The Democratic Party's inconsistency on Gaza Cola and the sugar tax

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Drinking sugary drinks can be a pacifist and humanitarian gesture. "A small, simple action can move actions and consciences," writes Democratic Party MP Eleonora Evi on X, showing herself with a can in her hand: "I don't usually drink cola, but this tastes different. GazaCola is a 100 percent Apartheid-Free, totally non-profit project. All proceeds will go to support the Palestinian people." The problem isn't so much the implicit boycott of Coca-Cola, a long-standing target of the BDS movement's hostile campaign to establish a distribution center in the Israeli industrial zone of Atarot. It's still a matter of a member of parliament's free will and political choice regarding consumption.

The surreal aspect of this promotion is that just a few months ago, the Hon. Evi, along with other Democratic Party MPs, including the party's welfare representative Marco Furfaro, introduced a bill to double the sugar tax, the tax on both sugary and non-sugar drinks (the tax also applies to "zero-sugar" drinks), as they are extremely harmful to health: "It can even trigger mechanisms in the consumer's brain similar to those linked to drug use." And this "compulsive craving," just like a drug, would cause enormous damage to health: "Obesity, excess weight, cardiovascular disease, tooth decay, and diabetes." Therefore, Evi, in addition to providing educational programs for citizens, proposes "the introduction of a corrective tax" to "discourage the consumption of sugary products, as well as sweetened beverages." Now, however, Evi itself is advertising the consumption of a sugary drink so dangerous to health . Of course, the problem isn't the Hon. Evi's decision to drink GazaCola, but the Democratic Party's desire to impose a "corrective tax" on other people's consumption. They should give people the freedom to choose between GazaCola, Coca-Cola, and any other soft drink, all 100 percent sugar tax-free.

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