A “Two Plate Solution” Pop-Up

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2024, pp. 60-61

Waging Peace

BY MARCH 14, the third day of a Washington, DC restaurant’s pop-up fundraising dinners, dubbed the “Two Plate Solution,” there was controversy—as fraught as almost every discussion of the Israel-Palestine issue can be in this city. There was such a big fuss that it captured the attention of a Washington Post food reporter who wrote an excellent article about it, touching on other Middle Eastern food fights in Seattle, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. 

The Two Plate Solution invitation promised a six-course Palestinian-Israeli meal to benefit the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and Women Wage Peace, an Israeli organization. The dinners were cooked by Nesrin Abaza, my family’s long-time Palestinian-Jordanian American friend, at the Pan-Latin DC restaurant, El Secreto de Rosita, she co-owns with her husband Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld. 

While many restaurants, NGOs and even bookstores like ours (Middle East Books and More) are holding events to raise funds for Gaza, there was an immediate outcry on the restaurant’s Instagram page, calling the dinners “inappropriate and tone deaf” during a war in which Israel is blocking aid from reaching starving Palestinians in Gaza. “To see them fundraising for an Israeli organization and a Palestinian one, it’s very both sides,” said Jinan Deena, a well-known Palestinian-Honduran activist/food educator/chef also based in Washington, DC, who pointed out “there is nothing equal about the situation in the Middle East.” Israelis, she argued, “don’t need assistance. Those in Gaza are the ones clinging to life.” Deena hosts pop-ups she calls Bayti (“My home”), which she describes as a Palestinian hospitality culinary experience. Deena was especially triggered because Israeli cuisine frequently appropriates Palestinian and other Arab foods.

In response to Deena, Abaza posted, “We must engage with all sides and be able to communicate, to discuss our differences, to bring humanity back to the table.” Abaza, who spent time in Beirut before the civil war, grew up in Greece, where our families became close when our dads worked for Voice of America. She traveled to Greece in 2016 to serve as an interpreter at a Syrian refugee camp. Abaza and Abbie Rosner, the Jewish American writer who cohosted and helped cook for the fundraisers, explained to Washington Post readers and Two Plate Solution diners why they decided to host the dinners. Rosner told us about living in Israel for almost three decades and described her best friend and culinary mentor, Balkees Abu Rabiya, a Palestinian cook from Nazareth. Rosner wrote a book called Breaking Bread in Galilee: A Culinary Journey Into the Promised Land.

Deena, Abaza and Rosner each believe that sitting down and talking over a shared meal is the best way to hear each other’s stories. In fact, Deena and Abaza sat down for 90 minutes on the last day of the pop-up. The Post article concludes, “The women said they didn’t agree on everything, but they were fine with that. Their beliefs don’t have to align perfectly for them to find common ground. Deena said, ‘Conversation is one of the best ways, over a meal, to get through to people.’”

Abaza sent an email commenting on the Post article to her Beirut friends who’d gathered for the feast on the last night: “I think the most important sentence was at the end with Jinan’s quote, which was the whole purpose of the event!”

—Delinda C. Hanley