{"id":9500,"date":"2019-09-09T09:15:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T17:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/?p=9500"},"modified":"2019-10-03T09:20:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T17:20:19","slug":"the-most-vegan-army-in-the-world-how-israel-co-opts-veganism-to-justify-palestinian-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/2019\/09\/09\/the-most-vegan-army-in-the-world-how-israel-co-opts-veganism-to-justify-palestinian-oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Most Vegan Army in the World\u2019: How Israel co-opts veganism to justify Palestinian oppression"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gleaming produce spills out of market baskets. An outstretched palm offers fresh herbs, an organic farm in the background. A table overflowing with a rainbow of dishes cuts away to a morsel of hot bread diving into a bowl of tahini and olive oil. Young, attractive faces smile at the camera while baby animals frolic in the background. If you\u2019re vegan, Israel looks like paradise. At least, that\u2019s what Vibe Israel and its partners at the Israel Brand Alliance want you to think. Their\u00a0Vibe Vegan tour<\/a>\u00a0for food bloggers is just one small element of Israel\u2019s government-sponsored veganwashing campaign, which aims to replace reports of its vicious human rights abuses with the peace-loving compassion usually associated with veganism and thereby repair its image on the global stage. Make no mistake: Israel is using veganism as a calculated facade to justify its military\u2019s program of terror, gloss over its occupation of Palestine, and appropriate regional culture and traditions that predate Israel by hundreds if not thousands of years.<\/p>\n

Far from being a politically neutral \u201clifestyle,\u201d true veganism is a radical anti-oppression philosophy, and yet one of the most oppressive governments in the world is co-opting veganism for its own gains.<\/p>\n

Veganism is at its core a political position, despite the fact that many people who identify as vegan see it as a set of consumer choices. My favorite\u00a0definition<\/a>\u00a0of veganism is \u201can ideological framework that seeks to abolish the commodity status of animals and that advocates for animal liberation.\u201d Regardless of one\u2019s individual motivations for adopting veganism, the choice is inextricable from a commitment to minimize harm to living beings. You would be forgiven for thinking, then, that all people who claim to be vegans are staunch supporters of human rights. After all, a person who is committed to animal liberation would also be committed to human liberation. Right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Put simply, veganwashing is the act of using veganism to create positive image associations or appear more compassionate than one actually is. A classic example is Ben & Jerry\u2019s line of non-dairy ice creams, which they use to brand the company as vegan-friendly without ever actually decreasing their contribution to animal exploitation. Veganwashing appeals to an ethos of nonviolence and so is an especially useful strategy for actors who have a vested interest in concealing ongoing acts of violence, such as, say, a colonial government.<\/p>\n

It is no secret that the state of Israel is currently and has for decades been staging a brutal occupation of Palestine, engaging in a program of murder, displacement, and destruction that\u00a0has been<\/a>\u00a0well<\/a>\u00a0documented<\/a>. In an attempt to conceal these human rights abuses and brand itself as \u201cthe only democracy in the Middle East,\u201d Israel has used a number of tactics to appeal to progressive values, from greenwashing to\u00a0pinkwashing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s veganwashing, however, is particularly insidious. This is because veganwashing promotes the idea that Israel, as a country claiming to have a vegan population constituting up to 5% of its total population, is a necessarily less violent and more compassionate society than others due to its high proportion of vegans. Lest I be accused of singling Israel out, allow me to also note that Israel is the only state that I have seen invest so heavily in promoting a vegan-friendly image on a global scale. Israelis proudly call Tel Aviv\u00a0the vegan capital of the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s campaign to veganwash its image has many elements, which I will discuss in greater detail below. There is none more outrageous, however, than its attempts to portray the Israeli military, called the Israel Defense Forces or the IDF, as a compassionate institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Most Vegan Army in the World\u201d<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ahmad Safi, the Executive Director of the Palestinian Animal League, perhaps best encapsulates the IDF\u2019s breathtaking hypocrisy around veganism in his piece\u00a0\u201cOn the \u2018IDF\u2019s vegan warriors\u2019: A vegan Palestinian\u2019s perspective.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0In describing a BBC special on the \u201cvegan warriors\u201d of the IDF, Safi notes, \u201cI was somewhat baffled by a particular passage in the article, taken from a radio interview which said of one of the vegan soldiers: \u2018Her diet is so important to her that had the army not been able to provide conditions that had harmed no living creatures, she might not have enlisted in a combat unit.\u2019 The only way in which I can interpret this is that the soldier in question does not consider Palestinians to be \u2018living creatures.\u2019\u201d The IDF not only dehumanizes Palestinians, it goes one step further to objectify and place them outside the sphere of living beings, humans and non-human animals, that deserve moral consideration. Such an act is heinous, but should come as no surprise from an institution whose\u00a0chief of staff<\/a>\u00a0is a vegan philosophy major who also happens to be best-known for destroying refugee camp homes with a hammer.<\/p>\n

Safi presses further, getting to the heart of the problem with an army describing itself as compassionate, moral, or, in the IDF\u2019s case, \u201cthe most vegan army in the world<\/a>.\u201d Not only does the Israeli army hurt and kill Palestinians in highly specific and targeted ways, the idea of a \u201cvegan army\u201d is itself absurd and belies a fundamental misunderstanding (or willful mischaracterization) of what veganism means. Recall the definition of veganism from the beginning of the blog, and bear it in mind as you read Safi\u2019s words: \u201cIf veganism truly is about not harming another living thing to the best of our ability, and we can accept that people are animals, it is logical that a \u2018vegan\u2019 soldier engaged in armed combat against a civilian population is not just nonsensical, it is simply not veganism.\u201d Israel\u2019s government and military either do not understand the philosophy behind veganism, or they have internalized their veganwashing so much that they cannot recognize the perversion behind the claim that because their boots aren\u2019t made of leather, somehow they\u2019re not causing harm when they kick someone in the face with them.<\/p>\n

The blame does not lie solely with the IDF; leading organizations in the vegan movement outside Israel have also taken the bait. PETA made the\u00a0frightening recommendation<\/a>\u00a0that military forces in other countries try to be more like the IDF, and the prominent vegan website VegNews recently published an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0praising a member of the Knesset for requesting her leather seat in the legislature be replaced with vegan material due to leather\u2019s symbolization of unnecessary suffering. The piece also quotes Israeli Prime Minister and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu proclamation that animal rights is an issue \u201cthat has gradually become closer to my heart.\u201d If only Israeli politicans cared so much about the needless suffering of their Palestinian neighbors.<\/p>\n

Making Occupation Cool<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>As veganism has become more and more mainstream, general perception of the vegan lifestyle has shifted dramatically away from the crunchy stereotypes that used to dominate veganism in the popular imagination. Now, veganism is cool. Everyone from Ariana Grande to Zac Efron is doing it, and social media influencers with vast followings make going vegan look just as shiny and chic as any other Instagram trend. YouTube in particular is a favorite platform for vegan influencers. In fact, one of the most-viewed vloggers when I first went vegan in 2016 was an Israeli woman who filmed \u201cwhat I eat in a day\u201d videos featuring Tel Aviv\u2019s many vegan restaurants.<\/p>\n

Not one to be behind the times, Israel\u2019s veganwashing campaign has focused heavily on attracting the millennials scrolling through these influencers\u2019 pages and sites. Non-profit organization Vibe Israel invited prominent vegan bloggers and YouTubers on what amounted to an all-expenses-paid\u00a0veganwashing vacation<\/a>\u00a0to learn about Israeli vegan culture. Vibe Israel\u2019s stated mission is to enhance Israel\u2019s global reputation, and the organization even states prominently on their website\u2019s homepage that it is \u201charnessing the power of social media and country branding strategies\u201d to convince the world that Israel is a hip and happening place. Birthright Israel, a government program that offers free trips to Israel for Jews around the world ages 18-26 while completely ignoring the fact that most Palestinians can\u2019t go home, now has a vegan option for teens and twenty-somethings who want a \u201ccruelty-free\u201d experience in occupied territory.<\/p>\n

Watching the video of the Vibe Vegan tour, there is no way that you would have any idea that brutal human rights violations are happening just kilometers away from the joyful shots of cooking classes and fresh produce. Which is, of course, the point. Some of the social media influencers who went on the trip received criticism in their comments section for their promotion of Israel\u2019s vegan brand, but it wasn\u2019t enough to prompt any of them to attempt to exit the Brand Israel bubble. The Palestinian Animal League even made overtures to at least one of the ill-informed YouTubers,\u00a0inviting<\/a>\u00a0The Buddhist Chef to make a visit to the Palestinian Territories while on the trip, but he declined due to a \u201ctight schedule.\u201d Given that he was a guest of Israel, he likely would not have been permitted to cross the checkpoint into Palestine anyways.<\/p>\n

Cultural Appropriation and Islamophobia<\/h3>\n

The final piece of Israel\u2019s veganwashing campaign relies on the appropriation of Palestinian cuisine and the simultaneous erasure of plant-based tradition in Palestinian culinary history. Both the Israeli government and Israeli vegans themselves frequently lay claim to Palestinian foods that have been around for hundreds of years and repackage them as \u201cIsraeli cuisine,\u201d regardless of the fact that the country of Israel has only existed since 1948. Israeli chefs tout naturally plant-based dishes such as falafel, hummus, tabbouleh, and baba ghanoush as evidence that Israeli food is especially vegan-friendly. What they fail to mention is that each of these dishes are actually Palestinian and Levantine plates that predate Israel\u2019s presence in the region by centuries.<\/p>\n

Restaurants in my current home of Washington, DC engage in this kind of cultural appropriation all the time, which might be slightly less disturbing to me if they weren\u2019t so successful as a result. When fellow District residents find out that I\u2019m vegan, Israeli-owned restaurants Shouk and Little Sesame are two of the top five restaurants people tend to ask if I\u2019ve visited. These spots quickly became favorites among vegans and non-vegans alike who don\u2019t realize just how problematic it is to eat at a place that calls its cooking \u201cmodern Israeli street food\u201d (Shouk). News also just broke that the NYC-based \u201cTel Aviv-style\u201d falafel chain Ta\u00efm will be opening its first location in DC this fall. Just in case prospective diners are queasy about the theft of culinary traditions, a page dubbed \u201cHistory Lesson\u201d on Ta\u00efm\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0reminds us, \u201cRemember we\u2019re talking about food not religion or politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem, though, is that we can\u2019t simply separate food from politics so easily, and especially not in the case of Israel and Palestine. These restaurants have profited off their appropriation of Palestinian dishes to become popular staples in the vegan scene here, frequented by frustratingly oblivious (and mostly white) vegans who either aren\u2019t aware of or don\u2019t care about how deeply problematic it is to steal cultural heritage in this way. We rightfully criticize plenty of other restaurateurs who engage in blatant cultural appropriation, but these Israeli restaurants have somehow remained exempt from judgement. The truth is that most of the delightful plant-based dishes that draw vegans to these businesses are originally Palestinian.<\/p>\n

Another part of the erasure of the plant-based elements of Palestinian cooking is the promotion of the idea that predominantly Muslim cultures as a whole are not vegan-friendly, a concept that is incorrect at best and downright racist and Islamophobic at worst. A number of Israeli bloggers and journalists have claimed that the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which traditionally involves sacrificing a lamb, signifies that Muslim cultures are less compassionate to animals. Israelis also propagate horrifyingly destructive stereotypes about Palestinians in particular, claiming Palestinian culture embraces violence, and use these tropes to justify their own violence against Palestinian civilians.These claims are both unfounded and bigoted, and relies on the Islamophobic \u201cothering\u201d of Muslim cultures to try to prove its point.<\/p>\n

The unfortunate reality is that most if not all human cultures have traditions that involve eating animals. While I wish that wasn\u2019t the case, I don\u2019t think it says anything about any one culture so much as it does about humans\u2019 relationships with non-human animals in general. Furthermore, Israel is in the\u00a0top three<\/a>\u00a0meat-consuming countries in the world, a fact that its vegan proponents conveniently omit.<\/p>\n

Intersectional Veganism<\/h3>\n

We do not get to pretend that our choices, whether to take a sponsored trip to Israel or to patronize a certain restaurant, are free of consequences. To be clear: as a vegan, I am happy to see people becoming more concerned about how we treat animals. I am also sure that there are many vegan Israelis who are committed to ending the occupation of Palestine, which is why I deliberately focused on veganwashing as propagated by the Israeli government, corporations, and public figures such as bloggers and business owners, rather than private citizens of Israel. That said, I do not welcome the promotion of veganism at any cost, because a veganism that does not concern itself with intersectional questions of human oppression is both logically incoherent and of no interest to me.<\/p>\n

A critical note about the vegan community\u2019s complicity in Israel\u2019s veganwashing campaign is made in one of my favorite\u00a0episodes<\/a>\u00a0of the Vegan Vanguard podcast: had vegans not been so quick to market veganism as a mere consumer lifestyle choice, veganism would not be so easily co-opted for deceitful purposes. An explicitly intersectional, anti-capitalist vegan movement could never provide a coherent justification for human rights abuses, even on a superficial level. In our desire to make veganism more appealing to the masses, however, vegans have sold our politics out. And the wrong people bought them, along with the IDF\u2019s favorite\u00a0hummus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Though we are up against powerful industrial and military systems, we can still move towards justice. Rejecting a consumerist vision of veganism, learning about Palestinian cuisine and culture, and joining the Palestinian civil society movement of\u00a0BDS<\/a>\u00a0(Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) are just a few actions that we can take. Not only can we commit simultaneously to both human and animal liberation, we should do so, because the two will mutually reinforce each other. Legislators demanding faux leather seats from which to pass apartheid legislation or soldiers requesting wool-free berets to wear while terrorizing people are not veganism. Veganism is freedom, abundance, and liberation for all. Or, it can be. But only if there is justice for Palestine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gleaming produce spills out of market baskets. An outstretched palm offers fresh herbs, an organic farm in the background. A table overflowing with a rainbow of dishes cuts away to a morsel of hot bread diving into a bowl of tahini and olive oil. Young, attractive faces smile at the camera while baby animals frolic … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9505,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500\/revisions\/9505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}