From the workshops where they are brewed to the customers’ tables, Taybeh beers must overcome a host of obstacles to circulate or leave the occupied West Bank, like other Palestinian exports affected by the war in Gaza.
Security barrier or wall to cross, crossing points, authorizations, drop in demand and tensions in the surrounding area: the brewery nestled in the eponymous Christian village of Taybeh, in the Ramallah region, is bearing the brunt of the difficulties.
“Business has declined considerably,” laments Madees Khoury, 38, head of the brewery created by her father Nadim 30 years ago and which today employs 15 people. “But we continue to produce, we work, we keep busy.”
According to her, sales have fallen by 80% since 2019, first hit by the coronavirus pandemic and then by the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
“Many people are unemployed and have no money. Palestinian Authority employees are not receiving their salaries, so buying beer has become a kind of luxury,” says the brewer, who also produces non-alcoholic beers.
“People are saving for their basic needs. They are not in the mood to go out and drink,” she adds, in the warehouse where hundreds of bottles collide before packaging and shipping.
– “Insecurity” –
“The best beer in the Middle East”, as the gold label proclaims, is exported to 17 countries, but half of the production is normally sold in the West Bank and 35% goes to Israel, on the other side of the barrier separating the two territories, punctuated by military checkpoints.
Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, allows exports ($1.56 billion in 2023, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics) but subjects them to strict controls and complicates them with movement restrictions, which have been reinforced since October 7, explains Ms. Khoury.
According to the World Bank, West Bank exports have fallen by 20% as a result of the war.
“(Deliveries) take three days if everything goes well, which never happens,” laments Ms. Khoury.
Added to this is the violence that had already been increasing for two years across the West Bank, but which has redoubled in intensity in recent months.
According to Palestinian authorities, 553 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army or settlers since October 7 in the West Bank.
“I never felt unsafe when I moved around, until about two years ago,” says Ms. Khoury, whose village is like the others, surrounded by Israeli settlements.
Some 490,000 Israelis live in the West Bank in settlements that the UN considers illegal under international law, among three million Palestinians.
Some “extremist” settlers have recently been targeted by American, British or European sanctions.
Ms. Khoury believes that they are “attacking from right to left” because they feel reinforced by the presence in the Israeli government of ministers who are themselves settlers and particularly virulent.
– Coexistence –
Still, the Taybeh has not disappeared from the map of Jerusalem bar owner Lior Gootriman, who sees it as a crucial symbol of coexistence.
“We often change suppliers but the Taybeh remains, it’s important. I want to show that everything remains normal, I have no enemy here around me,” says this 50-year-old Israeli.
Madees Khoury’s brewery organizes an Oktoberfest every year to promote its village and its beers, but she already knows that the event will not be held this year.
However, she will continue to toast the health of her family business and her people.
“My family believes that to create a state and an economy in Palestine, we must invest our own money, our knowledge, our experience and the future of our children,” she says.
The one who also wants to show “another side of Palestine and that women entrepreneurs can run businesses in a man’s world”, believes that “enduring these difficulties makes us stronger”.
“I’m not leaving, this is home.”
