The High Court held a hearing this week after a group of
lulav importers filed a petition demanding the Israeli
Agricultural Ministry allow them to import lulavim
from all parts of Egypt rather than el-Arish alone.
Agriculture Ministry officials say that only the date trees
in the el-Arish region are not ridden with pests and disease
that could contaminate date orchards in Israel. But this year
Egyptian officials are prohibiting the harvest of lulav
branches from el-Arish, saying the trees are "fatigued" from
the intensive harvesting in recent years. Meanwhile Egypt is
allowing lulavim to be taken from every other part of the
country.
In this week's urgent High Court hearing, lulav dealers asked
the court to instruct Meir Mizrachi, head of the Agricultural
Ministry's Plant Protection and Inspection Services, to
permit the import of lulavim from all of Egypt. The dealers
reject the Agricultural Ministry's contentions, saying that
the lulavim can be fully disinfected in 24 hours and
thousands have already arrived in the US — where
millions of date trees are cultivated — without any
objections from US Department of Agriculture officials.
Dealers are also questioning why the Agricultural Ministry
refused to send inspectors to other parts of Egypt.
Just as in past years numerous snags are interfering with
lulav imports from Egypt, threatening to create a shortage
this year. Last week Agricultural Ministry inspectors, in
coordination with the Border Patrol, raided warehouses used
by numerous importers and confiscated 110,000 lulavim and
lulav holders, claiming they were contaminated with disease
and infested with insects.
Dubbed "Operation Lulav," the night long raid was preceded by
intelligence gathering and extensive interrogations to locate
the lulavim. A large number of lulavim already packaged and
ready for export were seized and destroyed.
Operation Lulav began when a shipment of lulavim arrived from
Egypt via the Nitzana crossing at the beginning of last week.
The shipment surprised Plant Protection and Inspection
Services officials since North Sinai Governor Ahmed Abdel
Hamid said he would not permit the harvest of lulavim from
the el-Arish area, whereas Israel had refused to permit
imports from other areas. An inquiry by Israeli authorities
raised suspicions the shipment bore a falsified shipping
certificate and was of unknown origin.
Following the incident, Plant Protection head Meir Mizrachi
said, "The unsupervised import of plants and plant products
is liable to introduce contaminants with the potential to
cause irreversible damage to plant growth and agriculture in
the State of Israel. The Agricultural Ministry's Plant
Protection inspectors invest major efforts into preventing
the entry of unauthorized plants and plant products in order
to prevent the entry of pests, contaminants and diseases that
do not exist in Israel and have no remedy or biological foes
in Israel. The pests, contaminants and disease `make aliya'
by riding in on plants, fruits and vegetables."
