Canada ends brief ban on wine from Israel after whine from Israel

After a week-long ban on the sale of two Israeli wines produced in the West Bank — in a style eerily reminiscent of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — the Canadian government and LCBO backtracked late Thursday afternoon.

A statement from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency — which instituted the ban on the wines imported from Psagot and Shiloh Wineries — claimed they had not fully considered the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement in what they called their “wine labelling assessment.”

The CFIA indicated those wines “adhere to the (Free Trade) Agreement” and the products from those two wineries “can be sold as currently labelled.”

How’s that for spin from an agency which nearly earned Canada the distinction of being one of the first countries to support the hateful BDS movement — a pro-Palestinian movement which calls for boycotts of Israeli products and pressures celebrities not to perform in Israel.

The CFIA started the ball rolling July 6 with a directive that wines from the two wineries are labelled wrong as they are not a “product of Israel.”

According to that CFIA directive, the wine products have been made from grapes that are “grown, fermented, processed, blended and finished” in the West Bank “occupied territory.”

The directive says the Government of Canada “does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip)...as such wine products from these regions that are labelled as a Product of Israel would not be acceptable.”

We will never know where this came from. Sources [unnamed, naturally] say a low-level bureaucrat within the CFIA who belongs to the Green Party, has an axe to grind and likely supports the BDS movement acted of his or her own accord.

I must give special recognition to the LCBO [Liquor Board of Ontario], whose senior policy adviser Vincent Caron wasted no time (barely two days) instituting the July 6 CFIA ban with a July 11 letter advising all vendors of such wines to “discontinue any sales or importation” until further notice.

Robert Walker, National Director of Hasbara Fellowships, said whether this was a bureaucrat [decision] or part of a new campaign ... it is “inappropriate for a government agency to be playing politics” especially when they don’t have their facts right (about the political situation in Israel).

“They are playing into the hands of BDS activists who seek to create a double standard,” he said. “There’s one (standard) for Israel and another for the rest of the world.”

APPROVAL RATING A SURPRISE
Only 10% of Canadians recently surveyed know about the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to delegitimize Israel.

When told that the BDS movement calls for the boycott (of Israeli products), divesture of assets and other economic sanctions against Israel, 19% polled said they agree with that position while less than one-third or 31% disagreed.
The online poll of 1,540 Canadian residents was conducted by Campaign Research between July 7 and 10. [You might notice that 19% and 31% leaves 50% unaccounted for ... prh, ed.]

The poll found the highest support for the BDS movement amongst Millennials at 32%; Francophones at 28%, Bloc and Green party supporters at 35% (the latter not at all surprising considering the anti-Israel stance of the Green party).

Campaign Research CEO Eli Yufest, whose polling company did the survey because it felt the issue “topical and relevant”, said he was surprised with the high approval rating of BDS amongst Millennials, suggesting it could be due to how much BDS is debated on university campuses.

Yufest said the survey results shows that the Jewish community in Canada, of which he’s a part, “appears not to be doing enough to counter the BDS movement, particularly among Millennials.”

[Edited to remove writer's inflammatory and snide opinionated remarks.]

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