Outrageous: With the level of anti-Semitism rising and manifestations of violence and hatred reaching peaks and getting worse by the day, a Palestinian-owned restaurant in New York has chosen to promote the pro-Palestinian agenda it advocates through its menu and, as expected, caused quite a stir.
The Ayat restaurant in New York (the restaurant has 2 additional branches) chose to incorporate a number of dishes with crazy and loaded names into its menu. Among them is a dish called From the river to the sea, which appears in the column offering fish dishes, alongside the general design of the menu, which includes the inscription: Down with the occupation - Stop the occupation.
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Other dishes on the menu were named Jerusalem Sunrise Spaghetti - Jerusalem Sunrise Spaghetti, Ramallah Rainbow Fettuccine - Rainbow Fettuccine - Rainbow Fettuccine - Ramallah Rainbow Fettuccine, Deir Al Balah Date SHAKE - Deir Al Balah Date Smoothie, Jenin Ginger Mojito - Jenin Ginger Mojito and Gaza Grapefruit Spritz - Gaza Grapefruit Spritz.
The design spirit of the restaurant itself is also based on a clear pro-Palestinian agenda, with pictures on the walls showing for example a crying Palestinian woman and armed soldiers pointing rifles in her direction against the background of the Dome of the Rock. You can also see pictures of children imprisoned behind bars under the Golden Dome with soldiers guarding them, Palestinian flags, civilians dressed in traditional clothing and more.
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The current branch at Ditmas Park in Brooklyn opened about a week ago, and from the moment its menu was revealed, it caused a storm online, according to foreign media reports. According to a report in the Daily Mail, the reactions were divided into two distinct camps: pro-Palestinians who expressed overwhelming support for the place and encouraged the spirit of its founders, and on the other hand, pro-Israelis and Jews who were outraged by what some called "blatant incitement."
The owners, Ayat Massoud, and her husband, Abdul Alanani, who were exposed to the storm through a local Facebook page of the local community, sought to clarify that the names of the dishes chosen on the menu were misunderstood and their intention was not to encourage violence or incitement.
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"We chose to include in the menu the dish From the river to the sea because our interpretation of this phrase is freedom and rights for citizens in Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea," he told The Daily Beast.
"We are only against the Zionist mentality of demolition and flattening now," he added, stressing that there was no intention on their part to encourage acts of hatred against Jews.
"Our neighbors are Jewish, our friends are Jewish and we work with Jews every day and all day. We don't hate Jews. Vice versa. Judaism and Islam are the two most similar religions," he said.
His remarks were not received with understanding by residents of the well-established area, which has a large Jewish community, which expressed both anger and concern about the restaurant and the dangerous agenda it was promoting.
"They can declare that they are only promoting a peace agenda, but in practice they are agitating and they know very well what they are doing," Dalia Shaitzer, a local resident, told The Daily Beast.
Other residents, who requested anonymity, added that there was no doubt that the owners' intentions were not innocent and that they were trying to inflame the situation.
A week after the outbreak of fighting between Hamas and Israel, Masoud and Alanani were interviewed by The New York Times website and claimed that the chain had been targeted by pro-Israel elements who flooded it with negative reviews and calls for a boycott and led to the restaurants' downgrade to one star.
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