Palestinian Restaurant Opens in NYC—With a Side of Outrage

Between mundane posts on the Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, Facebook page—rental listings, furniture for sale, a woman seeking a cat dermatologist—a battle has erupted over a newly opened Palestinian restaurant whose owners are critical of the Israeli government.

The restaurant, Ayat, is part of a small chain owned by Ayat Masoud and her husband, Abdul Elenani. The Ditmas Park menu includes a seafood section titled “from the river to the sea,” a controversial slogan that the Anti-Defamation League considers antisemitic and a call for “Israel’s destruction through violent means.”

One aggrieved Facebook commentator derided the phrase as “openly genocidal.” Many Palestinian advocates, Elenani included, insist that the decades-old slogan is merely a non-violent rallying cry for justice.

Read more at The Daily Beast.