Psagot, September 9 (askanews) – At the Psagot winery, in the Israeli industrial zone of Shaar Binyamin in the occupied West Bank, workers and soldiers stand among bottles and crates ready for shipment. Owner Yaakov Berg rejects the trade ban with Israeli settlements imposed by twelve countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and France, following the increase in settler violence against Palestinians.
Israel responded by ordering the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, the expulsion of London representatives from a center monitoring the ceasefire in Gaza, and a travel ban on twelve British citizens, most of them parliamentarians. Berg maintains that sanctions won't stop a company that has grown from 3.000 bottles to over a million in twenty years. "You won't change us for a few dollars," says Yaakov Berg, owner of the Psagot winery. "We came to our homeland, it's difficult to live here, and we believe in what we do.
We didn't come here for a few dollars, so we won't leave for a few dollars." "I promise you," he continues, "that we will double our sales in England and around the world. I started the winery twenty years ago. Here we started with 3.000 barrels, 3.000 barrels. Now we produce more than a million.
And we've been boycotted since day one, with people saying they wouldn't buy. That's the reality. We're not afraid." "We'll take all our money, Foreign Secretary," he says, referring to the United Kingdom, "and invest it in land. We'll grow more grapes, build more houses, and stay here. We'll be in our homeland, and our homeland will prosper."
Notizie.it editorial team