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Israel: Controlling the Past to Control the Future

Cultural dispossession

“Virgin Atlantic caused an outcry in late 2017 with a new inflight menu that included ‘Palestinian couscous salad’. This was in fact maftoul, a popular traditional dish in the Middle East. An indignant passenger posted a photo on Twitter, accusing the airline of being ‘terrorist sympathisers’. Retweeted by pro-Israeli organisations, the image went viral, some furious social media users even claiming it was a ‘Jewish’ or ‘Israeli’ salad. Virgin apologised for causing offence and removed references to Palestine from the menu.

Emirati economy airline Flydubai, which launched direct flights to Israel after relations between the countries were normalised in 2020, took care not to make the same mistake. Its online ‘Israel travel guide’ describes hummus, falafel, shakshuka and msabbha as Israeli dishes, though they are traditional in Palestine and across the Levant. Unlike Virgin, Flydubai disregarded the criticism this drew from Palestinians and other Arabs.

These aren’t just trivial examples of the ideological war Israel has been waging on Palestinians for decades to assert cultural dominance along with its territorial control. The campaign to establish the historical legitimacy of Jewish hegemony in the Holy Land was launched by Zionists in the late 19th century and continued by the Israeli state after May 1948.

The strategy of cultural dispossession also extends to traditional clothing. The art of Palestinian embroidery or tatreez appeared in the Levant during the Canaanite era, several thousand years ago, and has been passed down in families. Each village in Palestine has its own colours, geometric patterns and motifs inspired by their local fauna and flora.

Israelis contest this artisanal heritage too, claiming to have invented tatreez in biblical times. Books on the history of embroidery and clothing in the Holy Land have supported this narrative by omitting any reference to Palestinian folk traditions. In recent years, tatreez has become trendy in Israel and on the international ready-to-wear fashion market, and Tel Aviv hipsters can often be seen wearing clothes that incorporate it.

This is not an isolated example: the traditional keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian resistance since the great Arab revolt of 1936-39, has also been appropriated by the fashion industry and stripped of its political significance.”


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