From Samaria Wine to National Economy: The Growing Threat of UK Sanctions
Britain's push to sanction trade with Judea and Samaria threatens to set a dangerous precedent that could eventually engulf Israel's broader economy and service sectors.
In London, judges tasted the wine without knowing its origin and awarded it 97 points. Now, with its provenance well known, that same bottle risks becoming collateral damage in a looming push to restrict trade with Judea and Samaria. The flagship wine of Gvaot Winery, located in Givat Harei in Samaria, won exceptional praise last year in a blind tasting by Decanter. For Eliav Miller, who manages the winery, it is hard to find a better illustration of the paradox.
"Nobody knew where the wine was from," he says of the tasting in London. "It was a truly objective tasting."
When people think of Judea and Samaria, wine is rarely the first thing that comes to mind. Yet among the hills of Samaria operate some of Israel's most prominent wineries, producing internationally acclaimed wines sold overseas. Now, as international pressure on the settlements shifts from political declarations to threats of economic measures, a bottle of Samarian wine has become a small test for a much larger question: Will sanctions begin in Judea and Samaria, only to ultimately reach the entire Israeli economy?
The Threat of British Sanctions and the Export Dilemma
Ahead of the holiday, amid a flurry of delivery orders, Vered Ben-Saadon has not yet had time to call her contacts in England. "I am first waiting to see what happens," she says from Tura Winery in Rehelim, Samaria. "Many times there have been things in the past, noises in the past that amounted to nothing. It is not the first time."
Yet this time, officials in Jerusalem are following the situation with heightened concern. Britain is advancing a ban on trade in goods originating from the settlements in Judea and Samaria, alongside a sanctions regime targeting companies that provide the settlements with services in construction, infrastructure, finance, and real estate. Concurrently, other nations are advancing or reviewing their own restrictions.
On paper, at least regarding physical goods, the figures are relatively modest compared to the broader Israeli economy. The Ministry of Economy estimates that the export of goods from Judea and Samaria to Britain stands at about $45 million, and to Europe as a whole at roughly $250 million, out of total annual Israeli exports of approximately $165 billion.
The Slippery Slope of Service Sanctions
However, Jerusalem is less troubled by the immediate figures than by the precedent they might set.
Israel sells Britain more than just physical goods that can be loaded onto a truck or container—such as wine, dates, food products, plastics, and components. These pass through customs and their origin is generally identifiable. Alongside them, however, Israel exports massive volumes of business services: software, cyber, consulting, finance, and research and development. These are sold via contracts rather than containers, making it far harder to draw a geographic boundary around them.
"We fear a situation where sanctions will be imposed on anyone who does business with the settlements, meaning that if a bank has a branch or an ATM in the settlements, it will be exposed to sanctions," a senior economic official told Israel Hayom.
Here, the figures look entirely different. Israeli business services exports to Britain reached about $2.9 billion in 2024. The underlying fear is that a policy starting with a product manufactured in Judea and Samaria will eventually expand to Israeli companies operating nationwide that also provide services to the settlements, thereby leaking into the entire Israeli economy.
Frustration in Jerusalem has another dimension as well. Israeli officials point to what they view as an increasingly intolerable gap: the very nations that publicly condemn Israel and advance economic measures against it continue behind closed doors to rely on Israeli capabilities in intelligence, cyber, and security when their own interests are on the line. A growing sentiment in Israel holds that the country can no longer remain both the convenient target for condemnation before the cameras and the silent provider called upon when critical capabilities are needed.
Local Reality and Global Paranoia
For Ben-Saadon, this diplomatic dispute has long ceased to be theoretical. She and her husband Erez planted vineyards 23 years ago, initially selling their grapes to one of Israel's largest wineries. According to her, at a certain point that winery stopped purchasing from them "due to political matters, because their customers didn't like the idea that they were buying grapes from a vineyard in Samaria." In 2003, the couple decided to establish their own winery.
Today, she says, Tura produces more than 200,000 bottles annually and exports over half of them to a variety of countries, including four that are currently advancing measures against settlement products.
Recently, Ben-Saadon recounts, a longtime non-Jewish customer from Norway visited the winery. She bought wine, packed the bottles into her suitcase, and before leaving told her: "Vered, you should know, I am taking these wines and I risk three years in prison if customs officers open my suitcase."
"Simply an insane situation," Ben-Saadon says.
Miller is similarly familiar with boycotts, and not just outside Israel. Gvaot Winery was established in 2005, currently produces about 100,000 bottles a year, and directs roughly 20 percent of its production to export, primarily to the United States and Canada. "In Israel, there are places that unequivocally refused to put me on their wine lists or in their wine shops because of the geographical location where we are situated," he says.
Nevertheless, Miller notes that boycotts have sometimes produced a reverse effect. "The Jewish public came and said to themselves, 'They are boycotting the wineries in Samaria, we now need to buy wines from Samaria.'" According to him, the political spotlight has in some cases helped expose the regional wines to entirely new audiences.
Ben-Saadon is eager to clarify that her opposition to boycotts does not translate into a justification for violence by Jews. She condemns the events in Qusra without hesitation. "We condemn these actions with our entire mouth, both because such things must not be done and because it inflicts a catastrophic image crisis upon us."
Yet in her view, the notion that economic pressure can be successfully quarantined to Judea and Samaria alone is far more dangerous. "Whoever deludes themselves that it will start in Judea and Samaria and end there is simply deluding themselves. They are naive. Today it is Judea and Samaria. Tomorrow it will harm the entire Israeli economy."
This is precisely the scenario that worries officials in Jerusalem: not merely whether a bottle of wine produced in Samaria will continue to be sold in Europe, but what will happen if the exact same logic is applied tomorrow to an Israeli bank, software firm, or cyber company that also provides services in Judea and Samaria.
