Mike Pompeo is expected to tour an Israeli winery this week built on land Palestinian families say was stolen from them, a deeply provocative act that would make him the first US secretary of state to officially visit a settlement in the occupied territories.
The top diplomat’s visit has been widely reported by Israeli media but not confirmed by Washington. If it went ahead, it would be a parting gift to Israel’s nationalist government and the settler movement, as the Trump administration scrambles in its final weeks to impose a vision for the Middle East that has deeply favoured Israel’s far-right.
Psagot, a settlement built on a hilltop next to the Palestinian city of al-Bireh, runs a winery that produces 600,000 bottles a year and offers VIP tours with cheese tasting.
Last year, it released a red wine named after the secretary of state as “a show of gratitude and appreciation” for Pompeo’s declaration that the US would break away from international consensus and no longer argue that settlements are illegal.
Settlers and the Israeli government have attempted to push tourism in the occupied territories to bolster their claim to the land, not only with wine tours but also by establishing “national parks” where people can go on settler-run hiking holidays.
The winery’s website says it overlooks the “primordial landscape of Israel” despite being located deep inside the Palestinian territories and just metres from Palestinian families who say they were dispossessed.
On Wednesday, the day Pompeo flew to Israel for a three-day visit, representatives from those families gathered to protest against the trip on a hill in al-Bireh opposite the settlement.
Munif Treish, a member of al-Bireh Municipality, said roughly 50 Palestinians from five large families had ownership of the land, which they call Jabal al-Taweel. “All of it is on private land. We have all the documents; we have all the deeds,” he said.
Tamam Quran, a 25-year-old high school teacher who has American citizenship, said her grandmother used to pick grapes from the vines now used by the winery.
“Growing up a five-minute walk from where we are here now, I woke up every morning to the settlement,” she said.
As a West Bank resident, she said she would be arrested if she attempted to cross into Israeli territory without a permit. “Yet the secretary of state can visit a settlement that is internationally illegal and has no consequences?”
Donald Trump, who has courted pro-Israel voters from the evangelical Christian right, of which Pompeo is a member, has pushed through a series of policies that previous US presidents – Republican and Democrat – have avoided because they have been seen as overtly one-sided.
He has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, declared the divided city of Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, shut down Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington, and devised a “peace plan” that affords Israel’s government the vast majority of its demands.
Pompeo, who has been tipped to pursue a presidential bid in four years, is also expected to visit the Golan Heights, an area Israel captured from Syria and claims sovereignty over – a move Trump recognised last year.
Israel took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordanian forces in 1967 and continues to occupy the area. Close to 700,000 Israeli settlers live there, among more than 2.5 million Palestinians.
The US state department did not respond to request for details on Pompeo’s visit. Yaakov Berg, the chief executive of Psagot winery, did not respond to a request for comment.
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