Israeli restaurant offers discounted food for Jews and Arabs who dine together

The ongoing violence between Israel and Palestine has been steadily worsening for a long time now. It seems that the bitterness on both sides of the aisle will never end, and that the warring and death will continue indefinitely. However, one Israeli restaurant owner is doing something very small — but powerfully significant — to encourage the two groups of people to set their differences aside and find some common ground.

Kobi Tzafrir, owner of Kfar Vitkin’s Hummus Bar is giving any table with both Jews and Arabs sitting together for half price. His reasoning? He only serves “human beings.” Tzafrir announced his intentions and reasoning on Facebook, writing in Hebrew:

“With us we don’t have Arabs! But we also don’t have Jews… With us we’ve got human beings! Real excellent Arab hummus! Excellent Jewish falafel!”

The half-price hummus isn’t all that is being offered here, either. Tzafrir’s post about his peace offering also says that the special includes “a free refill for every serving of hummus, whether you’re Arab, Jewish, Christian, Indian, etc.”

This is so monumentally important with the current situation in that region of the world. In the seven weeks since the violence along the Gaza strip broke out, there have been eight known deaths of Israelis along with 52 Palestinian deaths. There are likely many more that went unreported in the chaos, and more to come.

Kobi Tzafrir may not be able to stop the violence single-handedly, but he can do his part, and he is. He said to Newsweek of his efforts:

“It started because of the situation. I hear about what everybody hears in the situation and I think this has gotten out of proportion. All of the bad things that you hear.”

“I want to tell the world that the situation is not like that and that it is not like this in all of Israel. Maybe in Jerusalem and other places, you can see more of the tension, but the rest of Israel lives in peace and harmony. The Jewish and the Arabs and everybody here.”

Tzafrir said to the Times of Israel that yes, people had taken him up on the peace-making special since he posted it. Considering the history of that region, this is good news.

[Raw Story] Featured image via Facebook