Dutch Craze for Israeli Wine Sparked by Anti-Israel Tweet

A tweet by Mieke Zagt, a supporter of boycotting Israel, has sparked a Wine craze that nearly sold out all Efrat Wines at the Hema Store chain, reported the Jerusalem Post.

Her tweet, meant to protest the sale of the wine, prompted Israel supporters to mount a social media response so successful that the Israeli wines were quickly sold out at the Hema, and the campaign became the number-one trending topic on Dutch Twitter on Tuesday.

The opening salvo for the #tipvanMieke campaign was a tweet from Zagt, a scholar and Electronic Intifada contributor with fewer than 1,300 followers on Twitter.

The Monday afternoon tweet said “Hey, Hema, you’re selling Efrat wine from Judean Hills [as] made in Israel. Is this possible? Efrat and Judean Hills are in occupied Palestinian land. Efrat is an illegal Israeli colony. Can you verify the origin? #hema #notAgainAye!??”

In reality, the Efrat Winery is one of Israel’s oldest and located in Tsor’a, a town that is located within Israel’s 1949 armistice line. Despite its name, the wine is not from disputed territory.

Gideon van der Sluis, a Dutch-born Israeli business consultant, and several other pro-Israel advocates began engaging on Twitter with like-minded users about Zagt’s tweet, labeling it with a hashtag meaning “TipFromMieke.” Within 24 hours it became the top-trending item on Dutch Twitter, with people from around the country using it with pictures of freshly bought Efrat wine bottles.

Within just hours, both the red and white Efrat wines were sold out from the online store of Hema — a huge chain with 525 stores in the Netherlands alone.

Yanki Jacobs, a rabbi from Amsterdam who runs Chabad on Campus here, said he was “delighted” about how the campaign turned out.

“It’s a pleasure to see, just a few days after Purim, something bad turning into something good,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Mieke Zagt, it would seem, had a different outlook on the whole extravaganza.

On Twitter, she seemed to suggest that the people mocking her were engaged in “intimidation and defamation.” Her hecklers, she added, “are showing their real Twitter nature,“ which she called “very disturbing.” Zagt did not reply to JTA’s request for comment on Twitter.

Hema have declined to say how many bottles were sold, citing their policy. But they acknowledged that many of their branches as well as their online store have run out of Efrat wine.