Canadian Court Rules Wine From Yehudah and Shomron Can’t Be Called ‘Products of Israel’

Canada’s Federal Court has overturned a government decision to allow wines from Yehudah and Shomron to be labeled as Israeli wine, characterizing such labeling as “false, misleading and deceptive.”

The presiding judge, Anne L. Mactavish, ruled that allowing wines from the region “to be labeled as ‘Products of Israel’ … does not fall within the range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and law. It is, rather, unreasonable,” she wrote, in view of the fact that Canada does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty outside the pre-1967 lines.

Judge Mactavish refrained from giving an opinion as to how such wines should be labeled, saying it’s a matter for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to decide. This, even though it was the CFIA’s labeling policy that Mactavish struck down.

The court ruling came in response to a lawsuit by Dr. David Kattenburg, a Jewish Canadian critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.