Neighbors in the Blogosphere

The op-ed page at Svenska Dagbladet has a highly recommended blog, and in one of the latest installments there, Sanna Rayman comments on the Mid East debate in Sweden — a topic addressed earlier here as well. She writes about hypocrisy, an sms-ing physician in Gaza and an old-new conspiracy theory. Apparently, there’s a rumor going about that McDonald’s — and sometimes Coca Cola as well — plan to donate everything they make on Saturday to the Israeli war effort, and thus people are asked not to buy their products.

This ridiculous rumor reminds me of a similar one that was wide-spread in the Middle East a few years ago. According to that conspiracy theory, Pepsi was in fact short for “Pay-Every-Penny-to-Support-Israel”, and Arabs and other supporters of the Palestinian struggle were requested not to buy that particular beverage.

One is almost tempted to see some kind of divine justice at work here, since Pepsi actually joined the Soviet-Arab embargo against Israel, promising not to do business with the Jewish state as long as they – and not the other brand of Cola — would get access to the markets in the Soviet Union and in the Arab states allied with Moscow. This is the reason why one could only find Pepsi behind the Iron Curtain and — until recently — in many Arab countries.

Anyone interested in reading more of Rayman, is recommended to visit her blog. To really get the most out of it, though, one needs to be familiar with the language of glory and heroes.