Talk:Politics of food in the Arab–Israeli conflict

edits for balance and additional context and info

My edits here [1] are to add some more about Mizrahi Jewish cuisine. Falafel and hummus both probably come from Egypt, where there were many Jewish immigrants who went to Israel. It's important context since nobody really knows when or where many of those dishes originated, so wars about appropriation may ignore the fact that Mizrahi Jews brought that cuisine with them to Israel. Andre🚐 23:41, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Kassis

What Kassis actually says is In an effort to create a state for the Jewish people and a new Jewish identity in historic Palestine in the early to mid-20th century, food was one item used to achieve a sense of Israeli nationalism. An effort ... was one item used. SPECIFICO has distorted this source which identifies a purposeful effort into a banal thing that just happened. And she even calls it Israel's many foods and cuisine, when the source itself disclaims the idea of calling Palestinian foods "Israel's"! This is straightforward source misrepresentation and should be reverted. nableezy - 13:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

This is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Neither Kassis - nor this particular reminiscence of her personal food identity - support your edit "cosciously...". Note that your quote above is passive voice, the article text with consciouly is double WP:WEASEL. SPECIFICO talk 13:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

That’s absurd, and if consciously is the issue remove that word, not transform it to a complete distortion of what she wrote. That you are straightforwardly misrepresenting the source and saying this here is absolutely wild. I encourage anybody with an interest in accurately reflecting the sources to read your edit and the source and see for themselves that a revert is called for. You’re also using reverts to enforce your misrepresentation, but that’s an issue for another forum I suppose. nableezy - 14:07, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I agree that "consciously" is no good, I've copyedited it to "Israel's many foods and cuisine have been used to inspire a sense of nationalism and national identity within a community composed of immigrants from multiple cultures", how's that? Andre🚐 21:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

It isn’t Israel’s many foods, and that is straightforward misrepresentation of the cited source. nableezy - 22:29, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll take that out [2] seem fair? Andre🚐 22:32, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Nope, it is not Israeli food. I’m going to restore an actual accurate portrayal of what Kassis wrote. nableezy - 18:18, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Culture is not a fabrication. Kassis understands that it is not cosciously created. More important, if the dominant mainstream narrative is, in fact, claiming "cosciously created", then we could easily find dozens of RS that say so. SPECIFICO talk 16:49, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I have corrected the misrepresentation of Kassis, in which she was cited talking about Israeli food while declaiming the appropriation of Palestinian food as Israeli. Ive used quotes from her article to avoid any pedantic argument on whether or not a specific word was used. nableezy - 17:31, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Characterization as appropriation

@SPECIFICO: Can you expand on the justification for your last revert? The original line read Over time, Israeli embrace of foods traditional to Middle East cuisine, and particularly those of Arab culture, was seen by many Palestinians and other Arabs as cultural appropriation. There are two problems with that line: 1) the criticism is still ongoing, so "was seen" would be incorrect and 2) it is not limited only to Arabs, as shown by the sources I provided. Why exactly is that controversial? - Ïvana (talk) 20:17, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Article text related to this has been controversial. Given recent consensus, it would be best to agree on changes. Having read some of the non-paywalled sources, I'm not sure the edired text gave the best summary of sources' central points. How did you find and select the sources? Are there accessible versions of all? SPECIFICO talk 20:51, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, then we can use this opportunity to discuss them. None of the provided sources are paywalled, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to access them. Here are the links to the specific book pages (already mentioned in the refs) just to make it easier: 1 2 3 4 5 6. The only modification to the current sentence, which I assume has consensus, is replacing "Arabs" to indicate that the criticism is not limited to them (as shown by the sources), along with a small adjustment at the beginning to clarify that the criticism is ongoing (if anything, it has been growing since last year). - Ïvana (talk) 21:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. What led you to these particular sources? So far I don't see them emphasizing the colonization/appropriation labeling. SPECIFICO talk 21:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I selected these sources because they mention the appropriation of Palestinian cultural elements, esp food, in the context of Israeli identity. For example, the journal cited examines Israeli cookbooks, highlighting how despite acknowledging the cultural appropriation of Palestinian foods they construct a narrative that normalizes this. One of the sources notes that the national identity of Israel has been partially built by using and appropriating cultural elements of the Other [Arabs], another that is considered a deadly enemy. This ambiguity [...] results from a national identity built on the appropiation and renaming of some cultural elements of the native Palestinian population which highlights the way Israeli identity is constructed through the appropriation of Palestinian culture (this comes up in a chapter that revolves around food). Another source states that Historically, the appropriation of Levantine foods by European Jews has corresponded not with improving but rather with the further entrenchment of Israeli colonialism. This indicates that the appropriation of Palestinian culinary traditions is linked to broader patterns of colonialism rather than fostering mutual respect/understanding. I don't see how they are not related to the subject.- Ïvana (talk) 00:04, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

We need to determine the relative WEIGHT of "appropriation" narratives. Selecting only such narratives would not accomplish that. SPECIFICO talk 03:44, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

We're not claiming in wiki voice that the appropriation narrative is the prevailing perspective, we're highlighting it as a significant point of criticism from various critics (regardless of their ethnicity). The aim is to reflect the ongoing criticism, which is supported by the cited sources and exists regardless of whether people believe it to be valid or not. - Ïvana (talk) 04:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Right, and my comment related to whether it is a significant view. That has not been demonstrated by the selection of sources you provided. SPECIFICO talk 07:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the proposed sentence (which is barely tweaking the current one) alludes to the view being the main one, only that it exists. But if that's your main concern, any ambiguity can be easily fixed by rewording the sentence to make this clear. Again, my intention was simply to a) denote that the criticism is still ongoing, which is IMO not clear with the current wording and b) remove the claim that the criticism is only coming from Arab people, something that is factually not true. I would also like to hear other opinions, so hopefully more people will give their two cents, even tho this article is not particularly popular. - Ïvana (talk) 12:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Ïvana, just to let me be lazy, where in the article body is this covered? Valereee (talk) 20:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee: here. - Ïvana (talk) 20:39, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Not 100% sure what edit is under dispute, but, any and all of these POVs need to be attributed and not stated in wikivoice, since it's very much a controversial topic, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Many people, Arab, Jewish, or otherwise, do not necessarily believe that Israeli cuisine is appropriation. Cuisine is one of many things through cultural diffusion spread throughout the Mediterranean. E.g. the Greek alphabet is a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet. Sometime in medieval Egypt people were eating falafel and those same inheritors of that cultural tradition might have been Jewish, Coptic Christian, Druze, or something else. Mizrahi Jews brought that cuisine to Israel. It's true that early Zionists and Israeli cultural thinkers wanted to make their culture less European and more Middle Eastern. That is fair to cover in the article. But nobody knows the exact genealogy of how foods from ancient and medieval times were inherited, so we should be a bit more circumspect about stating controversial claims in Wikivoice. Andre🚐 20:41, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The edit is linked in my first comment. Current line reads Over time, Israeli embrace of foods traditional to Middle East cuisine, and particularly those of Arab culture, was seen by many Palestinians and other Arabs as cultural appropriation. and my proposed (minimal) modification, with sources, is Over time, Israeli embrace of foods traditional to Middle East cuisine, and particularly those of Arab culture, has been seen by many critics as cultural appropriation. I don't see wiki voice being used in either of them, and I already explained why. - Ïvana (talk) 20:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

So, one thing to point out here is that Palestinian is a region. E.g., the ancient Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat is known as the "Palestinian synagogue," because at the time of the Fatimids, the Jews from Jerusalem fled to Egypt and they followed the Palestinian rite, as distinct from the other Jewish communities in Egypt. So when someone talks about Palestinian falafel, they aren't saying something synonymous with Arab falafel. Unless we're in a certain political or ethnic context, we have to determine in what aspect the term "Palestinian" is being used, and in this case it's regional cuisine, i.e. Levantine cuisine. Palestinian falafel is the style of falafel eaten in Palestine, the region, as opposed to the Egyptian or Lebanese falafel. As a side note, the best falafel I ever had was a Lebanese falafel place in Amsterdam. I know some people like their falafel really crunchy, but I prefer a soft, moderate crunch on the outside and a creamy, melt-in-your-mouth middle. Permit me that digression but this is a food article, right? However, we're dealing in the politics of food. Food articles shouldn't be nationalistic battlegrounds. Everyone gets to share the human heritage of grinding up a chickpea and making it into a ball. Andre🚐 20:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

How is that related to the edit in question? - Ïvana (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The Egyptian version, using favas? Definitely superior. I've made a lot of falafel over the past few months testing this theory. Sorry, chickpea lovers. Valereee (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Ïvana, the sources there seem to support Palestinians and other Arabs, but does it support a more general 'many critics'? Valereee (talk) 20:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The people cited in the sources are not all Arabs or Palestinians. Reducing the criticism to a singular narrative based solely on ethnicity or nationality is an oversimplification. - Ïvana (talk) 21:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Can you expand on who is quoted saying what? I'm sorry to seem to be nitpicking, but for the lead in a CT, we need to have our ducks in a row. Which non-Arab/non-Palestinians are calling it "cultural appropriation"? Valereee (talk) 21:19, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

• Anny Gaul, Graham Auman Pitts, Vicki Valosik (americans) the Palestinian origin of foods incorporated into the Israeli culinary repertoire is completely edited [...] Historically, the appropriation of Levantine foods like hummus by European Jews has corresponded not with improving intercommunal relations but rather with the further entrenchment of Israeli colonialism
• Claudia Prieto Piastro (mexican) the national identity of Israel has been partially built by using and appropriating cultural elements of the Other, another that is considered a deadly enemy. This ambiguity [..] results from a national identity built on the appropriation and renaming of some cultural elements of the native Palestinian population, and on denying the Arab origins of an important part of the Jewish population of Israel.
• Galia Press-Barnathan (israeli) and Ilan Zvi Baron (israeli/british/both.. not sure) The Israeli cookbooks surveyed do not deny the conflict with the Palestinians, nor that there are local Palestinian food cultures that have been appropriated by Israelis. In this sense, there is no denial that the Palestinians have suffered injustices. However, while the books do not deny the violence of the Israeli state and the cultural appropriation of Palestinian foods, the texts are simultaneously involved in producing a narrative whereby the appropriation is normalized as a condition by which Israel's diversity is able to show itself [...] even those books that do highlight the cultural appropriations necessary for there to be such a thing as Israeli cuisine, or those books that are based on the idea of food diplomacy, cannot escape the normalizing discourse.
• Roger Sheety (canadian) What is more fundamental to any people and its culture than its food? The stealing of Palestinian cuisine by the Zionist state has been just as shameless as its theft of Palestinian land [...] This is a typical strategy of Zionist cultural appropriation and usurpation
• Liron Mor (israeli) A similar logic underlies Israeli appropriation of Palestinian cuisine, which has exploded in popularity on recent years, in Israel as well as in the U.S. and Europe. [...] Absent so far from my account of cultural appropiation is an aspect of Israeli coloniality that all too often goes unnoticed-the role of Mizrahi Jews and of racialization more broadly. The Israeli culinary industry, for instance, appropiates not only Palestinian foods but also Jewish Middle Eastern and North African foods. It uses these Mizrahi traditions to whitewash the appropiation of Palestinian cuisine, despite considerable differences between the various cuisines involved.
• Nesrin Yavaş (turkish) Therefore, at the core of Israel’s systematic cultural appropriation of traditional Arab/Palestinian foods and Palestinians’ daily, deliberate manifestations of nationalism through their traditional foods lie competing claims to ownership of land, to history and sovereignty. Palestinian resistance to Israel’s systematic appropriation of Arab/Palestinian traditional dishes and to the Israeli colonial interferences manifested in the production, cultivation, circulation, and foraging of certain food items can be understood within the conceptual framework of the Palestinian national narrative sumud, and how culinary sumud, as I name it, intersects with Palestinian heritage making and heritage preservation on a daily basis
• Ben White (british) The Zionist colonisation of Palestine has also included culture, notably cuisine. This is the context for the so-called “hummus wars”: it is not about petty claims and counterclaims, rather, the story is one of colonial, cultural appropriation and resistance to those attempts. In the decades since the establishment of the State of Israel on the ruins and ethnically cleansed lands of Palestine, various elements of the indigenous cuisine have been targeted for appropriation: falafel, knafeh, sahlab and, of course, hummus. [...] Cuisine is where efforts to both deny the existence of Palestine and appropriate its land and heritage meet.

Found some more while compiling this, so I linked the articles. I don't know what the appropiate number of sources would be to note that the criticism comes from diverse groups. I also think one of the problems of the current sentence (and proposed too, I didn't wanna completely rewrite it so I didn't put much effort) is the use of "many" - we don't need to quantify the amount of criticism (how do we even do that?) to say that it exists. Could easily say critics/some critics/some, the point is to denote that it is not coming from a single group. - Ïvana (talk) 03:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Chickpeas

@Ariel.: In your last revert you said the linked citation makes no claim of there being such a thing as a "Palestinian chickpea" however the line in question doesn't say anything about a Palestinian chickpea; it is talking about a Palestinian version of the falafel which is made from chickpeas. The cited source states Falafel is generally made from fava beans (as in Egypt, where it is also known as Ta'amia), from chickpeas (the version traditional to Palestine and encountered in Israel today), or from a combination from the two. and also the Jewish population in Palestine -the early halutzim, or pioneers- adopted the local Arab version made with chickpeas which I believe supports The Palestinian chickpea version of the falafel has been adopted into Israeli cuisine. - Ïvana (talk) 02:30, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be a misunderstanding, but if Ariel. is misunderstanding, readers might too. Maybe 'The Palestinian version of falafel, made with chickpeas, has been adopted...' ? Valereee (talk) 18:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes I think that sounds like a reasonable way to phrase it. Makeandtoss (talk) 18:29, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I didn't find it confusing but you're right, it could be. Your phrasing should clear it up. Thanks! - Ïvana (talk) 23:54, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The Israeli Perspective

The Israeli perspective section is mislabeled; it contains a Palestinian one. It should be re-labeled as such. The article requires an Israeli perspective to remain neutral, as it stands it is misleading and presents itself in a manner that implies agreement with the perspective mentioned. The context of Mizrahi Jews (Jews from the Middle East and North Africa) - who make up a large portion of Israelis - bringing these foods into Israeli cuisine is also missing. All this aside, the label of cultural appropriation carries the implication that Mizrahi Jews were never part of the MENA culture they grew up in, which arguably falls under the anti-semitic notion that Jewish people are interlopers in any nation in which they exist and therefore have no claim to any nation’s culture. 2600:1002:A012:F04:2C22:D898:7AB1:360A (talk) 01:15, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

IP, you are limited to making wp:edit requests here. I'll take a look, but unless I find some obvious needed change, this isn't something you can discuss here. If you do have a "Change X to Y" (with at least one reliable source supporting that change), you can turn this into an edit requests. Valereee (talk) 13:24, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the section header, which didn't make sense to me either. Valereee (talk) 13:35, 3 April 2025 (UTC)