There are a multitude of impacts on Palestinians and Syrians, both because of companies operating in occupied territory where Israel is unlawfully present (the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Occupied Syrian Golan), and also those operating within Israel, where Israel applies a discriminatory apartheid regime on both sides of the Green Line. While only a fraction of the impacts, we’ve outlined some key consequences in this report, including, how alcohol industry is cultivated on lands appropriated from the Palestinian people, through the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and maintained through the entrenchment of Israel’s brutal settler colonial apartheid regime and unlawful occupation.

We conducted an audit of ‘Israeli’ alcohol products across Canada. This is a follow-up to our previous analysis in 2019 and 2021, which found very similar results. This year, we identified 169 unique items for sale as “Products of Israel” across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. In summary, five companies explicitly have vineyards in the occupied West Bank: Tabor (Gush Etzion), Barkan (Jersualem Mountains), Teperberg (Gush Etzion, Samarian Mountains, and Mevo Horon), Binyamina (Gilboa), and Tisbhi Estate (Gush Etzion). Seven companies explicitly have vineyards in the occupied Syrian Golan: Recanti (Odem and Kidmat Tzvi), Odem (Odem and Vineyard 1060), Vitkin (Syrian Golan), Tabor (Ortal and Keshet), Binyamina (Mevo Hama, Tel Phares, and Kidmat Tzvi), Golan Heights Winery (Avital, Ortal, Bar’on, Odem, Hermonit, Ein Zivan, El Rom, Allone Habashan, Yonatan Springs, Yonatan, Geshur, and Tel Phares), and Tisbhi Estate (Syrian Golan).

The issue is not simply about the industries present on occupied territory. Other wineries and breweries are established on annexed Palestinian land and also appropriate Palestinian resources, furthering Israeli apartheid. For example, wineries have been established on appropriated Palestinian lands where the population has been mass forcibly displaced and erased–– such as the village of Al-Ras al-Ahmar (now a settlement known as Ben Zimra). Currently, there are there are three wineries in the settlement of Ben Zimra, with another 11 within an approximately 10-kilometre radius. Within that same geographic area, approximately 24 Palestinian villages were forcibly transferred and denied their right of return, with countless more in the surrounding areas and throughout all of Palestine.¹ Four of the companies identified in our audit as “Products of Israel” are located in this area––Or Haganuz Winery, Galil Mountain Winery, Adir Winery, and Dalton Winery.

Various entities, government agencies, and individuals are potentially facilitating serious international and domestic law violations including:

• The war crime of pillage

• Failing to differentiate goods from occupied territory in the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement

• Land appropriation

• Transfer of civilian population

• The crime of apartheid

• Aiding and abetting

• Laundering proceeds of crime

We demand an immediate end to the importation and sale of all Israeli wine produced in breach of international law and domestic law.

For more information and sources, check out the full report. You can also contact [email protected]