Country of Origin Marking

In Bethlehem last summer, I sipped the delicious 2020 Philokalia Red Blend. Made from Palestinian grapes, the wine is spicy and full of tannins from the traumatized argilo-calcaire soil (a mixture of limestone and clay). Philokalia works with grapevines that were previously bulldozed by the Israeli military but have reemerged through the rubble. On viveno.com—“the world's largest wine marketplace with reviews straight from the community”—someone slyly remarked that the red blend is “very good amber wine except for the slightly bitter aftertaste of occupation.” Wine is land liquefied, jammed into a glass bottle for people to export, import, and consume across time and space. On the shelf of the shop down the street from my house in Rhode Island, I was shocked to find a different wine produced in the region. On the bottle it read, “Product of Israel.” This is not true.

Terroir of dispossession: on November 18, 2020, a chief U.S. diplomat visited an Israeli settlement for the first time ever. Mike Pompeo—Donald Trump's Secretary of State—swooped in on an Israel Defense Forces helicopter to Psagot. At a distance there were local Palestinians protesting with proud clumps of balloons in red, white, and green, their families the legal owners of 20 acres that the winery stole to grow grapes. According to international law, Psagot is one of about 30 wineries illegally operating within Area C of the occupied West Bank.

Financially backed by the Falic family of Florida, Psagot named the “Pompeo Special Edition 2020” after the Secretary of State. Liquidating a chance for peace, this gesture of supremacy came after Pompeo’s 2019 announcement that the Trump administration would reverse four decades of U.S. policy by no longer considering Israeli settlements in Area C illegal. Though the Biden administration recently restored the legal findings that recognize Israeli settlements as illegitimate. However, Pompeo successfully distorted policy regulations for Marking of Country of Origin on U.S. Imports that are still in effect today. Now mandatory and misleading, products exported from Area C are to be labeled: “Israel,” “Product of Israel,” or “Made in Israel.”

A product of Israel would be something that is governed by Israeli law. This is not the case for Psagot wine and the many products like it. The irony is that the current country of origin markings required by the U.S. also applies to products made by Palestinians in Area C, who are now forced to label their products with the name of their occupier. Continuing the displacement of Palestinians, the Department of Homeland Security’s 2020 General Notice also declared that products from Area A and B of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip may no longer be labeled in combined form: “West Bank/Gaza,” “West Bank/Gaza Strip,” or “West Bank and Gaza.” Products must indicate that they are either from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

For this project, I steal wine produced illegally in the West Bank that is currently available for purchase in the U.S. I annotate each bottle with truthful information for consumers.

— Erik DeLuca