Arab coffee-and-snack chain Frostin’ Falafels has ordered Middle Eastern TV stations to pull a commercial featuring spokesperson Ramadonna Raehim wearing a cap after Muslim bloggers complained that it looked too much like an American baseball cap. Popular right-wing Muslim pundit Micah Muhahah called the baseball cap “the traditional headgear of imperialist American pigs and even worse, the murderous New York Yankees.”
Frostin’ Falafels founder Hussein Hussein at first dismissed the complaints, saying the cap was not an American baseball cap but a cricket cap he picked up while training for jihad in Pakistan. However, the company decided to cancel the commercials after Muhahah threatened to call for a mass boycott and suggested that camel drivers have their animals urinate in the Frostin’ Falafels drive-thru lanes.
Muhahah praised the decision by Frostin’ Falafels and apologized to Raehim for getting caught up in the controversy. “I have nothing against Ramadonna Raehim. I watch her cooking shows every day and love her low-fat dried goat ear fajitas.”
Frostin’ Falafels began in Bahrain in 1952 when Hussein Hussein was a street vendor selling falafels – fried balls of ground chickpeas – and accidentally dropped one in a bucket of melted sugar he was using to attract flies away from his customers. Rather than wasting it, Hussein ate the frosted falafel and the self-proclaimed “most popular dessert in the desert” was born. The chain now has over 2,500 locations in the Middle East selling frosted falafels, Arabic coffee and CDs of Islamic musicians covering Beatles’ songs.