Who is Hospitality for Palestine?
We are a Palestinian-led coalition organizing chefs, farmers, beverage and hospitality workers across geographies, communities, and diasporas. Our membership spans every tributary of the food system.

The food and hospitality industries account for more than 15 million jobs in the U.S. We know that by uniting and activating our peers, we can leverage incredible power as part of the global movement for a free Palestine.

What are Hospitality for Palestine’s demands?
We’re calling for:

• An immediate ceasefire to end the indiscriminate violence and collective punishment of Gaza.

• An end to unconditional U.S. funding of Israel.

• Just and in-depth recognition and examination of the root causes of this violence— including the 17-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, the dehumanizing system of apartheid, the continuation of illegal settlements in Palestine, and the Israeli military occupation as a whole. 

Why Hospitality for Palestine? What does this have to do with food?
Food is a human right. Long before the current war on Gaza, Israel’s siege and blockade of the strip—restricting, among other basic necessities, many common food products—was a violation of human rights, deliberately forcing more than 60 percent of Gazans into food insecurity.

As those who care for others, it is our moral imperative to actively contribute to the care that Palestinians need right now as they struggle to survive and get free—which also includes supporting their fight for food sovereignty. 

The current violence is especially significant as it is the olive harvest season in Palestine right now. Instead of picking olives with their families, securing their livelihoods and their connection to ancestral traditions, Palestinians are trying to escape death.

As food workers of all kinds, we know intimately that food is a source of individual and collective health, cultural cohesion, economic self-reliance, and environmental stewardship. And yet since the creation of the Israeli state, forces have torn up wheat fields and uprooted almost a million olive trees. In an area with little fresh water, Israeli industrial agriculture uses most of it. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israel has diverted or blocked springs and wells that once supported prosperous Palestinian farming communities, forcing them to purchase water at high prices from Israel. Palestinian farmers who have managed to remain on their land are prevented from accessing Palestinian markets. Stores in refugee camps are captive markets, forced to stock their shelves with European and Israeli processed foods and produce from Israeli farms. The Palestinian population is Israel’s third largest export market; they have been deliberately forced into dependency by the very forces occupying their land.

At the same time as they are being destroyed in Palestine, these food traditions are also being co-opted internationally as part of a larger erasure. Israel works to legitimize itself abroad through initiatives such as Brand Israel, a public relations campaign run by the government. A prime example of food folks being enlisted for this culture war: A fully funded and lavish celebrity chef tour of Israel.

Against these odds, Palestinians are preserving and honoring their food ways in their homeland and in the diaspora. To that end, we are inspired by initiatives such as the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, and many pop-ups, events, cookbooks, and restaurants around the world.

What can I do about the appropriation of Palestinian culture and cuisine?
All of us can, as creators and cultural stewards, actively seek out and source from Palestinian producers and spotlight them on your menus and websites — especially when using Palestinian flavors, ingredients, and recipes.

As consumers, examine marketing and menus. Question food businesses that are obscuring the original authorship of classic Palestinian and other Arab dishes — often branded as Israeli, such as “Israeli Couscous” (maftoul) and “Israeli salad” (a cucumber-tomato combination ubiquitous throughout the Arab world). Every conversation can be an opportunity for education, unlearning and countering the erasure of Palestinians and their culture.

What does it mean to call for a boycott?
Boycotts are time-honored non-violent means through which citizens can influence corporations and governments to respect civil and human rights. Within the United States, boycotts are protected under the First Amendment, and efforts to discourage or penalize them are unconstitutional. From Montgomery to central California to South Africa, boycotts have played a significant role in popular struggles to change society for the better.

The movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) began in July 2005 when 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a call for international solidarity to compel Israel to abide by its legal obligations. These include: 1) establish equal rights for its Palestinian citizens; 2) respect the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes; and 3) end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The boycott applies to Israeli institutions, not individuals; it’s about complicity, not identity.

Why a cultural boycott?
Culture can be weaponized as a propaganda device to whitewash or justify violence, occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. Just as South African anti-apartheid activists once called on international artists, writers and cultural institutions to culturally boycott South Africa, we are urging our industry peers to boycott and/or work towards the cancellation of events, activities, agreements, partnerships, or projects involving Israel, its lobby groups or its cultural institutions. Venues and festivals are asked to reject funding and any form of sponsorship from the Israeli government.

Can I donate to Hospitality for Palestine?
No. Hospitality for Palestine is a collective action—we are not accepting donations and are not a registered non-profit. We will update this site with organizations working to alleviate the crisis on the ground.

How do I respond when critique of the state of Israel is called anti-semitic? 
Anti-semitism or discrimination against Jewish people, like all other forms of discrimination, has no place in our collective struggle for liberation. 

Weaponizing anti-semitism to protect the state of Israel from accountability also has no place in our collective struggle for liberation.

Zionism is a nationalist ideology entirely separate from Jewish religious traditions and cultures. In fact, in the United States, a large number of Zionists mobilizing support for Israel are Christian — and a large number of those protesting Israel’s war on Gaza are Jewish, including members of this campaign. 

Equating anti-Zionism and opposition to Israeli policies with antisemitism is a deliberate and undemocratic tactic to silence Palestinians and those resisting their oppression. It is an exploitation that censors peace activism, and dishonors and distorts the very real ancestral grief of Jewish people. 

For more on this subject, we recommend these resources from our comrades Jewish Voice for Peace.