John Kerry Stops To Smell the Shwarma
Image by Getty Images
Secretary of State John Kerry stepped off the diplomatic track on Thursday and onto a West Bank street where he sampled a shawarma sandwich and a pistachio-sprinkled Palestinian sweet.
In a rare gesture for a U.S. secretary of state – but a staple of U.S. political campaigns – Kerry dropped by the Samer Restaurant in the Palestinian city of Ramallah to enjoy typical Middle Eastern fare.
“Man that is good,” Kerry said after biting into his shawarma, a sandwich filled with slivers of meat roasted on a rotating spit, typically wrapped in pita bread and garnished with tomatoes, tahini sauce, hummus and pickled turnips.
The top U.S. diplomat, who is in Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to revive peace talks that collapsed in 2010, then walked across the street to a sweet shop owned by the same man. There he dug into Kunafeh, a cheese pastry soaked in sweet syrup, and sipped coffee.
While U.S. secretaries of state have travelled to the West Bank dozens of times, they seldom step out of their official meetings to sample the local culture. One of Kerry’s aims is to perk up the Palestinian economy, something he may have done in a very small measure by insisting on paying for his food.
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
