Meet the Counter-Terrorism Experts Who Are Trying to Eat Their Way to Peace

In the crowded backroom of a pub in Berlin, 60 people are crowded around a table lined with crockpots full of creamy, homemade hummus. Each is prepared according to the traditions of a different country—Israel, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon—but no one can tell the difference. And that's the point.

A new initiative called "Conflict & Food in Berlin" is using dishes from warring countries to show how similar their cultures are, despite their beef. It's a message that's been delivered before by other projects like The Hummus Initiative, which promotes peace between Israelis and Palestinians using selfies of people with hummus, and the Conflict Kitchen restaurant in Pittsburgh, which serves food from countries that the US is in conflict with.

But unlike those initiatives, Conflict & Food is literally bringing people from warring countries together. Every month, members of the diaspora from different sides of a conflict—anything from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the war in Ukraine—share a stage to tell stories of how the conflict affected each of them personally.

"Food brings people together, no matter what," says Stella Aleksanyan, a PhD student studying the effects of the refugee crisis in Germany, who runs Conflict & Food with her friend Tal Gibbesch, a tour guide and former counter-terrorism researcher from Israel.

"These people, even though they hate each other until they die, eat the same food," says Aleksanyan, talking of people not only in the Middle East where each country's version of hummus looks near identical, but also of places like the US, where those who oppose immigration might not necessarily turn down its cultural benefits. "All of them eat tacos and burritos and they love it," says Aleksanyan. (Just look at Trump's taco bowl).

During the project's first discussion night, which focused on the Armenian Genocide, the audience crowded around a table of foods native to both Turkey and Armenia: dolma (stuffed vegetable finger food) and baklava (a nutty dessert made with layers of filo). Although there are Turkish and Armenian versions of each available, no one can tell which is which.

"Maybe they didn't even realise they were from two different places," says Nazli Koca, from Istanbul. Despite being one of the night's cooks, even she can't tell the difference between the Turkish dolma (which she made) and its Armenian counterpart.

But even the smallest of differences can spark a conflict. In May of this year, Azerbaijan sent an application to get dolma added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list (consider it a version of the World Heritage list but with traditions like Bulgarian carpet-making and Mongolian knuckle-bone shooting). Although UNESCO states that its list is meant to be inclusive of similar traditions elsewhere (rather than a record of who-came-up-with-what-first) the Armenian government strongly objected to Azerbaijan's application. And this isn't even the first time they've had a food fight.

"We presented lavash [to UNESCO] and they [Azerbaijan] suddenly "discovered" that lavash is their national bread," wrote Armenia's Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan in a press release, referring to a previous dispute about the origins of lavash, a thin flatbread made throughout Asia, from Iran to Kazakhstan.

"It kind of looks like there is a dispute because they want to claim it's their own and they don't want to share with others," says Aleksanyan about the origin of food items in general. "But it's funny because they make it the same way. It tastes the same."

Still, Aleksanyan and Gibbesch—who together hold a slew of degrees in subjects that sound like a UN training guide: homeland security, counter terrorism, war studies, European studies, political studies and, of course, international relations—are well aware that you can't tell people that their dolma or hummus is alike and expect them to stop fighting. The project has a long way to go before (and even if) it can impact those most capable of causing harm.

"We can't change the extremists," says Gibbesch."We want to influence the others who are influenced by the extremists' actions." On the same day as Conflict & Food's first event, suicide bombers in Brussels killed more than 30 people in attacks at the city's airport and a nearby metro station.

"There are many sides [to conflict] and we want to affect the people who are able to see the sides," says Gibbesch. "Not the ones who are already lost."

It's one of the reasons why speakers from conflict countries are also encouraged to tell personal stories of what it was like growing up with conflict—what they learned about it in school and their first time meeting someone from 'the other side.' Although the idea of bringing members of 'opposing' diasporas together might not sound overly controversial, the project has already received intimidating messages and threats of arson. Even before the first meeting, organisers say they received a Facebook message reading, "A good Turk is a dead Turk."

Still, Aleksanyan and Gibbesch plan to further their work by creating a non-profit that will support reconciliation between communities divided by conflict.

"There are so many people saying that I'm wasting my time because politics are going to do whatever they want to do, and I can't change anything," says Aleksanyan. "But I would be extremely happy that one person changes his mind by one percent."