Storm brews over Palestinian pints poured in Haifa pub

HAIFA: 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 posted on the official 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 Mr 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% of residents are Arab Israelis, or the descendants of Palestinians who remained after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Mr 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 neighbourhood.

He has seen hardliners seek to cause trouble before.

“We’ve seen it several times, but they are a minority,” said Mr Salarov.

“They are more bark than bite.” Suheil Assad, an Arab Israeli member of the city council and former deputy mayor, said Haifa has managed to achieve some level of coexistence better than other mixed cities.

“Arabs and Jews live mixed in almost all neighbourhoods,” he said.

Still, he said, “every right-wing attack causes tensions to rise between Jews and Arabs”.

“Twenty years ago, the number of rightwing militants was much less,” he added.

Haifa, known in particular for its Baha’i Gardens, is also a cultural centre for Israel’s Arab population.

The city’s Krieger Centre for the arts regularly holds concerts featuring Arab music and theatres stage Arabic plays.

Jaafar Farah of Arab Israeli rights group Mossawa said sometimes it seems that “Arabs account for 50% of the population instead of only 10%”.

“The far right wants to create clashes to then be able to show that coexistence between Jews and Arabs is impossible,” he said.

For Leonid Lipkin, who is a co-owner of the Libira bar, those efforts are doomed to fail.

“We are resisting and the proof is that we are still open,” he said.