JERUSALEM: Israel has taken the upper hand in a new kind of Mideast conflict, one in which bullets are replaced by chickpeas.
Using a satellite dish on loan from a nearby broadcast station, cooks in an Arab town near Jerusalem whipped up more than four metric tons of hummus, the chickpea paste that is a staple for many in the Middle East.
The cooks doubled the previous record for the world’s biggest serving of hummus, set in October by cooks in Lebanon. That record broke an earlier Israeli record and briefly put Lebanon ahead.
Hundreds of jubilant Israelis, a mix of Arabs and Jews, gathered around the giant dish in the town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem on Friday, many of them dancing as a singer performed an Arabic love song to the beige chickpea paste.
snips: "The chefs responsible for Friday’s record were from the country’s one-fifth Arab minority. A newscaster on Israel’s Army Radio referred to the hummus clash as the “third Lebanon war.” "
"The driving force behind the Israeli hummus dish, Jawdat Ibrahim, an Israeli Arab restaurateur who became a millionaire after winning a lottery in the US, played down the conflict, saying “competition is a healthy thing.” “Today we have the hummus. Hopefully, we will have the talks for peace in our region,” he said."
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=19§ion=0&article=130905&d=9&m=1&y=2010