UAE selling "occupied territory" wine while US ends legal obstacles to dealing with "settlements"

Two giant stories occurred this week regarding the legal status of the disputed territories.

Israel announced on Tuesday the United States is lifting a ban on funding Israeli scientific research conducted in the West Bank and Golan Heights. This follows the announcement a year ago by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the US does not consider "settlements" to be a violation of international law.

Up until now, the US was careful not to spend any funds on Israeli projects across the Green Line armistice lines of 1949. 

This position is consistent with Donald Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" plan as well as common sense that in any potential two-state solution, Israel would hold on to most of the areas where Israeli citizens (Arabs and Jews) have lived for decades.

As important as that announcement is, perhaps the UAE has gone further.

Starting tomorrow, Israeli wines from the Golan Heights Winery will be sold in Dubai.

They will be imported by the UAE-based African+Eastern, which made the announcement.  They sell wines and spirits to the many non-Muslim consumers in the UAE. 

The Golan Heights wines are not yet on their webpage.

The people that consider Judea and Samaria to be "occupied" say the same about the Golan Heights, conquered by Israel in 1967. 

By allowing imports from the Syrian-claimed region, the UAE is saying that it is considering at least some of the "occupied territories" to be part of Israel - or at least it doesn't object to labeling goods from the Golan Heights as Israeli, which makes the UAE more pro-Israel than some European countries. 

None of these announcements should be earth-shattering. The world never made the demands on other disputed or "occupied" territories that is has of Israel. Earlier this month, Turkey announced it will open a tourist site on the ruins of an abandoned Cypriot beach town without a word from Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International about "illegal settlement activities in occupied territories." 

But treating Israel like any other nation is, indeed, big news. Hopefully that will not be the case for long.

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