Occupied Territories

Funny the places baking can take you.

You might have seen that I am currently exploring Babka Zana, the book of the Parisian Jewish bakery of the same name. The owners, Sarah Amouyal and Emmanuel Murat, have a modern approach to Jewish food traditions of the Mediterranean particularly North Africa and Israel. So, in addition to my usual struggle with French/English translation, I’m encountering ingredients previously unknown to me.

Like Sauce Amba. Easy enough to see it’s a mango sauce I thought I could use mango chutney Indian restaurant style. But a quick bit of internet research says it is a spicey sauce made of fermented mangos originating in Iraqi Jewish tradition.

Amazon supplies me with this no problem. Then I start to read the small print, mainly for the ingredients:

But it wasn’t the ingredients that stopped me in my tracks – it was the words “Product of Israel”. I don’t knowingly buy Israeli products. If you don’t understand why, I’m not getting into an endless and futile discussion with you. But approaching 40,000 dead is enough to be going on with.

Then I did a bit of checking out. The label says “Produced by: Shemesh Spices Ltd”. This company is based in Karmal Shomron, not in Israel at all, but bang in the middle of the West Bank, i.e. Occupied Territory.

In the lazy back of my mind, I was aware that Israel has almost complete control over Palestinian exports and that they are often relabeled as Israeli produce.

Just as I’m thinking these thoughts, an article pops up in the Guardian about the recent International Criminal Court judgement on the legality of Israel’s war in Gaza.

In the article, Philippe Sands KC, who is a professor of law at University College London and a visiting professor at Harvard law school, said the ruling also affected the legality of imports from Israeli settlements to the UK and other countries.

“Anything that is produced in the occupied territories, such as food, or that is sold there over the internet, is in principle subject to the international prohibition, if it can be said to aid or assist in the maintenance of the unlawful occupation,” he said.

Going to read the small print more carefully before I buy …