It was only a matter of time until the discourse returned to the eternal question of who owns hummus. What I cannot wrap my head around, though, given all the death and destruction, is that people are still doing circa-2015-style ‘oh noes someone did a microaggression’ politics, and about this issue at that. But of course they are.
Insofar as Kim Severson’s New York Times article is about rifts between actual people, and about a specific (if not-my-politics) boycott, and about the futility (hard to imagine anyone ever thought otherwise) of ‘why can’t they all just get along if they all eat hummus?,’ fair enough. These are valid things to report on.
Where it loses me completely is the respect given to the idea that Israel food itself, by virtue of existing, constitutes theft.
Some supporters of Palestine argue that Israeli cooks are colonizers who have adopted certain Arabic dishes as their own, and thus contribute to the erasure of Palestinian culture.
Yeah well some people argue stupid things. Other supporters of Palestine probably don’t say this because they understand that “Israeli cooks” have to cook something and asking them not to cook falafel is stupid and in no way impacts Israeli military actions in Gaza or whatever complete disaster is happening with the settlers in the West Bank?
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