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Yasser Arafat Cheese Snack Is a Hit

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Yasser Arafat cheese puffs are the new hit snack on the streets of Egypt's capital.

A cartoon of the Palestinian leader salutes consumers from each 25-piastre ($0.05) bag of Abu Ammar chips, beckoning them to buy the snack and support a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

"Abu Ammar, hero of the struggle," the cover reads in bright red letters, referring to Arafat by his nom de guerre.

"The more you buy, the more you build," the bags say. "Heartbeat by heartbeat, hand by hand, we'll build a new era."

The bags feature a cartoon of an open-mouthed Arafat in khaki military dress and his trademark black-and-white checkered headscarf against the backdrop of a Palestinian flag.

The cheese-flavored corn puffs lie at Arafat's feet.

One Cairo shopkeeper said demand was high for the snack, launched two weeks ago by Egyptian food group al-Jawhara.

"They (Egyptians) buy it because they see Abu Ammar, and they are sympathetic with the Palestinian people," shopkeeper Mursi Mahmoud Mohammad told Reuters Monday.

"They love this man. They love the people of Palestine," he said.

A company official said three percent of profits from sales of the snack would go to help pay for medical care of Palestinians wounded in the uprising that broke out more than a year and a half ago.

Thousands of Egyptians have demonstrated in support of the Palestinians, demanding Egypt cut ties and expel Israel's ambassador.

They have also called for a boycott of U.S. goods and have urged consumers to buy Egyptian. Palestinian scarves have become a must-have accessory for many young Egyptians, and Palestinian flags have started appearing in shop windows in a country where public political protest is rare.

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