West Bank Professor’s Green Thumb Had Israeli Officials Seeing Red

The peaches are just beginning to ripen on the trees of Jad Isaac’s garden. The tomatoes are a deep red, the zucchinis an earthy green. Near a small shed in the back, two goats lie in the shade. Inside, 10 hens are at work laying eggs, while others await their fate as a main course at a future meal.

It is an idyllic country scene, the kind this sleepy Christian Arab village next door to Bethlehem has known for hundreds of years. But to the Israeli military officials, Jad Isaac’s garden and those he helped his neighbors grow constitute an attempt at Palestinian self-sufficiency and therefore pose a potential threat to their authority. And so they arrested, questioned and threatened him several times over the last month and cut off his telephone.

Finally, the gardener gave in. He promised the Israeli military governor of Bethlehem that he would close down the small gardening shop he had opened near his house and stop supplying his neighbors with seedlings, fertilizer and advice.

It was, perhaps, a small victory for the authorities in their attempt to smother any vestige of the 6-month-old Palestinian uprising. But for Isaac, a quiet, meticulous university professor who until last month had never been arrested in his life, it was a bitter lesson in how the political realities of military rule can invade even a small Garden of Eden in the occupied West Bank.

“The garden was always a symbol, a hobby which I enjoyed and a place where I could forget about all the tensions of the world,” Isaac said. Now it too has become a source of fear, he said. “I know it sounds defeatist, but I don’t want to be a hero. I am a law-abiding citizen, and if they want me to close, I will close.”

For some Israelis, Isaac’s garden mimics some of the same tactics Zionist pioneer settlers used in Israel’s preindependence days in rooting themselves on the land.

“The Israelis clearly feel that for Palestinians to grow their own food and be self-sufficient will in the long run prolong resistance to the occupation,” said a Western diplomat who has followed the controversy.

Isaac, 41, was born and reared in this town, where his family has lived for centuries. He has a master’s degree in food nutrition and plant physiology from Rutgers and a doctorate from East Anglia University in Norwich, England. For the last 10 years he has taught at Bethlehem University, where he has served as dean of science and chairman of the biology department.

He is a believer in “small is beautiful” and a worshiper of the soil. For the last decade he and his father have lovingly developed the lone acre behind his stately family home into a model garden. There are dozens of fruit-bearing trees, two of each variety, including apples, almonds, hazelnuts, olives, pears, peaches, guavas, apricots, pomegranates and loquats, which are first cousins of kumquats. There are also sugar cane, okra, eggplant, squash, green peppers, grapes, string beans, strawberries, potatoes and romaine lettuce.

The uprising came slowly to Beit Sahur, but by March it was in full swing. Shops were closed, roads often were blocked by burning tires, and the few fruits and vegetables on the market shelves were expensive and hard to find. People turned to Isaac for advice on growing their own. He, along with childhood friends Issa Taweel, a civil engineer, and Gerasmus Kharroub, a fellow biology teacher, decided to help.

One Sunday the three of them drove down to Jericho, a West Bank agricultural center, and came back with 500 seedlings to sell to friends and relatives. Word spread quickly, and by the next day the seedlings were gone. Isaac went back for 2,000 more, and eventually sold 40,000, along with bags of seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and rubber hoses.

A friend supplied a shed and some land for a small gardening shop. Fourteen people invested about $18,000 to outfit the store. Isaac, Taweel and Kharroub suddenly found themselves in business.

They also found themselves part of the uprising. Although most attention has fixed on the strikes and the rock-throwing riots that have left at least 204 people dead, one of the important elements of the revolt has been the attempt to break the link between Israeli rulers and their Palestinian subjects, particularly Palestinians working with the military administration.

Beit Sahur’s victory gardens fitted easily into the theme of self-sufficiency. They won Isaac popularity well outside of Beit Sahur--he estimates that West Bankers from all across the region came to buy gardening supplies. They also brought him to the attention of the Israeli authorities.

The trouble began last month when the deputy military governor of Bethlehem, identified only as Major Salah, along with a captain and a dozen soldiers, stormed Isaac’s house in the late afternoon and hauled him off to jail while his wife and four children looked on in horror. He said he was held until midnight, then released without having been questioned.

On June 1, he was summoned back to military headquarters along with Kharroub. The two men said they were questioned by the major and the captain, accused of being members of a “popular committee” and threatened with administrative detention for up to six months if they did not cease their business. The major also threatened 24-hour surveillance, according to Isaac.

‘Day Arrest’ Used

Daily after that, one or more of the three partners were called in for questioning and held for “day arrest.” At the same time, Isaac said, his phone was cut off, army jeeps began regularly circling his street, and someone began shining flashlights into his windows at night.

Finally, Isaac said, he had had enough. He posted a “closed” sign on the shop. Summoned to the military governor, Isaac signed papers promising not to engage in politics or break the law. “The investigation is over and he will not be called in again,” was all that a military spokesman had to say.

Isaac said there was nothing political about his self-help project. “I honestly thought the Israelis would be the first people to embrace this idea because it was an attempt to help local people improve their lives,” he said.

As for his treatment, he is angry but philosophical. “I hope it was just a mistake by some individuals,” he said. “We were going to make this a real enterprise. But as far as I’m concerned, now it’s dead.”