The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate issued a statement on Monday condemning a food festival in Jerusalem, accusing it of being a tool for “cultural Judaization aimed at erasing the Palestinian identity of Jerusalem and imposing an artificial cultural reality that serves the Israeli colonial project.”
The four-week “Auto Ochel” festival at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in southern Jerusalem, which is in its final week, features several food trucks serving kosher specialties from Jerusalem-based restaurants and well-known Israeli chefs at prices capped at 45 NIS, along with musical entertainment and a laser light show.
However, according to the Palestinian Authority, behind the affordable eats lie more sinister “colonial” interests.
The PA noted that the food festival is part of a “series of Judaizing cultural events organized by the occupation, aiming to promote false narratives and showcase stolen or fabricated cultural elements in an attempt to give the occupied city a Jewish character and distort its ancient history.”
The Jerusalem Governorate emphasized that such activities serve as a cover to impose a new colonial reality.
The statement then took an inflammatory turn, calling for “popular and international confrontation of these practices and reaffirming the Palestinian identity of Jerusalem and its historical, religious, and cultural character.”
The governorate concluded by stressing: “Jerusalem will remain Palestinian despite all attempts at erasure and Judaization, affirming that these policies will neither succeed in changing reality nor in erasing the collective memory of our people or their cultural heritage.”