When the mask slips...

Terrifying moment in Riyadh, where a catering company ran out of paper cups and began using ones that were made in... shock, horror... ISRAEL (aaargh!). Apparently the cups had the manufacturer's website printed on the base.

“We were shocked and angry,” said an employee. “How can Israeli products be allowed and how did they enter this hospital?” he asked.
The Filipino employee who works in the Al-Musbah coffee shop asked: “Why is everybody mad about the cups?” He was told: “Because they are made in Israel!”
Saleh Al-Mazroi, executive director for operations at KKNGH, said the matter had been referred to authorities in Riyadh and was being dealt with.

The interesting comment, however, comes at the end:

The paper cups were quickly withdrawn from use but might there not be other, less obvious, Israeli products in our shops and marketplaces?

Of-course every Israeli knows that there is a certain amount of clandestine Israeli-Arab trade -- Israeli products being sold to the Arab countries that officially won't trade with us through third countries, usually (ahem) unmarked. But if I were the poor, traumatised staff at this hospital (nebuch), I wouldn't get too paranoid. Recent official figures claim that Israel sold about $12m. worth of goods indirectly to Arab countries in 2004, $6m. in the first quarter of 2005. Even we really sold two or three times as much, it's hardly Israeli economic imperialism (which is what that question, other than the political angle, seems to imply), and their chances of coming across another Israeli product in disguise seem somewhat remote.

(Via Adverseria)