of the most peaceful backwaters in this contested land, but it was in the front lines Friday--in the latest bizarre skirmish in what Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has called “a war against the existence of the state of Israel.”

The tactical objective of the Israeli army was to break a partial commercial strike that has been one of the most successful elements of the 100-day-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The army’s battle plan was simple. Troops drove through the central market at 6:30 a.m. and told farmers they would not be allowed to sell their tomatoes and other produce until noon.

Instructions From Underground

The soldiers knew that Jericho’s merchants and farmers had previous instructions from underground Palestinian leaders to do business only in the morning, as a show of support for the uprising. Compliance would be an easy matter; the main farmers’ market has traditionally operated only in the morning.

So the army action really amounted to an ultimatum: either defy the underground leaders or stop doing business altogether.

“There are two orders,” lamented farmer Shafiq Bali, a former mayor of Jericho. “One is to open and one is to close. One is from the organizers of the national committee, and one is from the army. People are wondering, but of course they can’t be against the (underground) organization and take the risk to open against orders.”

So, in a solution not uncommon in this strange war between bitter but old and familiar enemies, the farmers sidestepped the army order and the army chose to ignore it.

While soldiers in army jeeps monitored the closing order in the shuttered town square, many of the farmers met their wholesaler clients in side streets or in the fields, and transacted at least some business. It is a standoff that has persisted for almost a week now, and the result is a situation in which the farmers are hurting but are not yet desperate.

Normally, this is one of the best times of the year for Jericho’s farmers. Because the city is on the floor of the Jordan Valley, 3,000 feet lower than Jerusalem, just a dozen miles to the west, it is considerably warmer than most of Israel’s farmlands.

“Around now, the vegetables aren’t out yet in Israel, but they’re out here,” Munther Arekat, 28, said as he walked among his tomato plants. Arekat, a University of Vermont business graduate, came back last year to help run his family’s 200-acre farm.

“There is about a two-month period every year when this is one of the few places you can get vegetables,” he said. “Even Israelis from Mahne Yehuda (the main Jewish produce market in Jerusalem) come here to buy because the produce is so good.”

Not this year. Not with the uprising. Customers from West Bank Arab towns like Ramallah and Bethlehem were also buying less, even before the army moved to break the commercial strike, and now it is even worse.

As a result, Arekat said, he is selling his tomatoes for the equivalent of about $3 a box instead of the $12 to $18 a box he considers a good price. “You’ve got high supply and low demand,” he said with a shrug. “So the price goes down.”

The fruit his workmen pick up when prices are higher now lies untouched in the rows between the tomato plants.

Customers Appear

But Arekat is not going without customers because of the army action. Hisam Abdel Hadi, 27, drove up in his dusty Peugeot pickup, the back filled with battered wood and plastic crates. He wanted 30 boxes of tomatoes for the market he runs in Bethlehem.

Wholesalers are usually required to get a permit from the local Israeli authorities to move produce from Jericho to Bethlehem. If they are caught without a permit, their produce is usually confiscated.

“But right now,” Hadi said, “it’s chaos.”

In the space of about half an hour, while reporters stood talking with Arekat, four more buyers drove out to his field.

“This is the new market,” he said.