TANYA HABJOUQA / NOOR FOR THE WORLD
ReportageMike Pompeo is expected to become the first US Secretary of State to visit an Israeli settlement this week, yet another gesture of legitimacy by the Trump administration of settlement in the occupied West Bank.
The cellar of the Kosher wine company Psagot lurks deep in the industrial area of Shaar Binyamin, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, wedged between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The vast building, a little too shiny imitation of a Provençal farmhouse, opens onto a panorama of rocky hills, where a Palestinian village and tin shacks stand enthroned. At the entrance, several wines are displayed, but no trace of the “Pompeo” cuvée. The stocks are exhausted, explains the young woman at the reception.
The cuvée de rouge, a limited series, had been promoted with a great deal of publicity at the end of 2019, to express ” Gratitude “ from Psagot wine producer to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The manager of the cellar, Yaakov Berg, had just lost in the Court of Justice of the European Union: his wines, produced in illegal settlements in the eyes of international law, cannot be labeled as mere Israeli products on the Old Continent. . The Trump administration then retorted, through Mr. Pompeo: “The establishment of settlements of Israeli civilians in the West Bank is not in itself contrary to international law. “
In recent days, it has been rumored that the head of American diplomacy will taste the wine baptized in his name during his three-day stopover in Israel, from November 18 to 20. Yet another stab at the American diplomatic tradition: it would be the first time that a Secretary of State would visit a colony. The provocation, already condemned by the Palestinian Authority, could be accompanied by a visit to the Golan Heights, Syrian territory annexed in 1981, over which the United States recognizes Israeli sovereignty, in violation of international law.
“Being here is a religious choice”
Below Psagot, in the trendy premises of a start-up incubator, we welcome this possible American visit with polite enthusiasm. “Obviously, Mike Pompeo’s statement helped, it’s one more step in the process, which has been going on for years, of normalizing Judea and Samaria [nom biblique donné par les Israéliens à la Cisjordanie]. But we have not yet looked back to see the effects in the long term ”, observes the boss of Binyamin Tech, Yael Zevi. This mother of seven started a year ago with the ambition of bringing high-tech to the occupied West Bank.
In the building where she is installed, brand new, the ground floor is still empty, a series of lifeless windows. Nearby, a health center should soon emerge from the ground. The apparent real estate boom fails to obscure the fact that settlements are still far from concentrating the heart of Israeli economic activity. Most of the settlers work across the “green line” and the position of the US administration has not changed that.
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