Israel Continues to Steal Arab Food

It is not surprising Israel would claim cultural aspects that do not belong to it since they also claim land that does not belong to it (along with pretending that Arab food such as Hummus, Couscous, Shawarmas, ect... are also distinctly Israeli). We may live to see the day that Israeli will claim the Palestinian Kufiyah as ‘Israeli'.

hummus UnYit 19672

Hummus is Arab, but Israelis still love it. And the best Hummus places in Israel are owned by Palestinians. Although Israelis would concede that Hummus is Arab, two Israelis firms have nearly monopolized the American Hummus market.

This has irritated the Lebanese who claim that Israel is marketing Hummus as Israeli and thus robbing Lebanese firms of millions of dollars. Lebanon is seeking legal recourse to prevent Israel from selling anything under the label of Hummus akin to Greece’s sole use of feta cheese, France’s champagne and Italy’s Parmesan. The Land of Cedars has done more than that: it recently cooked the largest Hummus plate in an affirmation of its culinary heritage and in an effort to exclusively claim Hummus.

Lebanese has justice on its side. Israel is built on the disposition and continued occupation and murder of Arabs; to say nothing of the vilification of Arabs by Israel and Zionists. It has stolen Arab lands and seeks to steal Arab culture as well. This nation, more than any, does not have the right to profit from Arab culture. But Lebanon does not have a claim to exclusive marketing. Because the exact origin of Hummus is ambiguous all Arab Levantine nations (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan) have an equal claim to Hummus.

And it is not just Hummus that Israel steals and falsely markets as its own:

Israelis have usurped several Lebanese and oriental products. About ten years ago, they sold 80 tonnes of water-logged cucumbers produced in Gaza greenhouses to the city of Detroit, and called them “Kahale cucumbers”. Kahale is the name of a village in Mount Lebanon which produces a special, non-irrigated sort of cucumber on mountain soil. Extreme vigilance and judicial procedures at an international level are needed to halt these illegal proceedings, which are nothing less than the plunder of a country’s cultural heritage.

Such theft is made even more egregious considering that Israel grows its products on stolen land:

There is also the issue of rights: When they say on the conference site that "Indigenous landrace (Baladi) foodcrops have been selected by generations of traditional farmers ..." one must realize that we are talking here about Palestinian farmers, as Israel is less than 60 years old, and the vast majority of its inhabitants came from outside Israel. This genetic material is the property of the Palestinian farmers, who have been forcibly evicted from their lands, turned into refugees, oppressed, cornered into a tiny apartheid zone, who are prevented from harvesting their crops by settlers, and who now have to share their indigenous knowledge "as equal partners" with the perpetrators.

Memo to Israelis: Get your own land and your own culture! If you hate Arabs so much, then stop eating are foods! After your crimes, the Arabs do not want to have a cultural exchange with you and stop pretending that Hummus is some Israeli delicacy (your Zionist delusions notwithstanding)!!!