Leave it to the Ivy League to turn a chickpea spread into a point of political outrage. Princeton’s Undergraduate Student Government has decided that Sabra Hummus–you know, the stuff that can single-handedly turn your dorm-room grubfest into a classy cocktail party–should no longer be sold in university stores. Why? Because Sabra is apparently sending free hummus to Israeli military outfits that have been accused of human rights violations.

Let us quickly interject to say: oh, come on. It’s HUMMUS, people. You’re living on a college campus surrounded by NGO pamphlets and FreeRice.com, and this is the most egregious ethical evil you could find? If you’re really that bored, go picket American Apparel or something. Leave the late-night snacks alone.

At any rate, the Princeton Student Government should really know better than to mess with (a) students with strong opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and (b) vegans. If you stand still for long enough, both types will start eying you hungrily. Either that, or they’ll start a Facebook group to take you down, which is exactly what the creators of the “Save the Hummus!–Vote Against the Sabra Hummus Boycott” group have done. As of this morning, the group had over 1600 members.

IvyGate contacted the group founders for comment, and they put us off until tomorrow (expect an update then). But behold a slice of their Facebook page, which includes a long list of reasons why a Sabra boycott is totally effing stupid:

…we think it absurd to suggest that supporting a company that sends care packages to Israeli soldiers is indirect support for war crimes.

5. Context is critical here. This boycott unfairly targets Israel. We’re not seeing an attempt, for example, to boycott products which somehow support the Saudi government despite its truly widespread human rights abuses. And even were the student body to deem boycotts targeted at Israeli goods to be acceptable, where would this stop? Would we boycott Microsoft, Intel, Victoria’s Secret, and other mainstream companies based heavily in Israel? Surely the student body is not willing to take this misguided effort to its logical conclusion.

Ha, like Princeton could ever boycott Victoria’s Secret. Infallible logic right there.

Frankly, both of these groups could probably benefit from a few horse tranquilizers. But since the fat’s in the fire at this point, we’re more interested to see whether people start flinging carrots and pita at each other. Fight! Fight! Fight!

Update: We’ve added the link to the anti-hummus Facebook page, for all you folks who like to play fair. With any luck, there will soon be an anti-anti-hummus and a pro-anti-hummus page as well (nothing makes a shitshow like a few good Facebook factions).