Many Muslims start their Iftar in the holy month on dates, and some may prefer "Medjool" or "Majdool" dates, which are distinguished by their taste and quality, and some may prefer other types such as "Tigris Nour", or Amiri, or Yellow Zuhidi, and other distinctive types. Everyone eats with the assurance that the source of these dates is the countries to which these varieties originate, but the truth is that the source of these varieties is sometimes the Israeli occupation state, which sells its dates today all over the world today.
In order to pass the dates of settlements that are not recognized by international markets, the occupation circumvents the sale of dates under religious names and slogans, such as "Holy Land" with the use of the Dome of the Rock logo, but what is worse is to follow the policy of what is known as "date bleaching", as the occupation lures some Palestinian merchants to buy "Israeli" dates, and then repackaged as Palestinian products.
A history of counterfeiting "dates"
In September 2020, a group of Israeli researchers chose a hilltop overlooking the Old City in the Abu Tor neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem to celebrate an alleged scientific achievement they had achieved at the time. Researchers performed Jewish prayers recited on important occasions, while a bundle of dates that had been the subject of the celebration was placed in front of them. According to Israeli claims, these dates grew from extinct seeds that are more than two thousand years old, that is, they claim to date back to between the fourth and second centuries BC. The choice of the place was not absurd, as this area, which Israelis consider archaeological, was preparing for tourism investment projects, making it similar to the palm trees that were destroyed centuries ago and came back to life.
The researchers named one of the seeds Methuselah, which was among dozens discovered north along the Dead Sea. The discovery of the dates was part of an Israeli project to revive ancient species of palm trees from seeds found in archaeological excavations in the area. The researchers said that the dry conditions helped the seeds survive for two thousand years without losing their ability to grow in that desert, and this happened due to the lack of rainfall and low humidity around the Dead Sea that contributed to extending the life of the old date seeds, and then there is a possibility to bring the old palm back to life.
Israelis also claim that date cultivation in the Levant (or ancient Judea as they call it) was well established by about 300 BC, but their state's modern efforts to cultivate it date back to 1930 (two decades before the official establishment of the occupying state) when one of the founders of Kinneret, one of the first Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, known as the Israeli Ben Zion, traveled to a number of Middle Eastern countries and illegally collected palm tree samples. The countries he visited imposed restrictions to prevent the export of these trees as a national treasure, but Ben Zioun was able to collect many seeds and return them to occupied Palestine, and relied on them to establish large farms for the famous "Medjool" and "Tigris Nour" dates, whose seeds came from Morocco and Iraq.
Before the occupation of the Palestinian West Bank in 1967, dates grown there had their origins in Ottoman times. After the occupation, Israel restricted the cultivation of Palestinian palm trees, besieged them and harassed farmers, and instead deployed palm plantations in their illegal settlements scattered along the Wadi Araba and Jordan Valley roads, with which the occupying Power invaded the global date market, where it became possible to buy those dates on all continents of the world. Among the varieties grown by Israelis on the farms, which have been modernized and expanded since the past decade and have included hundreds of acres of palm trees, are Medjool dates, which originated in Morocco and moved to the Palestinian territories via California.
This variety is the king of dates all over the world and the most popular and sought-after type, as its grain is a wrinkled black bean that is free of air, and its color resembles chocolate, and does not contain much fiber. Israel claims to be the main source of export of this species, according to figures published in 2016 by the so-called "Dates Office" of the Israeli Plant Production and Marketing Council, which said that Israel produces about 75% of the total global production of Medjool dates. Medjool dates also achieve record returns to the occupation state thanks to the abundant quantity produced by each palm of this type, in one season the Medjool tree produces approximately 150-200 kilograms of dates.
"Dates bleaching". Setback at the hands of Palestinians
In 1994, Ibrahim Duaiq won the title of the first Palestinian farmer to establish an integrated palm tree plantation, in the city of Jericho, where palm trees occupy 50% of its area. To this day, Duaiq is proud of his steadfastness in the face of the Israeli occupation's attacks on him, sometimes by confiscating land owned by his family for the benefit of settlements (86% of the Jericho farms are either confiscated by the occupation or threatened with confiscation), sometimes by preventing the sale of palm seedlings to him and Palestinian farmers (where Palestinians who try to sell them are subject to military trial), and sometimes by preventing water and digging wells for him, and controlling tree pollen, pesticides, fertilizers, and so on.
Behind the scenes, Duaiq and other Palestinian farmers are experiencing another, harsher and more severe suffering involving their compatriots, those behind a phenomenon called "date bleaching," which means that Palestinian companies enter into agreements with Israeli companies to market settlement date products at the expense of Palestinian dates produced by Duaiq and others. They sell certain quantities of Palestinian produce to Israeli companies under cooperation or partnership agreements, with the aim of covering up other quantities of settlement dates marketed alongside Palestinian products.
What happens, then, is that Palestinian factories bring Israeli dates, which are grown and produced in the settlements, in order to pack them in Palestinian factories in the Jordan Valley or Jericho, and then market them after packaging them with labels bearing Arabic names instead of Hebrew and transporting them to the markets as Palestinian dates. This is particularly the case in Area C, which is under the security control of the Israeli occupation state in the West Bank according to the Oslo Accords.
Law No. 4 of 2010 on the prohibition and control of settlement products stipulates that "all settlement products are illegal goods, and are determined by a list issued by a decision of the Council, and prohibit anyone from trading settlement products and services, and prohibit anyone from providing a good or service to settlements." The first clause of Article 14 of the same law stipulates "imprisonment for a period of not less than two years and not more than five years, and a fine of not less than ten thousand Jordanian dinars or its equivalent in the currency in legal circulation, or one of these two penalties, for anyone who trades settlement products, and anyone who participates or contributes to their circulation or supplies a good or service to settlements."
In November 2021, the PA bowed to local pressure to end date bleaching, and the Ramallah Anti-Corruption Prosecution and the Economic Crimes Prosecution arrested six people, including two ministers, in connection with the marketing of settlement dates as Palestinian origin. The case revealed that they manage 60% of the date trade in Palestine, where they were charged with corruption related to the promotion of settlement goods locally and internationally. But to this day, no one has been clearly punished, and the phenomenon has not stopped, as while the PA declares that it is doing its part to hold those involved accountable, regardless of their positions, these individuals and companies continue to smuggle dates without any regard for the harm caused to the Palestinian farmer or the national cause.
"Dates War" in the global market
With the beginning of the blessed month of Ramadan. British campaigns to boycott Israeli dates that invade markets there #Al-Jazeera_in_Ramadan pic.twitter.com/siCkmLDyQf
— Al Jazeera (@AJArabic) March 22, 2023
When Israeli farmers said they had been treated like leprosy at the large annual fruit market Fruit Logistica in Berlin in February 2016, it had only been a few years since the first campaigns to boycott dates produced from settlements. But in subsequent years, they were able to develop new markets for their date products, such as India, Australia and the East Coast of the United States, as well as prepare for boycotts that are renewed to this day.
These campaigns usually coincide with the start of the holy month of Ramadan, in which dates are naturally very popular, as shops in Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy are filled with Israeli dates, about 60% of which are produced in illegal settlements in the West Bank, and Europe reaches 50% of what the occupying power produces of these dates. In Britain, Europe's second-largest importer of Israeli dates, more than 20,2010 leaflets were distributed in mosques at the start of Ramadan urging Muslims to boycott Israeli dates. This came as part of the "Check the Label" campaign, promoted by the country's Friends of Al-Aqsa organization since early <>, which called for avoiding "apartheid-flavored" iftars and urged Muslims in Europe to read fruit labels carefully and stay away from Israeli dates in Ramadan.
In the United States, the organization "Muslims of America for Palestine" called on members of the Arab and Palestinian communities not to deal with Israeli dates sold in the American markets and marketed as Palestinian products, and noted the names and brands of some Israeli companies located in the American markets, such as "Jordan River", "Senserly Nets", "Urban Plates" and others. In its annual renewed campaign, the organization stressed that the boycott is very effective, as the US market share of Israeli date imports has declined, the organization asserted. France has also participated in campaigns to boycott Israeli dates, with associations in solidarity with the Palestinian people actively urging a boycott of Israeli goods from the occupied territories. The European Court of Justice ruled in 2019 that EU countries must label products made in Israeli settlements on their labels, in order not to mislead consumers about the fact that Israel "exists in the territory in question as an occupying power and not as a sovereign entity."
In the meantime, Israel is working within a systematic plan to weaken the Palestinian date cultivation and production sector, which has become one of the most promising investments in the Jericho and Jordan Valley. There are between 250,350 and 25,6 palm trees, whose production is expected to reach 26,12 tons, of which the local market consumes 3,2 tons and the rest is exported to about <> global markets. The occupation not only disrupts palm cultivation by confiscating land and preventing the use of water for irrigation, but also competes with the Palestinian product in its local market by offering the Israeli product as an alternative to the Palestinian through fake companies, as mentioned above. Meanwhile, a kilo of smuggled dates is sold for seven shekels, while a kilo of Palestinian dates is sold for <> shekels ($<>.<>), which means that ordinary citizens automatically resort to buying the cheapest product, and thus the Palestinian farmer suffers a significant loss.
Even in foreign markets, Palestinian producers who depend on the sale of dates and their export abroad suffer for their income, mainly due to restrictions at the crossings controlled by the occupation, sometimes to prevent the export of dates altogether. The occupation imposes strict testing procedures and restrictions that negatively affect the ability of Palestinian dates to compete in the global market, and the occupation has even caused the cost of shipping and exporting Palestinian dates to double that of dates produced in Israeli settlements.
More broadly, Israeli companies are fighting hard for a larger stake at the expense of Palestinian companies. Not only does this use Palestinian certificates of origin to bypass the boycott issue, but it goes as far as selling poor-quality settlement dates as Palestinian origin, damaging the dates' reputation. For example, there is a quota provided by Turkey in support of the Palestinian product of dates, as the Turkish parliament decided to exempt a percentage of Palestinian dates from customs in order to be able to compete, but the quota quickly penetrated dates from non-Palestinian sources by falsifying Palestinian certificates of origin thanks to date bleaching activities. Palestinian businessman Samir Huleila told the Palestinian website Watan that most of the Turkish quota has quickly become the share of non-Palestinian sources since the 2019 season, and that the issue of falsifying certificates of origin is now the pivotal issue in the Turkish quota file.
In the end, it can be said that the success of boycott efforts and making them feasible and effective lies with the Palestinian citizen himself at home, and with Arabs and Muslims around the world later, especially with the intensification of efforts to boycott campaigns and the detection of brands under which Israeli dates are sold. The vigilance of supporters of the Palestinian cause remains necessary in order to besiege the illegal dates of the occupation, through awareness of the renewed and continuous Israeli methods to circumvent boycott campaigns and market the products of the occupation state in international markets.