They Ate at My Table, Then Ignored My People

The first dinner I ever hosted in the United States was the spontaneous act of a homesick college freshman. I had nowhere to go during spring break, so I cooked maqlubeh (spiced rice, eggplant, and chicken) and, true to my culture, made enough to feed any student left behind in the dorm. For many of my impromptu guests, I was the first and only Palestinian they knew, and they showed a genuine interest in understanding Palestinian history, and even empathy for our occupation and forceful displacement. It was there, far from Jerusalem, where I had grown up—a Palestinian by heritage but an Israeli citizen—that I began to grasp the power of food as a conduit for dialogue. Although I would at times question how effective it was, I retained some version of that belief until October 7.

In the years after that dinner, I became a food writer and, unexpectedly, a culinary ambassador for Palestinian cuisine. My dining gatherings grew in both number and personal meaning; for me, they were a vital source of joy and community. Although I might not even have been conscious of it at the time, they were also a way to humanize Palestinians, a people so often discussed in the U.S. as either victims or perpetrators of conflict. Inviting friends from various cultures into my home was in some way an “audition”—as the Palestinian American writer Hala Alyan has described it—a chance for some of them to see my people’s humanity.

The way I thought of it, echoing culinary experts across the world, was that if more people experienced authentic hospitality around the table of a Palestinian, then they could not help but empathize with other Palestinians. By getting to know my life story, I hoped, perhaps they could grasp that Palestianians have centuries of ancestry in present-day Israel and periods of relatively peaceful coexistence with Jews, including in Ottoman times and even earlier. They might learn that so many of us simply want to be able to return to or continue living in our land—not under occupation, but with equality and human rights. I thought that the generous and intimate act of sharing food would make it harder to demonize or dismiss us.

[Read: What home cooking does that restaurants can’t]

This was, admittedly, what some Palestinian activists might reject as a too-subtle form of political engagement. One reason I felt comfortable in this approach, though, was that growing up as a Palestinian in Israel, I had internalized a culture of caution and silence. Because our presence is almost always under scrutiny and suspicion (according to a 2016 report from the Pew Research Center, nearly half of Israeli Jews preferred to have Arabs expelled), many of us have a conditioned sense that we’re guilty until proven innocent and need to keep proving our right to exist in the land our families have inhabited for generations.  

I had mastered this delicate self-censorship in my home country and continued to present my culture this way in the United States: always careful, always trying to build bridges, always feeling the need to justify and qualify my words. I would see “both sides” in a conversation even when the power imbalance of occupier versus occupied was obvious. I would be the peacemaker, and downplay my anger at the injustices Palestinians endure, to avoid causing my guests discomfort. Mostly, I stuck to discussing food and culture instead of bleak current affairs, and hoped my cooking and its history would speak for itself.

At the same time, over the past several years, Palestinian food has risen in both popularity and acceptance in the U.S. I have continued to welcome more and more people to my family’s dining table, a generosity inherent to Palestinian culture. Then came the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, where Israel’s Foreign Ministry estimated that 1,200 people were killed and about 240 were kidnapped. That was followed by Israel’s strikes on Gaza, which have killed more than 31,000 Palestinians. Even though Israeli officials say that 13,000 Hamas combatants are among the dead, most of those killed have been women and children, according to data gathered by Gaza’s Health Ministry. (A January Oxfam report found this to be a higher death rate than that of any major conflict in recent history.) At this point I saw how many people were content to savor our food while ignoring my people.

I’m referring not just to the Biden administration’s bypassing Congress for emergency arms sales to Israel and the months it spent persistently vetoing United Nations resolutions demanding a permanent cease-fire. I am talking about the specific abandonment I’ve felt in the food world, where Palestinian restaurants once loved for their cuisine say they were flooded with one-star reviews. I’m referring to one establishment that sent home employees for wearing pins supporting Palestine and another with staff who say they were fired for their advocacy. I am thinking about a food-truck owner who was harassed with racist abuse and another food vendor whose signs expressing solidarity with Palestine were removed.

The shift was also striking on a personal level. Although many people I know marched and protested against the killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza, others who had once relished my hospitality and cooking, and had been vocal advocates for the rights of women, immigrants, or Ukrainians—whether on social media, in street protests, or at the ballot box—were now conspicuously silent.

If hosting and sharing my culture with others through writing, cooking classes, interviews, and lectures was my bid to humanize Palestinians, the aftermath of October 7 clarified its limits. It became painfully clear that the so-called food diplomacy I had been cultivating for years had not worked. The enthusiasm expressed for Palestinian cuisine did not always extend to empathy for the people, or the struggle, behind it. Instead, I realized that many people saw me as an exception to other Palestinians rather than one of them.

Perhaps I had been thinking about food wrong. I have always viewed sharing a meal—and sharing stories—as not just demonstrating love but offering a window into a culture, its people, and its history. For Palestinians, in the absence of an independent state and with our national identity constantly questioned, food has also been a pivotal way to claim agency.

I had hoped that sharing my food and culture could juxtapose two things for my guests: the vibrancy and humanity of my people as expressed through a rich culinary tradition, and the reality of the ongoing suffering they see on the news. I assumed that witnessing those two extremes—a duality Palestinians have lived with for decades—would foster empathy, at least in times of crisis. In so many cases, that hasn’t happened. In fact, I’ve seen similar scenarios play out in other creative spheres, such as literature and film, underscoring the limitations of cultural engagement.

Although I still retain my love of hosting and community, my dining table has become more than just a symbol of Palestinian hospitality. It is certainly not a place where I will self-censor any longer. Recognizing my humanity and that of my people is actually the precursor to us dining together. That doesn’t mean we must agree on every detail of how to resolve the conflict, but it does require sharing some fundamental truths: that Palestinians have a right to self-determination and equality in our ancestral land, and that the ongoing loss of our homes and loved ones is a tragedy that needs to end. Today, each meal at my table is a testament to Palestinian perseverance in the face of such tragedies. It is also a declaration that our culture, and our existence, cannot be extinguished.