Weaponizing food!

• Saleem Ayoub Quna
• August 10, 2024

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

Food is a major strategic weapon that can be used against one’s enemy. It can be applied in three cases: When consumed, boycotted or as a deprivation tool!*

Like other types of essential ammunition, soldiers need food to be able to keep on fighting and advancing. No better phrase can explain this idea than the famous quote attributed to Emperor Napoleon when he said: “Armies crawl on their bellies”!

But sometimes, when the other side, your opponent, is also smart and you have the capitalist system of franchising products working in every corner, unexpected things can happen!

This story can, one day, become a classical case study in politics, economics, sociology, psychology and warfare!

It all began in the first half of October 2023 when a franchised company in Israel, representing a famous world food chain, thought it would be a cool idea to photograph Israeli soldiers on the Gaza front, receiving nicely packed items of food produced by that company!

Its Israeli CEO, probably, wanted to demonstrate a symbolic gesture, rather than providing an irreplaceable type of food for the Israeli soldiers on that occasion. But he seemed to have forgotten or deliberately ignore that the same kind of food is available all over the world, including places, where his “enemies” and their allies, by the millions, live and regularly consume the same commodity!

Those millions on the other side of the front line were dismayed and felt offended by those carefully taken shots of the Israeli soldiers receiving their food packages.

The former did not know who was really behind this gesture. But they couldn’t not care less if the gesture originated from within Israel, or was inspired by the mother company in another faraway place.

So they, as a sign of protest of the war against Gaza, decided to boycott all products and services of this company in all of its branches.

They were also aware that the franchised branches play an important role in the local economy in each country. Thousands of young people are hired where unemployment rates are high; they also use subsidiary locally-produced items and so forth. But they had a choice to make. It was a hard one but less painful than acting as if they condone the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

The results of this world wide boycott movement, even in some European countries, proved catastrophic for all branches and especially for the Mother Company, since it’s the one who gets the lion’s share of the pie!

In addition to the symbolic meaning of this initiative which involves national dignity, exercising awareness, it was used as a last resort to fight back and defend their rights and beliefs.

Never take anything for granted, when you go to junk food eatery. Surprises can crawl out from the slices of bread!

*Deliberately depriving the enemy of food is tantamount to a flagrant war crime!

This opinion was especially written for Crossfire Arabia by Saleem Ayoub Quna who is a Jordanian author writing on local, regional and international affairs and has two books published. He has a BA in English Literature from Jordan University, a diploma from Paris and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He also speaks French and German