Settlement wineries see red as Israeli guidebook skips West Bank

A new guide to Israeli wines is facing criticism over its exclusion of wineries in West Bank settlements, including anger from public officials and local vintners.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely on Tuesday compared the absence of West Bank wineries from “The New Israeli Wine Guide” to a recent European Union decision to label products manufactured in Jewish settlements.

“As the State of Israel fights against boycotts of European officials, home-grown boycotters of Israeli products delegitimize the State of Israel,” Channel 2 news quoted Hotovely as saying in response to a report on the book. “Those who take such actions act as agents of the Palestinian propaganda against Israel and we must condemn and remove these elements from our midst.”

The Samaria Regional Council, which represents dozens of wineries based in the northern West Bank, said it was mulling legal action against the book’s publishers.

“This book is not worthy of serious consideration if it chooses wineries for political reasons rather than professional ones,” said council chair Yossi Dagan.

The guide was written by Israel Hayom wine reporter Yair Gat and Gal Zohar, a former wine curator in London who is employed as a consultant by a number of Tel Aviv restaurants. First released in 2014 and offered online for free in both English and Hebrew, the 2015 edition includes over 90 wines from 40 different wineries. Neither edition featured wines from the West Bank. Wines produced in the Golan Heights — which the international community generally considers occupied territory, but to which Israel extended its law in 1981 — are included, however.

The introduction to the book says that the wines were chosen solely based on professional criteria.

“Tastings were conducted blind in the strictest and most professional conditions possible and the results are recorded with no embellishment or political tinkering,” reads the introduction to the 2014 edition.

Speaking to Channel 2, Gat admitted he and Zohar had made a decision not to include West Bank wineries, but said he didn’t want to get into a political discussion and refused to comment further.

Last month, Berlin’s largest department store pulled several Israeli wines from its shelves following a European Union rule outlawing “Made in Israel” tags on products made in West Bank Jewish settlements or in the Golan Heights. The store reversed the decision and apologized following vehement backlash from Israel’s political echelon, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described the move as a “total boycott.”

The EU rule on the labeling of West Bank and Golan Heights goods has triggered a fierce backlash from the Israeli government as well as opposition leaders. Netanyahu has blasted the 28-nation bloc’s ruling as “hypocritical” and accused the EU of double standards. One of his cabinet members called the rule “veiled anti-Semitism.”

Israel captured the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War. It extended sovereignty to East Jerusalem, and extended Israeli law to the Golan Heights, but did neither in the West Bank.