Off The Menu? Dutch Restaurant Wipes ’Israel’ off Culinary Map

Local Editor

Dutch restaurant owners have drawn fire from some diners after they replaced "Israel" with Palestine in a map of the Middle East at their Arabic eatery in Rotterdam. They say it's for culinary reasons.

The owners of Le Souq, a restaurant at Rotterdam's Market Hall whose main specialty is Middle Eastern cuisine were asked to explain their actions by a local politician, who noticed the absence of "Israel" on the restaurant's placemat and its replacement with Palestine instead.

"A new country in the Middle East? In Rotterdam's Market Hall they are straightforward about "Israel's" position. Bizarre," Jan Hutten, regional chairman of the right-wing Christian Democratic Appeal party wrote on Twitter, posting a photo of the placemat.

In response, Le Souq's owner, Nadia Afkir, told the Algemeen Dagblad daily that "our restaurant only deals with the flavors of the Middle East," adding that a major source of the restaurant's inspiration comes from "the ancient Palestinian kitchen, the producer of the delicious maglubi and the kunefe dishes that we are passionate about."

Further, she stated that the placemat only "names countries producing the dishes and products with which we work" and said the café did not expect the map would be taken from a political point of view.

However, maps of the Middle East with the Zionist entity left unmarked on them have caused controversy before.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team