The Bible makes frequent reference to wine and to the promised land’s suitability for viticulture, and archaeologists have evidence of wine production in the Levant going back at least to the beginning of the third millennium BCE. Yet oenologists long assumed that the Muslim conquest in the 7th century CE put an end to the wine business, and modern Israel’s many wineries uniformly rely on European varieties of grape and styles of wine. Kevin Begos wants Israeli vintners to revive indigenous varieties:

Today, cabernet sauvignon is the most-planted variety in Israel, followed by a long (and typical) list of French and European grapes, few of which are really suited to the hot climate of the Levant. . . .

[Contrary to what was once believed], Middle Eastern Christians and Jews were always allowed to make wine under Islamic rule. Aren Maeir, an Israeli archaeologist, wryly notes that assuming no one drank wine because of the Quran is a bit like suggesting that Christians always follow the Ten Commandments, or that no Americans drank during Prohibition. Numerous historical records confirm that winemaking continued in the Holy Land throughout the Middle Ages, though certainly on a scale smaller than pre-Islamic times. . . . The northern Israeli city of Safed had a thriving Jewish community in the [late] Middle Ages, and . . . a visitor in 1818 described five kinds of wine there, including some for the rich that were fifteen-to-twenty years old.

But in the 1880s, the founding father of Israel’s modern wine industry had a cultural blind spot. The Frenchman Edmond de Rothschild invested vast sums to expand agriculture [in the Land of Israel], and wine production in particular. Yet he ignored advisers who saw potential in native wine grapes and instead began planting European varieties. For more than 100 years, those decisions influenced the whole industry.

Then, around 2008, a few people noticed that Palestinian Christians at the Cremisan monastery and winery, located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, were using local . . . grapes: jandali, hamdani, and dabouki. A few years later the Israeli scientist Shivi Drori launched a comprehensive search for native wine grapes. . . . Drori found about twenty varieties with winemaking potential, including the ones Cremisan uses. DNA analysis confirms that some of the local Israeli grapes are older than the famous French varieties, and perhaps linked to grapes from the Caucasus Mountains, where winemaking began roughly 8,000 years ago.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.