From today, all profits on each sale of our Smoked Humus will go to UNICEF to help Palestinians in Gaza.
This is the first newsletter I’m approaching to write where all the words I want to convey feel so entwined, so heavy that its coherence and structure become tangled in my mind as I try to process the best way to exhibit my sentiments. Like a pre-plunge in a freezing pool of water, I stare at the variables and overthink my next move, until eventually I decide - fuck it, I’mma dive in.
For over a year I’ve watched the horrors of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians unfold and have felt helpless, guilty and shackled by what to do to respond. I am an individual running a restaurant. One voice. What could I do to help fellow human beings entrapped, starving, humiliated, mutilated, murdered, beaten, homeless, limbless, orphaned, widowed, de-humanised? My own government receives my taxes and aides and abets the Israeli government by selling arms and refusing to condemn their sadistic campaign (up until very, very recently). Every public figure raising their voice against this ethnic cleansing is forced to equate Hamas’s attacks on October 7th as being on the same scale as Israel’s subsequent disproportionate retaliation, without being given the room or leeway to provide the context to why a terrorist organisation like Hamas would even exist in the first place? The history of Israel occupying land and forcing its native people out conveniently overlooked and dismissed, as if it wasn’t the crux of the conflict to begin with. Gary Lineker, Kneecap, Jeremy Corbyn, all bandied as crackpots and virtue signallers by the mass media. Anyone standing up is immediately shutdown by Zionists and the forces of pressure they amass on social media by uniting in numbers and attacking all naysayers.
And here I am with a restaurant in North-East London, running it alone, during our most difficult financial year where even today I have had to acquire another bank loan to keep us afloat. My business and livelihood are on the line, and anything I do to take away from generating revenue will be detrimental to its survival. We make everything in-house, including our Humus. To pay staff the labour cost, to pay suppliers for chickpeas and olive oil, to pay rent and utilities and taxes, and still offer to donate profits from this dish to UNICEF is the very most we can do despite its great risks. But I feel compelled to act. If Mangal II goes down, it’ll sink swinging, on the right side of history, with the right values and in full knowledge we did not sit still and watch on as the world burned to savagery.
Why Humus?
I have been plagued by how to support Palestinians. Do we run a fundraiser, like our good friends at Morchella admirably did? Do we put a collection box up for aid? Do we close on Saturdays and march in Central London? I wanted to honour the dignity of Palestinians my own way. Wracking my brain, sat at my girlfriend’s kitchen discussing this, she asked “What commonalities does your restaurant share with Palestinian cuisine?” It was the all-important, lightbulb moment I desperately needed. Humus, of course. The beautifully silky dip found around the world, revered in the Middle-East and Southern Europe. Vegan, healthy, delicious, familiar and comforting. It makes total sense to celebrate the richness of Palestinian cuisine and culture, and using that as a tool to support its people when in dire need. We make our own Humus here. We soak and then crucially grill our chickpeas, and once blended with its usual allies of ingredients, we add in our signature smoked olive oil to enhance its flavour. Our Humus is special and unlike any other I have had the pleasure of tasting. If we can use perhaps our greatest dish to support children experiencing a famine, all the better for it.
I won’t lie and pretend this will be a forever staple on our menu. We cannot afford to commit to this offer until infinitum, but we will endeavour to do so for a long as we financially can, for as long as the crisis permits us to, for as long as serious positive change doesn’t take place. It may be for 3 months, it may be for 6 months, depending on a ceasefire, and ideally the resignation of Netanyahu’s vampiric government of ghouls. When even Israel’s former prime minister is calling its current one out, referring to the government’s campaign as a “genocide”, it says everything our very own government refuses to acknowledge.
I have watched on as restaurants in London that identify their cuisine as “Eastern Mediterranean” (call it “Israeli”, lads) have trudged along in silence during this time, hoping no one calls them to action. I find it appalling that the silent complicity is not called out enough. You can be proud of your background and still stand up for human rights – they are not mutually exclusive.
I am Turkish and Kurdish. If Turkey were doing to Kurds or other neighbouring ethnicities what Israel is doing to Palestine, I would be the first to speak out. In fact, I always have. I had a Twitter account that was semi-popular (@mangal2 – which I deleted 3 years ago) and where it initially was all fun and games, it became increasingly politically vocal, to the point where I feared to go to Turkey up until very recently. Where one is born, what race, what colour, what religion, what sexuality, what height and shape and size and appearance, it’s all one coincidence. No one has a right to a land than another. No one is superior to another. Seeing Zionists violently enraged when confronting Palestinian sympathisers makes me feel sick to my stomach, but also sad that human beings could be so alienated from decency and good values. In supporting our neighbours, in recognising the things we all share: The desire to be happy, to be fed, to be safe, to be loved, to be healthy, to be accepted and valued. The desire to be good. Where has it gone?
Posting this will result in some boycotting Mangal II. To a spate of shitty Google reviews. To disgusting comments on Instagram. To these individuals I say: Do your worst, and stay the fuck away from my establishment. You are not my customer, and I don’t need your support. I respect all faiths, not least Judaism. I respect my Jewish customers and my Jewish friends. I just deplore Zionism and the current Israeli government, and this extends to the current US and UK governments, too. That in itself is not anti-Semitic. It’s acknowledging something that’s inherently wrong and standing up to it.
To everyone else, of decent mind and beating hearts, I implore you to stand up for what’s right. To defend the lone voices fighting against evil. To perhaps consider eating here next time you’re in town and want to try the very best of Anatolian cooking with a British garnish. We’ve been divided and shut down for too long during this genocide. Now is the time to unite and support your local. Just don’t forget to order the Humus.