As per her duties, Vice President Kamala Harris held a public seder ceremony for her staffers with her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who was born Jewish. Sharp-eyed Israel haters were quick to point out that the bottle of wine on the table was from Psagot Winery located in the region of Israel granted by God to the tribe of Benjamin.
Tonight, @VP and I were honored to celebrate Passover with our hardworking staff by holding a Seder at the Vice President’s Residence.
Whether you’re celebrating with your family, your work family, or the family you have chosen, we wish you all a Happy Passover! pic.twitter.com/g9qLOHqFUM
— Douglas Emhoff (@SecondGentleman) April 16, 2022
Psagot is believed to be the site of the Biblical city of Ai which Joshua conquered upon entering Israel. The region in which the award-winning wine was produced is directly north of Jerusalem. It was allotted to Israel by the United Nations in 1947 and illegally occupied by Jordan until it was conquered by Israel in the defensive 1967 Six-Day War. People who reject the Bible, as well as modern and ancient history, claim the region belongs to a “Palestinian Nation” that has yet to exist.
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Huge yikes: Kamala Harris @VP served wine from Psagot at her Passover Seder. It is produced in an illegal Israeli settlement which is colonizing the occupied West Bank. This demonstrates serious contempt for Palestinians and int’l law. https://t.co/UvUMG7bEeI
— Michael Bueckert (@mbueckert) April 16, 2022
Harris’s staff was quick to engage in damage control. Her senior adviser for communications, Herbie Ziskend (who is Jewish), tweeted that the presence of the Israeli wine “was in no way intended to be an expression of policy.”
CEO of Psagot Yaakov Berg said in a statement that the Harris and her husband, Jewish Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff “have shown that they understand wine” and “have shown respect to Israeli wine.”
In 2020, the winery named a bottle of Psagot Special Edition for America’s former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo as thanks for his condemning the European Court of Justice ruling on settlement products.
“We recognized that this is not an occupied nation, this is not an apartheid country,” Pompeo said when he visited the winery in October. “It is a democracy where faiths can be practiced from all of the Abrahamic traditions.”
The wine retails for $49.99.
“Next year I would recommend that the Second Family serve the “Friedman” vintage from the Psagot winery. I may be biased but I think it’s very good,” tweeted former US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
Next year I would recommend that the Second Family serve the “Friedman” vintage from the Psagot Winery. I may be biased but I think it’s very good. https://t.co/EJ1Po34f6F pic.twitter.com/icThSUi7xZ
— David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) April 16, 2022
Berg also pledged that if Harris “continues in a positive direction, for example by opposing the Iran nuclear deal,” the winery would name a wine in her honor as well, Israel Hayom reported.
The policy of the Biden administration, in contrast to the Trump administration, is that it is illegal for ethnic Jews to live in Judea and Samaria. In October, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a press briefing in response to Israeli plans for advancing Jewish settlement construction that “we strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution.”
A day earlier, Harris and Emhoff attended a virtual White House seder hosted by the Biden administration for the second year in a row. In an egregious case of cultural appropriation and replacement theology, the president dubbed the Jewish holiday of redemption “The People’s seder”, eliminating the Jewish roots of the ritual.
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