A group of eight Chinese tourists who dined at the Abu Ghosh Restaurant in the village of Abu Ghosh in the Jerusalem Hills two weeks ago received the following bill: 
 
 NIS 4,000 for hire of a private room 
 
 NIS 650 for hors d'oeuvres and salads 
 
 NIS 5,900 for alcohol 
 
 NIS 3,150 for main courses 
 
 NIS 1,350 for desserts 
 
 NIS 1,500 service charge 
 
 Total: NIS 16,500. 
 
 The bill was distributed today by the The Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association with the following remarks: "A group of eight Chinese on a tour of Abu Ghosh stopped to eat at the Abu Ghosh Restaurant. The bill they received is attached. There may be a billion Chinese, but they may not all be suckers. These Chinese said they would not be back and would not recommend their friends to visit Israel. 
 
 "Naive customers are a very shaky basis for a business plan, and by behaving this way we are destroying with our own hands the budding potential of the Chinese market for Israel." 
 
 Some 47,000 Chinese visit Israel annually, about a third of them businesspeople. One of the goals of the Ministry of Tourism is to promote Chinese tourism and unlock its rich potential with a series of moves, which include for example adapting hotels to the needs of Chinese tourists and special tours. 
 
 The bill detailed above leaves a bad taste, but according to one of the restaurant's owners, Jawdat Ibrahim, it is justified. 
 
 "I received a telephone call that a group of Chinese tourists wanted to come to the restaurant, on condition that we close the restaurant to all other diners," he said. "We are talking about a Friday, and Friday and Saturday are the busiest days of the week for us. We have room for 300 people, and we closed it all for this group, which had the whole place to itself. 
 
 "They sat there from 3 pm on Friday until midnight, and became rowdy and drunk. They asked me to buy alcoholic drinks that I paid thousands of shekels for. They asked that the bar should be kept available, they asked for 30 kg of stuffed mutton and other dishes. It wasn't a case of eating and leaving, and they even took all their leftovers with them afterwards. 
 
 "The truth is that I thought that they should pay much more, since I had no other diners that day. They enjoyed themselves and thanked me, and now, two weeks later, they're trying to besmirch us. This was a realistic cost for the meal. We have meals for NIS 20 as well, and there are meals with a cost like this. If you analyze the total, you will realize that it is not a lot for what they received." 
 
 Update: After making further checks with the Chinese tourist group's travel agent and their guide, Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association CEO Yossi Fattal disputes Ibrahim's version of events. He says the group arrived at the restaurant after 7 pm, and that the restaurant was not closed specially for them, but that they only received a private room, while there were other diners in other parts of the restaurant at the time. 
 
 The Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association also says that the alcohol served at the meal was not ordered specially for the Chinese guests, and had been placed on the tables before the group arrived. According to the guide, the group was not served 30 kg of meat as claimed, and it stayed in the restaurant for about four hours. 
 
 "The Association decided to make this incident public in order to illustrate the importance of fair and polite treatment of tourists who come to Israel and are an important sector of the country's economy. Incoming tourism represents about 15% of total exports of services by the State of Israel, and is an important generator of employment in the periphery," Fattal said. 
 
 Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 5, 2016 
 
 © Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2016 ||||| 
 
 The Abu Ghosh restaurant, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, on Nov. 20, 2013. (Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press) 
 
 JERUSALEM — News of eight Chinese tourists spending more than $4,000 at a well-known Israeli hummus restaurant grabbed headlines last week. On Sunday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry launched a search for the group in an attempt to figure out why the tourists were charged so much. 
 
 Such hummus restaurants in Israel are generally known for their hearty food and good value. Last week, however, tour operators cried foul after a group of eight Chinese tourists notched up a bill of 16,500 shekels, or $4,390, after an evening at the Abu Ghosh eatery in the small Israeli-Arab village of the same name. 
 
 What did they consume to merit such a scandalous tab? 
 
 Restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim said the charges were fair, listing bottles of expensive alcohol and an entire lamb among the items ordered. He also said that the group asked for a private room, which meant closing down part of the famous establishment on a busy Friday night. 
 
 Yossi Fattal, chief executive of the Incoming Tour Operators Association, however, accused Ibrahim of putting one over on the visitors. He said he publicized the bill as a way of shaming those who try to cheat unsuspecting tourists. 
 
 Now, Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in China are attempting to track down the eight tourists to find out what happened. Were they unhappy with the cost? Did they feel they were ripped off? 
 
 [Israel debates ‘price-tag’ attacks on Muslims] 
 
 According to Ibrahim, he was asked to close off a room at the restaurant, order Beluga vodka at about $400 a bottle and serve 30 kilograms, about 66 pounds, of lamb, in addition to other items. 
 
 The Israeli financial newspaper Globes published a copy of the bill last week: 
 
 4,000 shekelsfor a private room ($1,064) 
 
 650 shekels for hors d'oeuvres and salads ($173) 
 
 5,900 shekels for alcohol ($1,569) 
 
 3,150 shekels for main courses ($838) 
 
 1,350 shekels for desserts ($359) 
 
 1,500 shekels for service charge ($400) 
 
 Total: 16,500 shekels, or about $4,390 
 
 “They knew the prices in advance. If they thought that they had been cheated, why did they add a 10 percent tip to the bill?” said Ibrahim, according to the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday. 
 
 Ibrahim, who is well known in Israel for winning $17.5 million in the Illinois state lottery in the early 1990s and for breaking the Guinness world record for the largest plate of hummus in 2010 (since beaten), said he has been the victim of “public shaming before people learned what the facts were.” 
 
 According to Fattal, the tourists were clearly exploited. He said that the restaurant was asked to host only eight tourists, not a large group that required closing down a whole section and that no prices had been agreed upon in advance. He told Globes that the restaurant was not closed specially for the group and that specific alcohol had not been preordered. 
 
 “The association decided to make this incident public in order to illustrate the importance of fair and polite treatment of tourists who come to Israel and are an important sector of the country's economy,” Globes quoted Fattal as saying. 
 
 [How to make the best hummus ever] 
 
 About 47,000 Chinese visit Israel each year, and one of the goals of the Tourism Ministry is to further promote the image of Israel in China. Earlier this year, China’s Hainan Airlines started direct flights three times a week between Beijing and Tel Aviv. 
 
 Amid the furor over the food bill, it's up to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to do some damage control: to track down in China the eight people who visited Israel and find out what really happened at the restaurant that night. ||||| Eight Chinese tourists managed to spend more than $4,000 at a hummus restaurant in Jerusalem and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is now searching for them to find out if they were ripped off. 
 
 Abu Ghosh restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim told Israeli financial newspaper Globes that the $4,390 bill was fair, especially considering it was a Friday night, the restaurant’s busiest of the week. 
 
 "They sat there from 3 p.m. on Friday until midnight, and became rowdy and drunk. They asked me to buy alcoholic drinks that I paid thousands of shekels for,” Ibrahim told the newspaper. 
 
 “They asked that the bar should be kept available, they asked for 30 kg of stuffed mutton and other dishes. It wasn't a case of eating and leaving, and they even took all their leftovers with them afterwards.” 
 
 The bill, published by Globes, breaks down as follows: 4,000 shekels for a private room ($1,064); 650 shekels for hors d'oeuvres and salads ($173); 5,900 shekels for alcohol ($1,569); 3,150 shekels for main courses ($838); 1,350 shekels for desserts ($359); and 1,500 shekels for service charge ($400). 
 
 “The truth is that I thought that they should pay much more, since I had no other diners that day,” Ibrahim told the newspaper. “They enjoyed themselves and thanked me, and now, two weeks later, they're trying to besmirch us.” 
 
 Yossi Fattal, chief executive of the Incoming Tour Operators Association, disagreed and said the restaurant owner was trying to cheat the tourists. 
 
 Among his complaints were that the group arrived at 7 p.m., not 3 p.m., and had not ordered the alcohol — instead, he said the drinks were already on the tables when the tourists were seated. 
 
 “The Association decided to make this incident public in order to illustrate the importance of fair and polite treatment of tourists who come to Israel and are an important sector of the country's economy,” he told Globes.
– How did eight Chinese tourists rack up a tab worth about $4,400 at an Israeli hummus restaurant? That's what the Israeli Foreign Ministry is asking after the group was charged a hefty 16,500 shekels for dinner, the New York Daily News reports. "By behaving this way we are destroying with our own hands the budding potential of the Chinese market for Israel," complained an Israeli tourism group to Globes. Some 47,000 Chinese visit Israel each year, and the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association said it chose to go public with the bill in order to chide the restaurant and dissuade others from following in the restaurant's allegedly unfair footsteps. The bill at the popular Abu Ghosh Restaurant included: $1,064 for a private room $173 for hors d'oeuvres and salads $1,569 for booze $838 for main courses $400 service charge $359 for desserts Restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim defended the bill and said the Chinese asked him to close the eatery on one of his busiest nights. "They sat there from 3pm on Friday until midnight, and became rowdy and drunk," he said, noting that the group added a 10% tip. He says he got a thanks from the diners, only to find them "trying to besmirch us ... two weeks later.” The Association disputes that account, saying the Chinese arrived at 7pm, never asked Ibrahim to close the place, and arrived to find the alcohol pre-ordered and on the table. HummusGate has prompted an inquiry by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in China, which is trying to track down the tourists, the Washington Post notes. (This drunk diner accidentally tipped 1,800%.)