The Zionist movement has always worked hard to justify why it was more deserving of Palestine than the natives living there. At the beginning, this took the form of appealing to Europe’s colonial expansionism, arguing that the Zionist movement could bring this backward land into the modern era. They also argued that this new Zionist state would serve as a bulwark for Europe against the barbaric east. This logic animated much of their early endeavors, such as founding a colonial trust and establishing a colonization department [You can read more about this here].
With time, and especially after the two world wars, the idea of colonialism began to fall out of the realm of the acceptable. Even traditionally colonial powers such as France and Britain sought to camouflage their endeavors under different designations such as “mandates” and “protectorates”. This, too, caught up to Israel and the Zionist movement, which had until then relied on projecting an image of European civilization in a deeply uncivilized area. As Yitzhak Gruenbaum, a member of the World Zionist Organization executive once argued:
“We, the Jews, are twentieth-century people of Europe, whereas the Arab population is still at the developmental level of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” and, as “people of Europe, we wish to create a European economy here. We believe that the Mandate government must conduct its affairs based on the point of view that Palestine is a European country like England or its dominions.”
To combat this negative perception, Israel would begin to coopt some aspects of the natives as their own, especially regarding cuisine and some symbolic markers. Suddenly, Falafel and Hummus become “Israeli” staples, when most of the Zionist settlers had never even heard of them before arriving in Palestine. This would later develop to include other cultural markers, such as Palestinian Dabkeh, and producing an Israeli version of a Palestinian Kuffiyeh and claiming it has historical significance.
In the grand scheme of Israeli colonialism, this might seem like a relatively small issue. What is stealing a dish when there are millions of Palestinians in refugee camps?
But this theft of culture is typical for settler movements, which seek to coopt and commodify the culture of the natives in an attempt to self-indigenize. Although they would never admit this, it stems from an unconscious nagging that they do not belong and that aspects of the native culture are seen as more legitimate than their imported ones.
Settlers do not only lay claim to these indigenous practices, but they also attempt to ban the natives from practicing them altogether. Examples of such cases are abundant, such as Canadian attempts to ban or restrict indigenous peoples from their millennia-old sustainable fishing practices. Similar efforts were pursued by the Israeli authorities regarding Za’tar, Akub and many other traditional Palestinian wild herbs and plants. Palestinians had been harvesting these plants for centuries, however, Israel quickly moved in to ban picking these herbs, conveniently and selectively citing environmental concerns, while it continued to dump sewage and toxic waste on Palestinian villages in the West Bank [You can read more about this here].
Meanwhile, Israeli businessmen started cultivating Za’tar. The Ben Herut family was the dominant force in this market, where for the first time they sought to create an Israeli Za’tar mix. Their first attempt resulted in a product that is, according to Ben Herut the son: “Totally disgusting, it came out all black.”
It was only after his father consulted some Palestinians that they learnt how to make the mix that in any way resembles the traditional Za’tar we all know and love. When asked what drove their business, the son responded with: “National pride … I want people to say za’atar is Israel.”
Settler societies have a penchant for selective history, Israel is no different. Consequently, this new cooptation stuck and Israelis started claiming Za’tar as their own. Additionally, it was retroactively legitimized and incorporated into the national mythology, Israelis declared that Za’tar is actually “traditionally Israeli” because the plant is mentioned in the Bible as Ezov. It is quite ‘convenient’ how this supposedly ancient traditional food was only discovered in the 1970s, and only after copying the Palestinian recipe. It is also quite a ridiculous argument, as the Bible does not describe the plant being eaten in the same way as Za’tar, which is a specific blend of spices, herbs and sesame, eaten with olive oil and bread.
If we were to follow this same line of biblical logic consistently, can it also not be argued that any food item mentioned in the Bible is traditionally Israeli? After all, milk was mentioned in the bible, so following this same reasoning can’t we argue that ice cream is also “traditionally” Israeli?
When confronted with these issues, Israelis often claim that since many Israelis are Mizrahim (Jewish people of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry) then these foods are part of their culture and history as well. However, this argument buckles under its own contradictions when examined in a wider context.
It seems that even while attempting to self-indigenize, Zionists can’t help but have an essentialist view of the region. This essentialism treats all Arab or Muslim majority countries across the Middle East and North Africa as one monolithic entity. For example, a large portion of Mizrahi Israelis originated in Iraq and Morocco where dishes such as Hummus, Falafel and herbs such as Za’tar are not part of the local cuisine, and if they are, they are vastly different to the Levantine style that the Palestinians prepare. It is not a coincidence that this exact same Levantine Palestinian style is the one that the Israelis sought to coopt and claim as their own.
Furthermore, as Ali Abunimah observed, this argument is rather selective and only seems to apply in the case of Middle Eastern cuisines. For instance, over a million Israelis today have Polish ancestry, yet we never hear the claim that Pierogi is a traditional Israeli dish. This selective application reinforces the argument put forward by many Palestinians that this claim is not made in good faith, and aims to justify the cooptation of these cultural markers. Indeed, if we were to apply this argument consistently based on the geographic origin of Israeli dishes, it would produce the opposite effect to the intended one, which is to better claim indigeneity.
The increasingly common identification of Zionism with settler colonialism and reactionary far-right movements all over the world has left Israel in a crisis of image. It is more desperate than ever to project an organic, indigenous depiction of itself, but all these efforts are destined to fail as long as Israel remains steadfast in its Zionism. As many propagandists have found out over the years, marketing can only help you so much when you have a rotten product.
- Salaita, Steven. Israeli Hummus is theft, not appropriation. The New Arab. September 4th, 2017.
- Abunimah, Ali. Why sahlab (and hummus) still aren’t “Israeli”. Electronic Intifada, February 6th, 2015.
- Kalla, Joudie. Palestine on a Plate: Memories from my mother’s kitchen. White Lion Publishing, 2019.