‘Arafat’ Chips a Hit in Egypt
Cheese-flavored Yasser Arafat potato chips--5 cents a bag.
Vendors in Egypt report brisk sales of the new product. The maker of the chips says it donates 25 piasters, or 5 cents, to the “Palestinian cause” for every 50 packages sold.
The chips are bagged in Palestinian colors--green, red, black and white--and carry the likeness of a rotund and wide-eyed Arafat, saluting with one hand and holding a Palestinian flag in the other. The Palestinian leader is dressed in his trademark military fatigues and black-and-white checked head scarf.
Shopkeepers say the Arafat chips, named Abu Ammar--the Palestinian Authority president’s nom de guerre--are considerably outselling another new brand, the Hero, which hit store shelves this month.
The packaging for that brand pictures a schoolboy holding a stone in his right hand and books in the other as he confronts an Israeli tank.
“There’s no one who doesn’t love Abu Ammar,” said Iman Mohammed Darwish, a 12-year-old girl. “I like the taste, and I want to help the Palestinians.”
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