Ouch: They tried to bypass the Turkish boycott and hundreds of tons of tomatoes rotted

October 25, 2024   

Abu Sibia Agriculture and Marketing Company imported more than 360 tons of tomatoes from Turkey, effectively circumventing the Turkish boycott of Israel with a 'creative' idea. However, despite the successful ploy, the goods were rejected by the Ministry of Agriculture - and rotted without reaching the consumer. According to a report by Avishai Greenzig in Kan News, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the company's appeal against the Ministry of Agriculture's decision. The trick worked like this: The company imported hundreds of tons of tomatoes from Turkey, with the Turks presented with a Jordanian order on the forms, and at the destination of the shipment, the Turkish authorities were told that its destination was Hebron in the Palestinian Authority. Each of the shipments was given a health certificate by the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, but these certificates lacked details regarding the tests to rule out lesions - except for a basic description stating that the tomatoes were free of lesions. When the shipment arrived, the Ministry of Agriculture refused to approve the entry of the goods into Israel on the grounds that "the Plant Protection Department in Turkey needs to issue a health certificate to the intermediate country (Jordan), which states Israel's import requirements." According to the Ministry of Agriculture, "the Israeli company does not have a license to import tomatoes through Jordan as required, and the Jordanian certificates do not meet the requirements." "The ministry added that the tomatoes never reached Jordan, and were not even inspected by the Jordanians. Supreme Court Justice Yechiel Kasher adopted the district court's ruling, according to which "the state's position, the belief in the correctness of the administration in general and in plant protection in particular, is reasonable and reasonable." He added: "There is no obstacle to conducting indirect imports, even though this imposes an additional burden on the importer and indirectly on the public. However, this does not permit direct imports under the guise of indirect imports that do not take place, as if in the blink of an eye.".