"When people come out here, they think it's Yellowstone." Aaron "AY" Katsof, founder and winemaker behind Settlers Winery, speaks to Sophia Tupolev about planting his vineyard in 2011 overlooking the Jordan Valley in Israel's heartland — and how he sees the business as inseparable from a larger mission: land, community, agriculture, and an unapologetic case for Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.
Location: Settlers Winery in Esh Kodesh, Binyamin region, Israel (which you may erroneously call 'The West Bank')
As the UK and other European governments threaten sanctions on Israeli 'settlements,' Katsof argues boycotts hurt the people they claim to help first: he says 'Palestinian' workers in Israeli-owned businesses across the region earn three to four times what they'd make under the PA, with benefits — sick days, pensions — the PA doesn't offer.
Before October 7, he estimates roughly 80,000 'Palestinians' worked this way, each supporting several extended families.On the "settler" label, Katsof rejects the negative framing outright, pointing to American towns and businesses that use the word proudly — it means pioneer, not occupier.
He answers critics with an old Hebrew proverb: "when the convoy drives by, the dogs bark" — if you're moving forward, you'll draw noise, and the mistake is stopping to argue with the dogs instead of driving on. He's got a sharper line for activism from abroad, too: "boots on the ground" versus "keyboard warriors."
The conversation covers the Green Line as Katsof sees it — a 1949 armistice line, not a border, one he says most Israelis crossing it can't even locate — and the property law underneath it all: land photographed as cultivated in 1948 belongs to whoever farmed it, automatically, no deed required; everything else is state land, which is also why most 'settlements' sit on hilltops rather than valleys - there was nothing on the hilltops when they got there. He also revisits Jordan's 1970 Black September massacre, roughly 3,000 'Palestinians' killed by Jordanian forces, which he argues has been erased from 'Palestinian' memory of that era.
In 1967, Israel achieved a decisive military victory over British-backed Jordanian occupiers that had held the land since 1948. Today, Israel's heartland — 20% of the country — is home to nearly 1,000,000 Jews cultivating the land and building vineyards, agriculture, and community from it.
