I apparently missed this news (Jerusalem Post, registration avoidable) when it emerged, but it’s a salient story given the current climate of religious slaughter: the Knesset Education Committee will no longer extend a grace period for Israel’s foie gras industry to submit new, kinder regulations for the force-feeding of geese to produce the fleishig delicacy of over-fattened liver, thus ending the production of FG in the Jewish state.

The two sides of the issue, as put forth in the article, are as such:

• Force-feeding geese is cruel and should be stopped.

• The 70 foie gras producers in Israel employ 500 people, generate 70,000,000 shekels annually, and export half of their product.
• The Agriculture ministry is testing “shorter, silicon feeding tubes” and a shorter feeding period to ameliorate the negative impact force feeding has on geese
• Should Israel no longer produce FG, producers in Europe and other Middle Eastern countries would step in to fulfill the existing demand, thus perpetuating any cruetly.

While Agriculture Ministry Director-General Yossy Ishay’s response to the ruling is little too “slippery slope” to be taken seriously (”If we don’t stop the animal-rights groups, tomorrow you won’t be able to milk cows or keep chickens in coops”), the long-term “animal rights” implications of a complete cessation in FG production could be far worse with Israel out of the picture.

Here’s how I see it (and feel free to argue): geese have a friend in Israel. The government appears to be actively developing safer, friendlier goose-feeding apparatus. Should those efforts bear fruit, Israel stands to become a leader in more humane FG production, and given appropriate publicity, could effect other countries to demand the use of the new, humane technology. A temporary lengthening of the grace period would without a doubt also temporarily lengthen the suffering of geese, but could provide a more comfortable future for our kitchen-bound, feathered friends.

(Interesting tidbit: Israeli Izzy Yanay is considered the world’s foremost authority on using duck for the production of foie gras.)