Showing posts with label Palestinian culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestinian culture. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

According to Palestine Chronicle, Palestinians now celebrate "Nakba Day" as a happy holiday.

For Palestinians, the catastrophic destruction of the Palestinian homeland, known as the Nakba, is not simply about mourning what has been lost, and the tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people ever since. 

It is also a celebration of life, of culture, of the past and the present, and a strong message of a rooted nation with a strong sense of peoplehood to a young generation that has grown up stateless or in exile. 

This Palestinian community in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis has done just that. The elders of the community led an event that exhibited the young talents of the area, their artwork, poetry and embroidery. 

Can you imagine morphing Yom Hashoah (or Tisha B'av before the Messiah comes)  into a day of happiness?

"Nakba Day" is not really about memorializing and mourning a "catastrophe." The first one was celebrated only 25 years ago, after all - for the 50th anniversary of Israel's founding.

Nakba Day isn't a day of sadness, and it never was. It began and remains primarily a day of protest against Israel's existence. It is meant to recast the rebirth of the Jewish state into something terrible. It is meant to blunt Yom HaAtzmaut by choosing the anniversary of Israel's independence - not the anniversary of Palestinians leaving Haifa or Jaffa, or Deir Yassin, or Lydda. 

As with everything else  about Palestinian nationalism, it is about getting the world to hate Israel.

There isn't a separate "Palestinian celebration day." As far as I can tell, Palestinians don't have parades in Ramallah on their "independence day" in November.  

Nakba Day is a day to get the world to pay attention to Palestinian temper tantrums about Israel.

As such, Nakba Day has become the most important day on the Palestinian calendar. Demanding Israel's destruction to the world is the Palestinian national holiday. And since there is no other day on the calendar to celebrate Palestinian culture, the residents of Khan Younis chose the only real national holiday they have.

And since food plays an essential role in sustaining Palestinian culture and making it accessible to everyone, freshly made Palestinian bread, known as shrak, was shared among the community, along with freshly brewed coffee, done according to Palestinian Bedouin traditions. 



Shrak is not "Palestinian bread." Most sites say it is Jordanian, Bedouin or simply Levantine, but no one says it is "Palestinian."

It always amazes me how Palestinian Arabs who are so quick to claim that their cuisine is being "stolen" eagerly claim others' cuisines  as their own. Whomever came up with the idea of psychological projection would have a field day with Palestinians.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, April 27, 2023


Remember last September when Israel haters went crazy with the announcement that the upcoming Captain America movie would include an Israeli superhero?

Since then, the Israeli actress Shira Haas who plays the role of Sabra has apparently already done her scenes, so the campaign has now shifted from trying to pressure Marvel not to have the character to saying that the movie will be boycotted.

A bunch of Palestinian cultural and artistic institutions decided to sign a letter calling for the boycott, saying that Marvel was racist for including an Israeli character. 

We call for the broadest boycott of the upcoming Marvel movie, “Captain America: New World Order,” which is scheduled to be released in the market during the year 2024, until the company cancels the character “Sabra” or “Ruth” from the movie, as it embodies the Israeli apartheid regime. 

The backstory of the aforementioned character includes working for the Israeli government and the Israeli occupation forces. Marvel's revival of this racist character - in any way - means the company's promotion of the brutal Israeli oppression of Palestinians. 

We also call for creative and peaceful events and demonstrations to put pressure on Marvel Studios - owned by Disney - to end its complicity in anti-Palestinian racism and Israeli propaganda and the glorification of the settler-colonial regime's violence against the indigenous Palestinian people. 
No one knows the character's role, her new backstory, her part of the plot, or really anything. Unlike with Gal Gadot, they aren't calling for a boycott because the actress is Israeli, but because the character is Israeli.

Has there ever in history been such a demand from any studio or other medium that they should be forbidden from even including fictional characters from a specific country?

And the signatories are from Palestinian cultural centers, theater groups, circus groups and others. Normally artists are in the forefront of freedom of expression - but Palestinian artists are the leaders in being against those freedoms.

The crazed reactions, the lies that the character was named after a massacre in Lebanon, the support of censorship and boycotts by groups that would normally oppose such actions - it all adds up, as always, to proving that this opposition isn't political. 

It is old fashioned hatred of Jews dressed up to appear more respectable. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

The New York Times recently published a list of New York's best restaurants. One of them, Ayat with at least two locations, features Palestinian Arab food.

There is nothing wrong with that, of course. Good food is good food and the list has many different ethnic restaurants. But restaurants are more than food - they include presentation, atmosphere.

And Ayat is filled with anti-Israel propaganda.

On the wall of its Staten Island branch there is a huge mural with a crying Palestinian woman together with evil looking Israeli soldiers and tanks and innocent looking Palestinians behind bars, next to a depiction of a map that erases Israel.


Its flagship Brooklyn location has a similar mural, apparently showing a sleeping child being woken up by the evil Jews and Palestinians being held at gunpoint.



The menu prominently says "Down with the occupation."


Another mural on the wall that says that the entire point of the restaurant is political:



Now, could you imagine a restaurant that features artwork about abortion, or that is anti-immigration? Certainly any reviewer would prominently mention that, no matter how good the food is, because the dining experience for people who disagree with the politics would be ruined, no matter how good the food is.

Beyond that, is it not possible to have a Palestinian restaurant, or Palestinian art exhibit, or Palestinian concert, that celebrates Palestinian culture without feeling the necessity to attack Israeli Jews - Jews whose emotional and historic ties to the land dwarf those of Arabs?

They may exist, but they are rare indeed.

(h/t Jerry)





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, March 27, 2023

There was a ceremony Sunday afternoon at the Al Aqsa University in Gaza, honoring female students, organized by the Islamic League there.

Islamists giving honor to outstanding female students - sounds very woke, right? 

One of the speakers at the ceremony was  Walid Al-Qatati, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Here is how he complimented the woman scholars.

He said that Islamic Jihad believes that "writing with a pen equals pressing the trigger of a gun, reading from a book is equivalent to igniting the fuse of a missile, and advancing one's studies is like nearing martyrdom."

The only way such a twisted message makes sense is if the young women have already internalized the message the the ultimate yardstick by which all other achievements are measured is dying while trying to kill Jews.

A student who achieves great intellectual heights is only comparable to an illiterate teen with a gun who is killed while shooting at Jewish civilians. Studying and writing for years is equated with the brainwashed people who steer their cars into crowds of Jews. 

And this is the most liberal message Palestinians are ever likely to hear.

Qatati ended off saying, "A salutation full of success, excellence and creativity to the outstanding female students, hoping for liberation, independence and building the future of our homeland, Palestine, as we walk on the path of the martyrs, leaders and heroic resistance fighters ."

Earlier this month, Qatati spoke to another group about the importance of poetry - and he specifically praised a Palestinian poem called "Pull the Trigger Twice." 

Give me a quiver and gunpowder
 Respond to gunpowder with gunpowder
My weapon came out of my wounds, 
Kalashnikov, keep your bullets high, 
oh my guerrilla, keep your bullets right
... and pull the trigger twice."

Pull the trigger twice on the chest of the enemy.. 
pull the trigger.. and come with the revolution, and unite with the revolution.. 
pull the trigger.. this is our revolution and this is our path.. 
...Come on, organize and arm, O our people.. 
Struggle, O our people, and escalate.. 
Leave the two bullets tight to the enemy's chest.

This is an example of the kind of culture and writing that Palestinians encourage. 

This is a twisted and perverted society.







Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, February 28, 2023








Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 




Muntasir Al-Shawa, above, was a 16-year-old child soldier of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. 

On February 8, when religious Jews were going to visit the Joseph's Tomb shrine to pray as they do every couple of weeks, he decided to fight the Israeli soldiers protecting them. 

He expected to, and wanted to, die. And he indeed got injured and died a couple of weeks later.

Palestinian Media Watch quotes his mother when he told her his plans to become a "martyr."

The day before [my son’s] injury [from which he died], he told me: ‘I want to go to the Balata refugee camp [near Joseph's Tomb], and I'll come back to you as a Martyr.’ I laughed at him and told him: ‘Do you think being a Martyr is something trivial? Go bathe, pray, bow down to Allah, and then there might be a chance that Allah will agree to accept you [as a Martyr].’ The following night he came back to me as a Martyr. Praise Allah.

[Official PA TV News, Feb. 21, 2023]
 
What kind of a culture has mothers encouraging their children to die - and giving them advice to accomplish that goal?

Palestinians have a sick, depraved and perverted culture. 

Once again, I am more than happy to have anyone who disagrees to find me an article in Arabic by a Palestinian who objects to this mindset. Just one. 

I've been waiting for years.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, January 08, 2023


Palestinian Arabs falsely complaining that Israeli Jews are "culturally appropriating" their cuisine have become so common that they are almost a cliche. 

But at least some of these accusations cross the line from absurd into antisemitism.

Here's an article this past weekend from L'Orient Today by Emmanuel Haddad:
After hummus, falafel and so many other flagship dishes of Palestinian and Levantine cuisine, knefeh nabulsi is the latest victim of appropriation by Israel.

This delicious dessert, which originated in Nablus and is named after the main ingredient — nabulsi cheese — has been incorporated into a more-than-dubious recipe developed by Pizza Hut Israel.

For Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan, the affront is threefold: "First against the knefeh, then against pizza... And then, against the taste!"

The flavor is as off-putting as it is bitter for Salma Serry, historian of Near Eastern cuisine. The Israeli pizza-knefeh fits perfectly into the definition of appropriation she offers on Sufra Kitchen, the online platform she created to decolonize regional cuisines:

"Appropriation [is the] inappropriate adoption of a group's food without giving it credit, especially for commercial gain. Example: Israeli restaurants profiting from falafel, knefeh or hummus without mentioning their original culture."
The word "inappropriate" in that definition does some heavy lifting here. The USA has lots of restaurants that serve pizza or tacos; is it cultural appropriation to mention them without the prefixes "Italian" or "Mexican?" Apparently, only in Israel, and only for Jews, is cooking food from surrounding countries considered a crime without mentioning their origin - and in the case of foods from Arab countries, the origin in often murky and hardly ever "Palestinian. "

The Israeli Pizza Hut chain never once claimed that "knafeh pizza" is an Israeli food. On the contrary, when they introduced the dish last month, their press release said, “Pizza Hut recognized the unrealized potential of this irresistible Middle Eastern food, and decided to make its own version.” 

And Pizza Hut is not calling it "knafeh" but "knafeh pizza." It is a (perhaps bizarre) combination of the two, but no one claims it is authentic knafeh - or authentic pizza, for that matter. 

The article goes on:
Salma Serry says she often hears denials of this culinary appropriation, defended as the natural spread of cuisine among different communities.

"Of course, food is meant to be shared. But when there is active violence that takes away a group's cultural identity and denies its heritage, its land and the food it produces while manipulating its history, then it becomes problematic,” she said. “In the specific case of Palestine, it's not about sharing; it's about taking and not giving back."
This is simply not true. Israeli chefs and cookbook writers happily describe where Israeli cuisine comes from. No one is "stealing" anything. Read Janna Gur's "A Short Introduction to Israeli Food" preface to her cookbook Shuk where she concisely describes the Israeli food scene's influences, from dozens of ethnic cultures in the Israeli melting pot but also from the neighboring Palestinians. Yes, sometimes non-experts will lazily say that some Arab dishes are Israeli, but they mean that they are popular in Israel: no one says that they originate there, unless they really do, as in the case of falafel in pita.  Similarly, there was much angst when Haaretz once said that shawarma is "Israeli street food" - yet it is, just as much ss pizza is American street food.

Here's a 1949 advertisement for a Tel Aviv restaurant selling "oriental food."


No Israeli ever claimed hummus was natively Israeli.

The real irony is that Palestinians are the ones who have culturally appropriated Middle East foods. They really have claimed to have invented most popular Levantine foods like hummus and falafel, and here they claim to have created knafeh. They may have invented knafeh nabulsi, which uses cheese made in Nablus, but knafeh itself has much murkier origins.

Why does no one accuse Palestinians of cultural appropriation for claiming foods that were invented elsewhere? 

Because they are not Jews. 

There are two reasons that articles like this descend from simple lies into antisemitism. 

One is that they are saying that while every nation's cuisine is an amalgam from many places, only Israeli Jews are accused of "theft" - even though Israeli foodies freely admit and eagerly explain where all their dishes originate.

The other is that these articles deny the or even existence of Mizrahi Jews on the Israeli food scene, even though they are the primary source.

The L'Orient article includes this falsehood:
For chef Kattan, the case of hummus is emblematic of the broader problem:

"It was the very first dish appropriated by the Israelis as early as 1948. Originally, the Zionist project was marked by European-style colonialism that denied the Arabness of Palestine and its land. But when they went to eat at the homes of Palestinians who survived the Nakba — during which 580 Palestinian villages were razed to the ground — they said to themselves, ‘This chickpea puree is not bad!’”
Jews in the Middle East have been eating hummus for centuries. This is a Palestinian chef erasing hundreds of years of Jewish history, and claiming that Jews have no right to be in the region. 

Here is a Palestine Post article about the popularity of falafel among Palestinian Jews in 1940 - and it interestingly describes the uniquely Israeli version of falafel in pita even then. The writer interviews a Jew who was born in Yemen, went to Egypt and brought his falafel skills to Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street.




These articles invariably downplay the role of Mizrahi Jews in bringing with them the bulk of what is now called Israeli cuisine.

Yes, that is antisemitism. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, June 29, 2022




UN Watch reports (via email):
 The UN agency that runs schools for Palestinians announced to donor states yesterday that it has just placed six employees on administrative leave after a report on Thursday by UN Watch exposed UNRWA teachers who publicly call to murder Jews.
This has upset a Gaza-based "human rights" NGO, called the Hemaya Center for Human Rights:

Today, Wednesday, Hemaya Center for Human Rights sent a letter to the UNRWA Commissioner-General regarding arbitrary administrative measures against a number of Palestinian UNRWA employees.

The Center expressed its disapproval of the position of the Administration of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) against ten of its employees in its various areas of work, due to their expression of their adherence to national principles and rights on social media pages and websites, and participation in national events and activities.
Yes, this NGO with "human rights" in its name supports teachers who call to murder Jews - because terrorism is part of their national principles and rights.

I didn't say this - they did.

 I wonder what European country funds this anti-human rights organization. (It is not on NGO Monitor's radar.) 

Just a reminder that some organizations that say they are for human rights are actually quite the opposite.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Mahmoud Abbas held a meeting of his Fatah Central Committee yesterday.

Its main accomplishment, if you can call it that, was a pledge to hold the Eighth Fatah Conference in March of 2022. 

Abbas railed against Israel, as usual. And he issued threats, which the Western media will ignore.

He said, "We will not remain silent forever in the face of the intransigence of the Israeli occupation and its refusal to abide by signed agreements. All options will remain open to the Palestinian people and their leadership to preserve the Palestinian rights and principles that we will never accept to be compromised."

What options might he be talking about? For that, we just have to look at the Fatah Platform from the Sixth Fatah Conference of 2009, confirmed in the Seventh Conference in 2016.

In that platform, it says, "The Palestinian people’s right to practice armed resistance against the military occupation of their land remains a constant right confirmed by international law and international legality."

It is worth mentioning that Palestinians even admit that Palestinian culture is one of admiring violence and terror. Only last week, there was the opening of the "Bethlehem: Capital of Arab Culture 2020-2021 week." Here is one of the examples of Palestinian culture:


Palestinian Media Watch tracked down the pictures of the people portrayed on the walls, and calculated that they were responsible for the murder of 184 Israelis. The heroes included the organizers of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre as well as numerous suicide bombings.

Terrorism is Palestinian culture.

 At the end of Abbas' address, he thanked the head of the PA Civil Affairs Authority, which led to obtaining approvals for 4000 Palestinians to receive identification papers and passports. Those approvals were given by Israel, not by any Palestinian institution. 

If Abbas would thank Israel for the things it has been doing to make life easier for Palestinians (like approving 4G Internet), perhaps that would be more effective than the threats and embracing terror that have led nowhere for decades.






Friday, June 21, 2019

One of the more obvious cases of psychological projection from the "pro-Palestinian" camp is the "X-washing" accusation, which is predicated on the idea that Israel is so obsessed with the "occupation" that essentially everything the nation or Israelis do is either in support of oppressing, or a ruse to distract the world from, the Palestinian Arabs.

In reality, Israelis live their lives without thinking much about their would-be genocidal neighbors unless there are rockets falling. Real life involves work, school, entertainment, culture and family where the Palestinian issue is simply not thought about very much, except for people who work in NGOs or are extreme leftists.

Contrast this with how Palestinians view themselves.

Next month, London will host the "Palestine Expo." 
Palestine Expo is a unique experience, which proudly celebrates Palestinian art, history and culture whilst fostering discussion and activism in the UK. Palestine Expo combines the use of traditional forms of education with cutting edge technology to raise awareness about Palestine. Palestine Expo brings people together to celebrate Palestine like never before.    
While the expo does spend some time on "Palestinian culture" with fake date-palm trees and a "Palestinian wedding" from 1900 (way before any Arabs identified themselves as Palestinian,) it spends more time not celebrating Palestine but bashing Israel:

Virtual Graffiti: Hold a virtual spray can and graffiti your message of freedom across the apartheid wall.
Banned items: Look inside the back of a lorry to see what everyday items are banned from entering Gaza, due to the siege imposed by Israel.
  • BDS: Have a go at knocking down apartheid in a game of BDS bowling.
  • Education: what obstacles will you face on your journey to school? Walk towards the oversized book to find out.
  • Child prisoners: See what state a child’s bedroom is left in after Israeli troops arrest them during a night raid.
  • Water: Fill up the buckets and watch the scale tip when measuring water disparity between Israel & Palestine.
  • Checkpoints: Walk with the most vulnerable Palestinians who pass through checkpoints daily. Will you be able to answer their questions?
  • Apartheid wall: See how you interact with your family during a meal with the Apartheid wall cutting through the dinner table. A symbol of how families are separated by the wall.
  • Settlements: 3D settlements placed on the  disappearing maps will show you the density and increase of Israeli settlements over time.
  • Sport in Palestine: Score some goals and have a kick about in the football area where you can learn how occupation restricts the beautiful game.
  • A&E in Gaza: Feeling unwell? Visit doctors in the Gaza hospital and see the difference in treatment Palestinians receive. 
  • UN tent: Hear personal stories from three generations on the impact of the Nakba and importance of the Right to Return. Set in a 1948 UN tent.

The conference part of the "expo" has essentially nothing about Palestinian history, culture or celebration. It is completely an anti-Israel conference.

Here's detail from day 1, you can click on the other images to see the entire program.





Once you see this in context, you realize that even the exhibits that celebrate "Palestinian culture" are really meant to create the myth of Palestinian culture, as up until the 1960s there was no such thing outside of the larger Arab and Levantine culture. Even those exhibits are created with the idea of Israel in mind - Palestinians must make up a fake history in order to lay claim to the land that is stronger that the Jewish claim.

The most laughable example of that comes from this exhibit:

Tapestry: Over 70 metres of tapestry pieces stitched by Palestinian women. This collection illustrates Palestine from Neolithic to current day.
The Neolithic period was the final stage of the Stone Age - 12,000 years ago.

Palestine Expo isn't designed to celebrate Palestine but to incite hate against Israel. Which is pretty much what the entire Palestinian cause is really is about to begin with.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

AddToAny

EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

subscribe via email

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Blog Archive