In October 2008, the "Association of Lebanese Industrialists" presented a petition to the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade. The association has asked for the protection status by the European Commission for hummus as a single Lebanese food, conferring similar rights to European products.
Fadi Abboud, Lebanese president of the "Lebanese Industrialists Association", said that "the Israelis have usurped various Lebanese and Oriental products". According to Abboud, Lebanon has historically exported the first hummus dish in 1959.
To argue, food critic Janna Gur wrote: "Probably, it is the success of some brands of Israeli hummus abroad that aroused Abboud's anger", prompting him to claim that Israel would "steal" their plates national; besides the hummus, also the falafel, the tabbouleh and the baba ghanouj .
In response to Abboud's statement, Shooky Galili, an Israeli journalist specializing in gastronomy who writes in a blog dedicated to hummus, argued that "attempting to claim a copyright on the hummus was like claiming rights to bread and on wine. Hummus is an Arab dish of many centuries, no one owns it, it belongs to the territory ".
