The military-takeout complex: An interview with Conflict Kitchen

[Ken Burch]

1. This also, from the same piece:

CT: Your next version will be Palestine, coming up next fall. Tell me about what you have planned for that?

JR: I'm Jewish -- I'm a non-observant Jew -- so I've grown up with a narrative around Israel and Palestine and Palestinians. We are [located] nearby a very large Jewish community. I've had some casual conversations with people that have lead me to believe that they're not entirely comfortable with us presenting a more nuanced, humanitarian perspective on the Palestinian people. That said, we actually have a lot of Jewish food that has a kind of European, Middle Eastern background to it that people are already eating. So the food might be more familiar to a larger population here.
We're also interested in hearing different viewpoints. Now when we're going [to Palestine], we're going to be hanging out, almost exclusively, with Palestinians. Our goal is not necessarily to get the Jewish perspective. I think the Jewish perspective is well represented globally and in our community. One of the issues people will say is, well, we're not in conflict with Palestinians. Or, there is no such thing as Palestine. There's no country named Palestine. Those are really two very interesting questions that may be the starting point for people.
I think it's pretty clear [the U.S. is] the primary supporter of the State of Israel, and that Israel is in very serious long-term conflict with the Palestinian people. It's very hard to say that we're not in either direct or proxy conflict with Palestinian people. But I think even those very basic questions are a good starting point for a kind of curiosity for our customers -- something that might lead to a conversation that they might not normally be having.