Imagine if Anthony Bourdain Saw Palestine Now.
Maybe it's better that he remembers it the way it was...
In 2014, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) held its 23rd Annual Media Awards in Los Angeles. They honored Anthony Bourdain with the "Voice of Courage and Conscience" award. While Bourdain was often decorated—winning Peabodys and Emmys—this specific honor recognized the moral weight of his work in a region where most American media figures feared to tread.
Because he was traveling at the time, he sent a video message that has since become his most enduring ethical manifesto. He argued that simply showing a day in the life of a family—what they eat, how they love their children, and what they contend with—should be the baseline of human interaction, not an act of bravery.
The "Powder Keg" and the Implosion
During the filming of that episode in late 2013, Bourdain wasn’t just eating maqluba; he was observing the structural reality of the land. He famously noted that the situation felt like a "powder keg."
To his hosts and contacts, he was reportedly blunt, suggesting that the "cake they were baking" was a recipe for an inevitable implosion. He saw the military checkpoints and the restricted life in Gaza and recognized that the pressure was unsustainable. He famously opened the episode by predicting he would be called everything from a "terrorist sympathizer" to a "Zionist tool." He didn't care about the labels; he cared about the "active dehumanization" he witnessed.
A Time Capsule of What Was
There is a profound, dark irony in the fact that Bourdain passed away in 2018, nearly two years before the COVID-19 pandemic and years before the current escalation. In his episodes, he documented a Palestine that, in many physical ways, no longer exists.
The restaurants in Gaza City where he marveled at the local seafood and the specific neighborhoods he walked through have, in many cases, been changed forever. His footage remains one of the few high-definition records of a vibrant, living Palestinian culture—presented not as a site of tragedy, but as a site of hospitality and heritage. It is a mercy, perhaps, that he remembers Palestine for what it was: a place of ancient olive groves and a people who, despite everything, would still offer a stranger the best seat at the table.
The Full Acceptance Speech
Delivered via video for the 23rd Annual MPAC Media Awards (April 26, 2014):
"I was honored to receive the invitation and I am even more honored to receive this award. I am—and my producers are—grateful for the chance to even be considered. I was particularly struck by the title of the award: 'Voices of Courage and Conscience.' While I am at times a loud voice, I don't know that I am particularly courageous. And I have only an ordinary amount of conscience.
I was asked why we did the Jerusalem episode, and why we spent as much time as we did in Gaza and the West Bank. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed like the right thing to do.
I am often asked, 'What is the most world-changing, life-changing place you've ever been?' And I usually say 'Gaza.' Because I was so unprepared for what I saw—the degree of total, absolute, and seemingly permanent dispossession. The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.
People are not statistics. That is all we attempted to show. A day in the life of some people who live there, what they eat, what their lives are like, what they must contend with on a daily basis.
I hope that other people, other filmmakers, will see that and realize that it’s not so dangerous, and it’s not so difficult, and it’s not so scary to just tell a simple story about human beings.
I thank you very much for this. I wish I could be there in person. I am currently in a somewhat more comfortable, but no less interesting, part of the world. Thank you again."
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