Brooklyn restaurateurs Abdul Elenani and Ayat Masoud said Thursday they have received death threats over their seafood menu featuring an anti-Israel chant.
The Ayat restaurant’s seafood section menu is titled “From the River to the Sea,” which many people interpret as a call to violence against Israel and Jews, the outlet reported.
New York City Palestinian restaurant menu sparks outrage: ‘It has nothing to do with violence’ https://t.co/TtI65ubFVk
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“It means nothing and has nothing to do with violence. It’s a simple call for an end to the occupation and freedom for Palestinians. Not to be treated like animals, yet to be treated with human dignity and fairness,” Elenani told Fox News.
He further told the outlet that the title was a “pun,” and that it had been on the menu since 2020. Elenani argued the slogan was always one of peace and that only after Oct. 7 was it interpreted as a call to violence and to exile Jews from Israel.
The restaurant franchise is named after Elenani’s wife, Ayat, and serves Palestinian cuisine, Spectrum News reported in May.
Elenani said he received over 50 hateful and threatening messages over the menu and that police arrested three persons already for these threats, Fox News reported.
“Israel needs to stay there. The name ‘Israel’ needs to be there. ‘Palestine’ also needs to be there. It’s a peaceful two-state solution,” Elenani told the outlet. (RELATED: REPORT: Bereavement Officer In Israel Literally Tears Heart Artery While Arranging Nonstop Funerals)
An article in Mosaic Magazine dated 2018 noted the slogan was a call for the eradication of the entirety of the State of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, an Egyptian-born Muslim Arab, wrote in the Times of Israel in 2019 that the phrase was linked to “the constant attempts to destroy it [Israel] since its establishment.”