A British Supermarket Is Being Accused of Promoting Israeli Food Propaganda

Ah, Waitrose. That beacon of the British middle class. The place where you can purchase a singular, perfectly washed organic carrot for the same price as a month's supply of baked beans, or witness parents buying brioche for their children to feed the ducks. The country's official favourite supermarket and inexplicably immune to the ugly financial hardships faced by a lesser class of grocery store. Can you do no wrong?

Well apparently, you can. And in a big way. This week, Waitrose was inadvertently pulled into the politicised argument over "ownership" of Middle Eastern dishes thanks to an ad in its in-store magazine.

Customers reacted this week to a recent supplement included in Waitrose Kitchen entitled "Taste of Israel." The a pamphlet was produced by the Israeli tourist board and includes recipes for shakshuka and hummus, as well as information on Palestinian and Arab ingredients such as tahini, zaatar, and kibbeh. It also makes controversial reference to the Golan Heights, an Israeli-occupied area that was captured from Syria in 1967.

According to Electronic Intifada, an online news publication focusing on Palestinian issues, Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK (PSC) has filed a complaint against the brochure to the UK Advertising Standards Authority, on the grounds that "its geographical inaccuracies, airbrushing of Palestinian history and attempts to pass off Palestinian food as Israeli amounted to false advertising."

A representative from PSC also told MUNCHIES that the organisation had written to Managing Director of Waitrose, Mark Price, to "express surprise at the chain's promotion of Israel through this brochure," stating that "Israel's armed forces killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza last summer, 504 of whom were children, including babies."

Waitrose's Facebook page has also received a number of posts accusing the supermarket of deliberately ignoring the occupation of Palestinian land, while others criticised the "claiming" of hummus as an Israeli dish.

PSC has accused Waitrose of deleting posts on the page from Ayman Abuawwad, a Palestinian from Gaza. According to a news post on PSC's website yesterday, Abuawwad had written "I am a Palestinian from Gaza. How dare Waitrose promote the theft of my Palestinian heritage, my culture, my food and call it Israeli," before having his comment removed.

Waitrose is attempting to distance itself from the supplement. "It should be pointed out that the ad pamphlet wasn't written or produced by us," says Waitrose's Corporate Communications Manager, Jess Hughes. "It was an advert supplement in the February issue of Waitrose Kitchen magazine—the issue is no longer available in stores."

When asked for comment on the matter, Waitrose Kitchen editor, William Sitwell gave MUNCHIES the following statement: "Waitrose Kitchen is not political. We take adverts from a wide range of different businesses and organisations".

While Sitwell may see his magazine as non-political, in the Middle East, almost everything is politicised—including food. The "hummus wars" between Lebanon and Israel that see the two countries battle to create the biggest serving of hummus may seem light-hearted, but that "war" is indicative of deeper questions over ownership of culinary heritage.

"Enjoying and sharing food in and of itself it not the issue—after all, who hasn't had a good taco or sushi? Neither am I suggesting that there can be strict geographic delineation of where certain recipes start and end," explains Laila El-Haddad, author of food heritage and recipe book, The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey. "It's the context: an acknowledgment of the existence and of the rights of the indigenous inhabitants of this land, their identity, and the rich culinary traditions from which Israel 'borrowed.' This makes food not simply another frontier to systematically colonise and appropriate."

While threats of a Waitrose boycott following the supplement may seem farfetched, it wouldn't be the first time pro-Palestinian campaigners have impacted a Western business.

Last year, pressure from BDS Movement—which campaigns for "boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights"—forced SodaStream to close a factory in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Sitwell did not respond to questions regarding the likelihood of such an advert supplement being distributed again, or concerns over a store boycott.

Whether controversy surrounding Waitrose's "Taste of Israel" supplement will escalate remains to be seen, but the debate over the true taste of Israel or Palestine is sure to continue.