The Blogs: Israeli Restaurants Falsely Accused of Appropriating Palestinian Cuisine

To have to write an article like this is absurd. The subject matter is extremely petty. Highlighting it brings attention that may not be warranted.

Yet it doesn’t seem right to ignore it.

Why?

People are losing their businesses. Others are losing their jobs. Still others go to bed at night thinking that they are being virtuous, somehow improving society, when they have simply been duped.

To get to the point, Israeli restaurants worldwide have been targeted by anti-Israel activists claiming cultural and/or cuisine appropriation.

Recently, for instance:

You get the idea…

I first heard of food insults being hurled at Israel some years ago in a slightly different setting.

Lebanon and Israel have been engaged in a long-running hummus war over the dish’s origin, ownership, and branding. Lebanon accused Israel of cultural appropriation and tried to register hummus as a protected Lebanese product with the European Union. The EU did not allow this, as hummus is considered a regional product.

The Israeli-Arab village of Abu Ghosh set the Guinness World Record for hummus at 4 tons in 2010, which set off Lebanese officials ranting about Israel stealing their symbolic national food. Later that year, Lebanon regained the record at 10 tons.

The Israeli restaurants that were boycotted and forced to close had menu items including hummus, shwarma, and kunafa. These dishes are apparently considered Palestinian by protesters.

Why?

According to my research, hummus was originally mentioned in Syria in the 13th century (yes, modern Lebanon was sometimes part of the ancient Assyrian empire, but so were parts of modern Israel) and in Egypt in the 14th century. Shwarma is said to have originated in Turkey. Kunafa is from Egypt.

In modern times, all of these foods are served throughout the Middle East, including in Israel.

Since roughly half of Israelis are of Sephardic/Mizrahi origins (living previously in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Yemen), it is no surprise that many Israeli dishes have distinct Middle Eastern associations. The interesting thing is that many of the remainder of the Israelis lived previously in Europe, so local food is often a unique fusion of the two distinct cultures, producing one-of-a-kind delicacies.

So what is the issue for these boycotters – that an Israeli restaurant should not serve everyday local food if it didn’t originate in the country? Really? If this was the criteria, many restaurants would be in violation.

For instance, let’s take a look at a couple of Palestinian restaurants in Belgium.

Olive claims to be a Palestinian restaurant. On it menus are tapas (Spain), hummus (Syria/Egypt), tabbouleh (Lebanon/Syria) & falafel (Egypt).
Habibi claims to be a Palestinian restaurant. They have Shakshoukeh (Maghreb), grape leaves (Turkey, Greece, Iran), burgers and wraps.

For those cultural cuisine purists protesting Israeli restaurants, why aren’t you in the streets about these Palestinian restaurants’ grave transgressions?

I think we can pretty accurately guess what the answer is.

These protests have nothing to do with “cultural/cuisine appropriation”, whatever that actually means, and rather is one more way to try to denigrate Israeli’s reputation. And unfortunately, all too often they succeed, to the detriment of the restaurant’s owners, workers and customers.