The whole tale's ins & outs were too complicated to rehearse here, but basically someone noted how Whole Foods is a good source for Halal (=Islamic Kosher) foods and recommended Muslims shop there for Ramadan. Somehow, as with the people opposed to a mosque's being built in New York City last year, this morphed into charges by some zealots that Israeli products were being pulled off the shelf and that Whole Foods was funneling money to jihadists.
It's weirdly comical to think that someone could use a phrase like "terrorist olive oil" (by which they meant some proceeds might go to a school in the Occupied Territories). But it's bizarre and disturbing to learn that they really mean it, both for the naked racism it shows and for the vast degree of departure from reality involved to create pretexts to vent that hatred. George Wallace and Theodore Bilbo wd be proud.
What a World, What a World, What a World.
Here are some links. The first, expressing the anti-Islam position, comes from a woman who was in the news not all that long back for expressing her pleasure that fellow American Lara Logan had been raped.*
The second is to the quiet, deliberately quaint website for "Canaan Olive Oil", the product that seems to have set off the bugaboo. I'm impressed how many of today's buzzwords they got in: sustainable farming, organic, fair trade, &c., even the wholly appropriate "land of milk and honey".
I know which of these I think does a better job of presenting its best face to the world.
--John R.
*at one point taunting the rape victim with the memorable phrase "Hope you're enjoying the revolution!". Ugh.
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