Yesterday’s post was given over to the latest Depression Diary instalment, so I didn’t get a chance to write about our visit to the SodaStream factory. Yes, that SodaStream factory, the one inside the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.

Some people will need to hear no more. We all know what those settlers are like, don’t we? Celebrity photographer Rankin summed up the conventional wisdom: Scarlett Johansson caved under the might of “Jewish zealots“. Yet another data point for the “never trust anyone with only one name” theory.

So I wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived at the factory. Human heads on pikes? Cowering Palestinians harried hither and yon with whips?

No, actually, as my leaden sarcasm will have alerted you. What we found inside the factory was… a factory. People putting things into things, taking things out of things, placing things next to things, and so on.

What we also found was an awful lot of Palestinians, who make up well over half the workforce. While they seemed half-wary, half-amused at yet another troupe of foreign journalists gawping at them, I really can’t say they came across as victimised. Instead, they came across as well-paid (they earn three times the average wage in the Palestinian Authority) and pretty content.

Read the article in full at the Independent.