The British site, Jews sans frontiers, is on a roll lately with humanistic stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this one reprinted by permission. This latest put down of the Palestinians is about a Palestinian entrepreneur, a brewer of beer. By whom? America, the entrepreneur capital of the world, refused a Palestinian brewer the right to sell his beer in the United States.
Why? Because the beer claims that it is brewed in Palestine!. God forbid there should ever be a Palestine, again.
This information reportedly came from Charlie Pottins of Random Pottins. The link to the video below was posted by Just Peace UK:
The maker of Taybeh beer, which is brewed in a mini-brewery owned by a Palestinian family, the Khoury family of Taybeh, West Bank, Palestine, has been refused permission to import its product into the US on the grounds that the label says “Brewed in Palestine.” It was immediately remarked that this action is totally incompatible with the idea that America supports a two state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well, who knows what the American government really supports. Check out the Video.
A few paragraphs from Charlie Pottins’ essay substantiates that our government’s attitude toward the Palestinians is rife with Orwellian contradictions.
The United States wants a Two State Solution in Israel-Palestine, right? That’s what we heard after the Oslo conference and that handshake on the White House lawn, and though we have watched its prospects shrink along with Palestinian lands as they are swallowed by Israel’s wall and settlements, Two States is still on the agenda. Mr. Olmert says so.
So if the United States wants Palestinians to succeed in constructing their own state alongside Israel, how come the US authorities, just like any lumpen Zionists, insist there is no such country as Palestine? Where are they going to offer a homeland to the Palestinians, in Madagascar maybe?
A while back when things were looking optimistic for Yasser Arafat to lead his people to freedom a Palestinian family called Khoury returned home from the United States, bringing with them the business they had started as a hobby, and founding their own brewery.
Despite the difficulties of continuing Israeli occupation, and deprivations, and the rise within Palestinian society of political forces who tie national identity to a religion that’s against alcohol, the Khoury brewery at Taybeh has succeeded in producing a beer of which Palestine can be proud.
What’s more they have exported it. Taybeh beer is now being brewed in Germany under licence, and it’s being sold as far a field as Japan. It may be the problems imposed at home, which made overseas production necessary, but bearing in mind the German regulations, which lay down what you can put in a bottle and sell as beer, this success there is a tribute to the Taybeh beer’s wholesome natural ingredients and quality.
As for pleasing the discerning consumer, I have tasted the future, and it works.
Someone wisely arranged for a quantity of Taybeh beer to be available at a Jews for Justice for Palestinians social and cultural event in north London a while back and I’ve been singing its praises ever since. Mind you, I’ve only sampled the pale, or blond, beer but I see from the publicity they do a dark beer as well. They are even prepared to brew an alcohol-free version to cater for the religious teetotallers.Trading in alcoholic beverages may not be as easy for amateurs as selling Palestinian olive oil, but it’s good to find ways of giving Palestinian exports a boost rather than confining ourselves to arguments about boycotts. Today I was invited to join a Facebook group of Taybeh fans, and did not hesitate, and I have also signed up a few friends.
There is one country where you can’t get Taybeh beer though, and if you haven’t guessed it’s the place where the idea was born, yes. The Land of the Free will not allow its beer drinkers to enjoy the Palestinian beer, because the authorities object to the Brewed in Palestine label, insisting there is no such country as Palestine.
(snip)
If I hear of any Taybeh beer being smuggled into the US, I will be certain to advise the community. Its buzz may help the Palestinian cause for freedom and self-determination after 40 years of oppression under military occupation.
as a homebrewer and beer fanatic, this is not acceptable.
Free the beers!
There may actually be something different happening here. It must be assumed that the relevant federal agency requires a country of origin for purposes of dealing with a product in an appropriate fashion, ie excluding US entry to beef of Canadian origin because of concerns about mad cow disease. This beer, not having been labeled with a recognized country of origin, may have caused nonthinking agency drones to simply refuse entry for lack of alternative response.
BTW, an new case of Canadian mad cow was just discovered. See peer.org for more info.
“caused nonthinking agency drones,” i.e., bureaucratics.
It can only be hoped that you are correct. But where and what is the remedy? And why isn’t this incident being given attention by the State Department, where Rice is pushing for the two states solution?
It would seem to me that a product labeled “brewed in Palestine” would get lots of attention, and that attention would bring higher levels of the government into the decision making process.
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PALESTINE (BBC News) Dec. 12, 2002 – Nadim Khoury runs the only micro-brewery in the Middle East. Two years ago, business for Taybeh beer was booming. Nadim employed 12 people, turning out up to 4,000 bottles of beer per hour from his family-owned plant near Ramallah.
The Khourys returned to the hilltop village of Taybeh after 20 years in Boston and invested $1.2m in the business following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
But now, with production down 90%, his revenues barely cover the phone bill.
Disruption
Checkpoints and curfews seriously hamper deliveries while supplies of key imports – British yeast, Belgian malt, German hops and Portuguese bottles – are at the mercy of the Israeli authorities.
On a recent $20,000 consignment of imported bottles, Taybeh Beer was charged $6,000 in costs for hold-ups at the Israeli port. The authorities said these delays could be avoided if Mr Khoury bought his bottles from Israeli firms.
Gaza brewer to launch Hamas beer
RAMALLAH, Palestine (UPI) March 22, 2006 — The Palestinian Taybeh brewery is poised to start test-marketing non-alcoholic Hamas beer, following the party’s election victory.
Website Taybeh Brewery
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."As always thanks for your additional info. It helps here especially to know how the occupation is interfering with the Palestinian economy, and making life worse in the territories. It is not just America; it is Israel.