Nice James Robbins column in NRO on the (ultimately telling) Arab boycott of American merchandise. An excerpt:

In Bahrain, Coca-Cola is being displaced from store shelves and replaced with Zamzam, an Iranian beverage named for a holy spring in Mecca, reportedly the world’s oldest. In Saudi Arabia, American restaurants are losing customers to domestic alternatives such as (no kidding) Saudi Burger and Pizza Sheikh. Bahraini Burger King restaurants responded to declining sales by setting out donation boxes draped in Palestinian flags. A poll of Israeli Arabs showed that their consumption of American products and services is down somewhat-McDonald’s off 39 percent, Coke down 13 percent — but when asked why, a plurality of respondents cited economic uncertainties for the decrease, and only 14 percent singled out the Palestinian issue. This indicates that not all of the purported $300 million decline can be attributed to raised Arab consciousness.

You might think that a boycott like this would hurt Arabs more than it would hurt Americans — don’t Arabs own the franchises, don’t they hire Arab employees, aren’t they catering to Arab demand? Moreover, aren’t the big-ticket items, the things that might actually get American attention, exempted from the boycott? An Egyptian writer commented on the ‘childishness’ of the effort, noting that ‘there are thousands of other commodities and products, such as Boeing airplanes, huge electricity generating stations, cars, buses, not to mention fighter planes, tanks, armored cars, and all types of anti-missile weapons. But emotional and naive attention is always focused on Marlboro, Kentucky [Fried Chicken], and Coca Cola.’

True, but missing the point. The target of the boycott is not American companies but Arab society. The boycott tactic fits neatly into the anti-globalization stream of thought that motivates many of the Arab reactionary groups like al Qaeda. American products are one of the more visible manifestations of this phenomenon, but the true evil as they see it is the growing consumerism of the Arab world. Abd-al-Halim Qindyl, a Qatari writer, reasons that ‘before boycotting the US goods, we should divorce the United States that is in our minds. If we free ourselves from the United States that is in our minds, a real change may take place and we can start a painful economic boycott of the United States in terms of oil, weapons, and Arab assets.’ That is, change the way you think. Stop being American-style consumerists. Stop being creatures of manufactured demand. Stop craving the life they have told you you need. Get ready for the hardships of true jihad. Seems like they have gotten hold of an Arabic translation of The Affluent Society.

Arab consumers may not be willing to make this kind of sacrifice. They may forgo Western goods where there are Arab alternatives, but not give up consumption altogether. And in the final analysis, does it really make a difference from a globalization standpoint if the pizza being consumed in Doha has an American or a Qatari name? It is still pizza. A burger is a burger, whether or not it is a Saudi Burger. The Arab reactionaries cannot stop the westernizing of their culture simply by switching to domestic knockoffs of Western goods; in fact, that tactic marks their surrender to it.

As I have previously argued, the Arab states are ill positioned to engage in economic warfare with the West. (Only Syria has officially blessed the boycott, but with no appreciable trade with the U.S. this is hardly a sacrifice.) This movement is coming on the heels of the Iraqi oil embargo, and will be about as effective. Time will tell. Meanwhile, in retaliation, I am adding Zamzam, Pizza Sheikh, and other such products to my boycott list. Consider this my fatwa to that effect.

Wait, so there’s an anti-global, pan-Arab nationalist impulse behind all this?

But I thought all those earnest, protesting anti-Globos were after a world filled with peace, love frisbee…?

Related: Wonderful C.P. Freund Reason piece, “In Praise of Vulgarity.”