Just when it seemed there was nothing else left to divide Israelis and Palestinians, some Jewish hardliners have found a new one: beer.
The recent decision by a trendy pub in the northern Israeli city of Haifa to make Shepherds beer available sparked the controversy.
The problem: Shepherds is a Palestinian beer recently launched by a brewery in the occupied West Bank.
The decision by the bar, the Libira, led to drunken-sounding diatribes from some.
“Traitors’ bar! I call on everyone not to go there,” read one of the comments on the Facebook page of the pub located at the traditional port in Haifa’s Old City.
“This Palestinian beer is made with Jewish blood,” said another.
When he saw the insults, co-owner Erik Salarov, said he was shocked.
At the bar that he opened with friends, “we don’t do politics”, he said.
“We offer a drink with friends. We have highlighted a Scottish beer, a beer from Tel Aviv and Taybeh beer,” he added, naming the most popular Palestinian brew.
For Salarov, those who call for a boycott of Libira are “a handful of racist nationalists who do not accept the idea of co-existence”.
He says co-existence is a part of life in Haifa, where 10 percent of residents are Arab Israelis, or the descendants of Palestinians who remained after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Salarov says that dynamic is particularly strong in the Old City. Jews and Arabs gather together -- rare in Israel -- at bars and restaurants in the neighborhood.

Storm brews over Palestinian pints in Israeli pub

A bartender serves beer at the Libira Brewery pub in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. (AFP)
AFP
Wednesday 29 March 2017
Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:50 - GMT 06:50
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