Economics Minister Eli Cohen said, Monday, "It is a privilege for me to help the wine industry (alongside industry-wide advancement throughout the country) where our ancestors walked in the winepress thousands of years ago, a place with wonderful people and excellent conditions for wine, which gives us a lot of respect in the world and happiness in our hearts."
Cohen was responding to leftist activist Dror Atkes, who strongly criticized the Ministry of Economy's decision to invest about 10 million shekels in two wineries in Kiryat Arba and Shiloh "many of whose residents are involved in nationalist violence and violent takeovers," according to a Twitter tweet by Atkes. The minister punctuated his response by saying, "Tartness is good for wine, but I'm not sure about this kind." He concluded, "So drink a glass of wine, and save us the disgraceful generalizations."