It all started when American tourist Mark Rosenblatt received a "Welcome to Palestine" message as soon as he landed in Tel Aviv on April 5. 

In an interview with Jewish News Service this week, Rosenblatt told his story.

"I did a double take,” Rosenblatt said, according to JNS.

"I was shocked that an American company was falling into some BDS rhetoric." 

Rosenblatt received the message from his cell phone carrier Verizon - one of the largest American Telecom operators - upon landing at Ben Gurion airport. 

Soon after sharing his story, JNS sought an explanation from the phone carrier, asking Verizon spokesperson Scott Charlston "why Palestine" was recognized as a location. 

Maybe because it is a country that has always existed? 

Moving on... 

Charlston issued a statement explaining to JNS that Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv "is close to the Israeli border [with the West Bank] and there are cell sites and wireless signals from different providers on both sides."

"In general, customers living in or visiting border areas occasionally receive a wireless signal from a cross-border provider. When powering up or leaving airplane mode, the phone connects to the strongest signal available at the time," the statement read.

In 2012, the United Nations recognized Palestine as a "non-member observer state” - which granted the state basic, but limited, participation in the activities of the UN General Assembly. 

Three years after that, the UN raised the Palestinian flag for the first time ever in September 2015 at its headquarters in New York City.

The motion to raise the flag was passed by the U.N. General Assembly at the beginning of September after 119 countries voted in its favor. Eight countries voted against and 45 others abstained at the time. 

As of now, 137 states recognize Palestine.

Just over a week ago, Starbucks announced that they are testing a new ready to go menu called Mercato, but it was only when PETA tweeted about it on Tuesday, that something quite peculiar caught our attention. 

An item on the new menu is called "cauliflower tabbouleh salad."

Yes, you heard that right. Starbucks decided to get creative with the Levantine favorite and are now testing it with riced cauliflower instead of burghul (cracked wheat), and adding arugula leaves and cucumbers. 

Tweeting about the new menu, PETA also labelled the dish a "new" vegan item.

Wait, what? Isn't traditional tabbouleh vegan to start with?  

It actually is, BECAUSE LEVANTINE SALAD USUALLY IS! But since vegan is all the rave right now, let's call water 'vegan' too, shall we? 

"So they had to make me feel as though Tabbouleh weren't already vegan by switching burghul with cauliflower ... why?" 

OK, maybe Starbucks is attempting to make the dish gluten-free. So maybe just not add the burghul then? 

Whatever the case may be, it's not the first time people tried to make changes to Middle Eastern dishes and honestly the results haven't always been encouraging:

Case in point, we take our food and culture very seriously, so please STOP MESSING WITH IT!