"Israeli" Vegetables at Spinneys: Tip of the Iceberg

By: Rami Zurayk
Al-Akhbar, January 13, 2013

This month, the Palestinian Farmers Union issued an urgent appeal for the boycott of "Israeli" agricultural goods and companies. In Lebanon, we didn't feel that they meant us, until a week ago when a Lebanese newspaper revealed that "Israeli" produce had been found at the Spinneys grocery store in Saida.

According to the paper, which published pictures of the offending items, the produce included multi-colored sweet peppers in a plastic bag. The label on the bag said: "Country of Origin: Spain for the green peppers and "Israel" for the yellow ones."

It was the Lebanese army who removed the produce because of Lebanon's boycott of "Israel". Spinneys decried the fact that "Israeli" products had been found in its shops - for the second time - assuring every one of their respect for the boycott law. Perhaps they respect it as much as they respect Lebanon's labor laws.

If we leave aside the fact that the boycott law was broken, there are two important issues here. The first is that regardless of the origin of the vegetables, why are we importing vegetables to the country of vegetables? Does the demand for sweet peppers exceed the supply these days? Is it possible that producing these vegetables in Spain and occupied Palestine, shipping them to Holland to be packaged, and then shipping them to Lebanon is cheaper than producing sweet peppers locally? If this is true, then the agriculture and trade ministries should explain this mystery to us.

The second issue is related to the reaction to the news on the comments page of the Internet edition of the newspaper. Scores of racist and derogatory comments were hurled at Arabs while "Israel" was praised. Of course, in Lebanon, we like to outdo the West when it comes to freedom of opinion and expression. This perhaps turns certain newspapers into mouthpieces for our enemy's propaganda.