There are restaurants in many parts of the world that offer dishes that they attribute to Israeli cuisine, but they are originally famous meals in the Levantine culture and Palestinian cuisine.
The Washington Post newspaper published an article by the Palestinian writer Reem Kassis, which highlights the phenomenon of the ratio of Palestinian food to Israelis and the consequent damage to Palestinian heritage and identity, as well as highlights the close relationship between the kitchen, family memories, and the culture and history of peoples.
The article's chaplain began with an example from her personal experience, where she discovered the close relationship between cuisine, culture, identity and memories the first time after arriving in Philadelphia shortly to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where she felt nostalgia for the family and life they left there, including the Palestinian kitchen.
Kassis described the different feelings she had when she accompanied her friends at the university to a meal in a newly opened Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia to be surprised that the list of dishes he offers are the same Palestinian dishes that her mother used to prepare for the family (including chickpeas, tabbouleh and Freekeh).
A priest said that she was relieved to eat the freekeh dish, which tasted just as her mother was attending it, but she was also frustrated because the best Palestinian dish she had eaten since she arrived in the United States was presented to her in an Israeli restaurant without any mention of his origin or the origin of most other Palestinian dishes on the list, which She has eaten since childhood.
Culture robbery
The Palestinian writer said that "Israeli cuisine" is a phrase that is difficult to swallow as well as to digest, as it represents the seizure of the Palestinian cuisine with all its related links to Palestinian history, culture and traditions and its attribution to Israel.
She explained that the vast difference between spreading culture, which is a healthy result of the interaction of cultures and taking from one another, and the seizure of culture that depends on plagiarism, the exploitation of the other's culture, the denial of its attribution to it, and the consequent erasure of the origin of that culture and the denial of the relationship of its original owners with it.
From this standpoint, presenting dishes of Palestinian origin as "Israeli" is not only an effort to contribute to the Palestinian contribution, but rather falls within the framework of an attempt to erase Palestinian history and existence.
A priest said that the spread of Israeli restaurants robbing Palestinian dishes has generated an urgent desire to write down the history and traditions of Palestinian cuisine and pass it on to her daughter, and prompted her to write a book on Palestinian cuisine published in 2017 entitled "The Palestinian Table."
She clarified that the Levant region - including Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria - is distinguished by its rich, similar dishes that many civilizations contributed to forming throughout history and whose origin has been the subject of disagreement between the four countries, and competition over which of these countries exceeds the other in making those dishes replace Joke and pranks.
But the matter comes out of the frame of pranks when it comes to Israel, because the issue of the ratio of kitchen to it is part of the political struggle and occupation that it has practiced against the residents of the region for decades.