Weaponizing food: Palestinians lose lives, Israelis lose humanity.
By James M. Dorsey
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A long-standing
Israeli-Palestinian battlefield, food has moved centre stage.
For Gazans, who are on the verge of starvation, the food
fight is existential.
Palestinians line up for
free food in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Feb. 23, 2024. Credit: AP /Fatima Shbair
For Israelis, preventing the flow of food and desperately
needed medical supplies into Gaza, is continuing a cynical and cruel policy
that five months into the Gaza war has proven to be a failure.
In contrast to, Israeli hopes, Gazans have not blamed
Hamas for their abominable plight and have not revolted against the group.
Instead, they blame Israel and the United States for allowing Israel to get
away with an unconscionable weaponisation of food and basic humanitarian
supplies.
Moreover, near starvation has not sparked a Gazan run on
the Refah border crossing in a bid to escape an ever-worsening human disaster
and possible death.
Gazans pay the highest price while Israel digs itself
ever deeper into a hole that will haunt it for years to come.
Appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s
predecessor, Roni Strier, the head of Israel's National Food Security Council, called
on Friday for a ceasefire, citing Gaza’s dire humanitarian situation, “which
includes extreme hunger of the local population… Israel
can't ignore the humanitarian considerations it is obligated to both morally
and politically,” Mr. Strier said.
Prof.
Roni Strier, the head of Israel’s National Council for Food Security. Credit:
Shlomi Yosef
Mr. Strier noted that the death on Thursday of more than
100 Palestinians storming an aid truck indicated “the extent of the
humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza,” He asserted that "the Israeli
government can't absolve itself of responsibility for this situation."
Israel claimed a
majority had died in a stampede. Even if true, despite
imagery of the incident and witness accounts that tell a different stiry, the
stampede would not have occurred if food and aid were flowing in sufficient
volumes into Gaza. Moreover, shooting to kill is a last resort in crowd control.
“We turn on the light against this dark place and burn it
until there is no trace of this whole place,” a soldier said in one clip as
another sets a pile of food ablaze in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood.
Video
shared on X shows Israeli army troops trying to burn food and water supplies in
the back of an abandoned truck in Gaza CREDIT: X via AP
In another video, soldiers cooked a meal with
ingredients in the abandoned home of a displaced Palestinian family
that is probably scrounging for food elsewhere in the Strip.
Speaking to Haaretz
newspaper, a soldier marveled
at the use of spices in Gazan cuisine, seemingly oblivious to the
mushrooming human disaster all around him.
“Gazan cuisine…is full of spices every house you’ll find
a lot of ras el hanout-style (spice) mixes…. Every house we stayed in had
olives that (Palestinians) make, which we tasted … Olive oil is also present in
every home, in gallons, and it helps a lot to upgrade any food. They also have
a great spicy sauce. Sometimes you encounter special things. Suddenly there’s
garlic and then you go all out on pasta with tomatoes and garlic,” the soldier
said.
The Israel Defense Forces’ military rabbinate has issued
guidelines, entitled Kosher
procedures when deep in the Gaza Strip,’ on food in Gaza while
upholding Jewish law and dietary regulations.
Written by Rabbi Avishai Peretz, the head of the
rabbinate’s kosher section, and approved by chief military rabbi Brigadier
General Eyal Karim, the guidelines endorse the consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables
except for lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli, eggs, salt, coffee, tea, sugar,
legumes, flour, juice, noodles, oil, and spices such as black pepper, turmeric,
paprika, cinnamon and cumin that do not have a stamp certifying them as kosher.
The guidelines ban insect-infected vegetables, fish, meat, and dairy products
except when no other food is available and only in consultation with the
rabbinate.
Mr. Peretz ended the guidelines with an abbreviation of
the Biblical
quote, “And you shall
eat the riches of all the nations.”
Kosher
procedures when deep in the Gaza Strip. Credit: Ynet
More
than 1,000 chefs call for a Gaza ceasefire. Credit: Hospitality for Humanity
A petition
calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of Israel initiated by
Palestinian chefs in the United States asserted that “Israel has long
weaponized food, erasing Palestinian people while claiming their cuisine. Here
in the U.S., the appropriation of Palestinian foods as ‘Israeli’ has led to
more than Israelis profiting off Palestinian culture; it is an erasure that has
had real implications for Palestinians. It allows us to negate their cultural
currency and turn our attention away with more ease when we see Palestinian
death.”
In the United States, the food battle has spilled into
the streets in cities like New York where Israeli restaurants have been
attacked and vandalised. An online
map
that has since been removed identified on Google Maps 57 “Zionist restaurants”
denoting Israeli and Jewish establishments in the Big Apple. The map was not
associated with the petition.
Taking issue with the petition’s assertion of cultural
appropriation, Israeli food writer Ronit Vered, who has featured Palestinian
chefs and cookbook writers in her writing, argued that there
is no such thing as an ‘original’ or ‘pure’ kitchen,
and there are no foods that are not in constant motion and ceaselessly changing.”
Like Israel, Ms. Vered went on to say that “Palestinian
cuisine – about whose existence and importance in the Palestinians’ identity
perception there is no doubt – also adopted these foods in the course of
intercultural give and take that took place between different communities
across a very long time.”
Ms. Vered noted that hummus in tahini is today an
integral element of the Palestinian kitchen, because many Palestinians from
different socioeconomic classes consume it, at home and elsewhere. The joint
customs and rituals of preparing and eating the portion are part of the family,
community, and national identity of the Palestinian people. But these customs
and rituals are not exclusive to them. Hummus in tahini is also an integral
part of the Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Israeli kitchens.”
Ironically, it was an Israeli Palestinian restaurant
owner in the town of Abu Ghosh, Jawdat Ibrahim who in the 2010s took
issue with Lebanon’s attempt at appropriation of hummus in
a bid to counter Israeli claims and promote Lebanese cuisine.
Mr. Ibrahim battled with then-Lebanese tourism minister
Fadi Aboud about who would make it into the Guinness Book of Records by
competing for the title of having made the largest pile of hummus.
Mr. Ibrahim’s 4,090-kilogram hummus served in a satellite
dish was ultimately defeated by Lebanese
Chef Ramzi Choueiri’s 10,452-kilogram dish presented on a 7.17
metre in diameter ceramic plate, the world’s largest.
The
world’s largest hummus. Credit: Guiness Book of Records
“It was (a) big issue that hummus was Lebanese. I said,
'No, hummus is for everybody.' I hold a meeting in the village, and I say, 'We
are going to break Guinness Book of World Records.' Not the Israeli government,
the people of Abu Gosh,” Mr. Ibrahim said.
The truth may be in the middle. Palestinian and Israeli
claim dishes whose pedigree goes far beyond either.
Even so, regional dishes are part of a battle of
identities that in its more extreme forms denies the existence and demonises
the other.
Nowhere is that battle being fought more viciously with
dire and lethal consequences than in Gaza. It’s a battle in which Palestinians lose
lives in unfathomable numbers and ways of dying while Israelis sacrifice their
humanity and moral integrity.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior
Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.
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