OP-ED: Stolen Recipes on Stolen Land: How Israeli Cuisine Rebrands Palestinian Heritage

What does it mean to lose a homeland, and then see its culinary heritage claimed by someone else? In Palestine, hummus, falafel, and shawarma are memories passed down through kitchens in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Gaza. On Instagram feeds, in glossy cookbooks, and across restaurant menus abroad, though, these same foods appear under new names: “Israeli,” “Mediterranean,” “Levantine.” The tastes are familiar, but the story is rewritten.

For Palestinians, each re-labeled plate is not neutral. The global spread of Israeli restaurants is part of a push to redefine what it means to be culturally “Israeli,” indicating that their culture – like their land – is being taken piece by piece, ironically as Israel systematically denies Gazans the right to food security as a method of war in its genocidal campaign (Amnesty International, 2025). While Palestinian dishes are repackaged as cosmopolitan cuisine worldwide, millions of Palestinians cannot reliably harvest, trade, or eat them at home. This raises a crucial question: if Israelis desire to rid Palestinian land of its people, why does its food get to stay?

To answer this question, we must understand these acts of appropriation as an aspect of what many scholars dub “Culinary Zionism”: the deliberate framing of Palestinian culinary heritage as Israeli to advance nationalist narratives abroad (Baron et al., 2020). Cookbooks, restaurants, and social media feeds become tools of soft power, erasing history while presenting a curated image of modern Israel. The irony is unmistakable: Palestinian food is celebrated worldwide as a delicacy, while the people who perfected it struggle to put it on their own tables. At least Israel seems to agree, hummus is undeniably delicious.

Roots

Hummus, one of Israel’s unofficial national dishes, is far older than its modern branding (Hirsch & Tene, 2013). Chickpea-based dishes appear in Arab cookbooks as early as the 13th century in Cairo and Damascus, and by the Ottoman period, similar recipes were common across Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria (Shaheen, 2023). Cities like Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem had thriving street-food cultures centered on chickpeas, tahini, and olive oil, making hummus a fixture of daily life and social ritual.

The Arabic word ḥummuṣ (حمص) literally means “chickpeas.” Palestinians pronounce the initial consonant as a soft “ḥ ح” while in modern Hebrew it often shifts to the harsher guttural equivalent to the Arabic letter kh خ. Tahini (طحينة), essential to hummus, comes from the Arabic root ṭ-ḥ-n (ط ح ن), meaning “to grind.” Together, ḥummuṣ bi-ṭaḥīna—“chickpeas with tahini” serves as a contested marker of place, inseparable from Palestinian culture and land. Therefore, it is not surprising that its mispronunciation online by Israeli food content-creators is a subtle reminder that even the language of their food is being co-opted, and a source of justified anger.

But these recipes exist not only in language. They are inseparable from the land and history that produced them. This culinary struggle is fundamentally intertwined with Palestinian dispossession. In 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled during the Nakba, villages razed, and centuries of culinary knowledge abandoned (United Nations, 2023). In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, consolidating control over land and livelihoods. Today, settlements expand, movement is restricted by checkpoints, and occupation shapes even what grows in the fields.

Culinary Zionism and Resistance

Cookbooks and media reinforce this erasure. “Culinary Zionism” frames Palestinian food as Israeli to bolster nationalist narratives abroad (Baron et al., 2020). Recipes become soft-power instruments, presenting Israeli cuisine as diverse and cosmopolitan while obscuring ongoing displacement and occupation.

Against this backdrop, uplifting Palestinian cuisine becomes resistance. In Amman, Jordan, this past summer, I saw firsthand the importance of preserving recipes as acts of memory-keeping. Understanding the genocidal context of modern Israeli cuisine makes it imperative to challenge its global normalization and actively support Palestinian chefs, recipes, and culinary traditions.

Hummus-bi-Lahme (حمص باللحم) and Foul (فول) at a Palestinian-Jordanian restaurant in Amman, Jordan, from this past summer.

When olive groves are uprooted, blockades enforced, and checkpoints restrict movement, Palestinian recipes become forcefully fragile. It is also important to understand how the process of ‘foodwashing’ can occur quietly under the guise of ‘culture’. When a nation is committing crimes as a part of a push to eradicate a people – of whom foods they cook and claim as their own –  recognizing Palestinian food and ensuring culinary accuracy is an albeit small but important refusal to let history and culture be stolen without consequence. Ignoring these histories and discounting the importance of factual integrity of these culinary histories, seemingly apolitical, erases a people further than they already are, beyond the physical dispossession and genocide that rages on in Gaza.

So: say hummus properly. Boycott Israeli restaurants. Be aware of the hidden politics that are inseparable from the food we eat. In honoring Palestinian food, we honor the people, the land, and the stories that refuse to be erased.

References:

Al-Shabaka. (2024). Food Sovereignty in a Palestinian Economy of Resistance | Al-Shabaka. [online] Available at: https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/food-sovereignty-in-a-palestinian-economy-of-resistance/.

Amnesty International (2025). Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians. [online] Amnesty International. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/gaza-evidence-points-to-israels-continued-use-of-starvation-to-inflict-genocide-against-palestinians/.

HIRSCH, D. (2011). ‘Hummus is best when it is fresh and made by Arabs’: The gourmetization of hummus in Israel and the return of the repressed Arab. American Ethnologist, 38(4), pp.617–630. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01326.x.

Hirsch, D. and Tene, O. (2013). Hummus: The making of an Israeli culinary cult. Journal of Consumer Culture, 13(1), pp.25–45. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540512474529.

Levkoe, C.Z., Stiegman, M., Rotz, S. and Soma, T. (2024). Colonialism, starvation and resistance: How food is weaponized, from Gaza to Canada. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/colonialism-starvation-and-resistance-how-food-is-weaponized-from-gaza-to-canada-241525.

Shaheen, K. (2023). The True Origins of Hummus. [online] New Lines Magazine. Available at: https://newlinesmag.com/newsletter/the-true-origins-of-hummus/.

United Nations (2023). UN Marks 75 Years since Displacement of 700,000 Palestinians | UN News. [online] news.un.org. Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136662.

United Nations (2025). In Gaza, mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation. [online] UN News. Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165517.