| Big Mac and a Side of Lies | |
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In mid-December 2000 with Ramadan underway, a slightly different variant began making the rounds:
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McDonald's just announced that 30 cents out of every Dollar of Purchases in it's 60 branches in Saudi Arabia will be donated as of today to the Palestinian injured during the Al Aksa Intifada. Please BOYCOTT their stores Please send this message to all your e-mail pals |
And in January, with Ramadan well over and the donation program complete, the most strident version yet appeared:
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Subject: McDonalds of Saudi Arabia Shalom I have just found out (via an E-mail from Israel) that McDonald's Saudi Arabia has just announced that 30 cents out of every Dollar of purchases in its 60 branches in Saudi Arabia would be donated as of today to the Palestinian Intifada against the Israelis. This act by McDonalds is outrageous. Unfortunately, if 10,000 of us stop buying hamburgers in the USA it will be a drop in the bucket and inconspicuous to McDonald. A much better approach is to write to our US Representative and Senator and demand action. Simultaneously, I recommend to connect to Mcdonalds Web site below and write to them. http://www.mcdonalds.com/search/index.html Once you get to the Web site, you want to click on "search" on the top right, and search for Contact. Then you click on McDonald USA Contacting/Customer Satisfaction/Other Areas/Other Questions, to get to the E-mail. I have sent McDonalds the following message: I was shocked and dismayed to find out that McDonald's Saudi Arabia has just announced that 30 cents out of every Dollar of purchases in its 60 branches in Saudi Arabia will be donated as of today to the Palestinian Intifada against the Israelis. This is an incredible violation of your corporate practice, and may be even illegal for an American Corp. under US law. We urge you to rescind and denounce this move ASAP. Thanks So please distribute to your friends and let get an action going. |
To recap, here's how the rumor progressed:
- Fact: McDonald's announced in November that its Saudi franchisees would donate money to Palestinian children's hospitals during Ramadan.
- Variant #1: McDonald's announced it will donate money to Palestinians injured in the occupied territories.
- Variant #2: McDonald's announced it will donate money to Palestinians injured in the al-Aksa intifada.
- Variant #3: McDonald's announced will donate money to "the intifada against Israel."
No doubt there are some Israelis who will say that the factual discrepancies are unimportant — that in the context of ongoing violence in the occupied territories, any aid to Palestinians is unacceptable. Clearly that is not a sentiment McDonald's anticipated, and perhaps it should have.
It also didn't anticipate the Telephone effect — that given the explosive political milieu in which they were announced, the company's actions might be not only misinterpreted but misrepresented on a grand scale.
So, what essentially began as a P.R. campaign aimed at mollifying one side in the political conflict so McDonald's could continue to do business with both ended up merely arousing moral outrage on the other side.
Far be it from me to exploit the irony of it all. 
Sources:
- "Opposition Groups Want to Boycott U.S. Products." Tehran Times, 18 Nov 2000.
- "Pepsi Franchise in Palestinian Aid Drive." Reuters, 4 Dec 2000.
- "Official Sandwich of the Intifada?" Time, 29 Nov 2000.
More Middle East Rumors:
Coca-Cola Logo Slams Islam When Read Backwards
From the Associated PressWal-Mart Globes Depict Palestine in Place of Israel
From the Jewish World Review
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