Food can bring Palestinians and Israelis together

by Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA)

Food is probably one of the safest intersections in the Palestinian-Israeli roadmap.

It’s the thing we both share without the hatred, anger and animosity that seems to characterize everything else we try to share, or control.

It’s the thing that brings us together, eating the exact same food items without even realizing that we are sharing something.

Maybe, we should nominate our Palestinian and Israeli chefs to represent Palestinians and Israelis if the two sides ever come to their senses and return to the peace negotiating table.

Maybe, the next peace table should be set for a 10-course Palestinian-Israeli meal.

The one thing we know for sure is that we can’t call each other names or insult each other the way we continue to insult each other if our mouths are filled with falafel and tabouli and stuffed grape leaves.

This Passover and Easter was a great example of how food can bring the two sides together.

We celebrated both holidays in the Hanania household.

The meal was a conglomerate of Palestinians and Israeli foods.

My wife, Alison, cooked Matzo ball soup, corned beef, gefilte fish with horse radish, and other popular Jewish foods. She even friend Matzo and eggs, which is my favorite breakfast meal in the Hanania household.

I made the traditional grape leaves stuffed with seasoned rice and diced lamb, slow cooked over a layer of Ox tail. And, we roasted a spiced lamb shank.

Of course, we had hummos, crushed garbonzo beans with Tahini (sesame seed sauce), and tabouli (tabouleh), a salad of minced parsley, diced tomatoes, green onions, spices and cracked wheat or burghal.

Now Arabs make tabouli in different ways. I’m not sure how Israelis make it. Many Palestinians I know put diced cucumbers in the mix. Jordanians put less parsley.

The Lebanese drown their tabouli in parsley, without cucumbers. And my guess is that ever since Hezbollah stood its ground on the battle field against the Israel army this past summer, the Israeli people don’t like anything that reminds them of Lebanon.

That’s also something Arabs and Israelis share. We have chips all over the place because our shoulders are so crowded.

Of course, Arabs and Israelis also have one other chip. On their front teeth from eating bizzer. Some swallow the whole salted and baked pumpkin seeds, while other crack the seed open with their teeth and only eat the nut on the inside.

You can tell which Arabs are from which country just by looking at their teeth. The Lebanese have parsley all over their teeth, Jordanians have less, and Palestinians have some parsley with chunks of cucumbers.

Of course, you can also tell who swallows the whole bizzer and who cracks it open based on the chip right smack in the center of their front incisors.

Food can tell us a lot about people.

To me, there is no better table set than one with Matzo ball soup and stuffed grape leaves.

And if we want to negotiate peace, we need to make sure that at the table, all of our foods are represented.

The recent Oscar-winning short film “West Bank Story” was about competing Palestinian and Israeli falafel houses and the problems that start when an Israeli soldier falls in love with a Palestinian girl.

Okay, that might be an issue. Many Jews and Arabs don’t accept or like the fact that I am married to a Jew.

But who cares? The majority of people don’t seem to mind.

So maybe our leaders might take a grape leaf from the pages of this past Passover and Easter, and set the next negotiating table with an array of Arab and Israeli foods.

Let’s sit down and eat together.

We might not agree on peace any time soon, but we certainly can enjoy the divisions a lot better than we do now.

Anyone interested in joining me in my new organization, “Food Now?”

(By Ray Hanania)

# # #