CAIRO — Israeli-organized twin dance
festivals in the Sinai have sparked outrage in
Egypt as they come just days
before the anniversary of the end of the Israel’s occupation of the peninsula.
اضافة اعلان
The Nabia and Grounded festivals, which coincide
with the
Jewish Passover holiday, also come as Muslims observe a daytime fast
during the holy month of Ramadan.
The festivals follow events in which more than 150
Palestinian worshippers were injured on Friday after Israeli forces raided
Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
The Egyptian branch of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which opposes Israel’s occupation of Palestinian
territories, has called for a boycott of the festival’s venues.
“As we do every
year, we were preparing to celebrate... the stories of the heroic resistance
but we discovered that the Zionist occupation was returning to the Sinai,” the
branch said in a statement Wednesday.
The Nabia festival is due to run from April 17 to
20; the Grounded festival from April 20 to 23. Both offer all-night dancing with
an international lineup of artists.
April 25 is the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal
from most of the Sinai in 1982 under a landmark 1979 peace agreement, ending an
occupation which began during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Egyptian Facebook user Farah Mourad complained that
the festivals are taking place ahead of “Sinai Liberation Day ... and during
the holy month of Ramadan”.
... We were preparing to celebrate... the stories of the heroic resistance but we discovered that the Zionist occupation was returning to the Sinai.
She also pointed to the recent violence at the
Al-Aqsa mosque compound, saying Israeli forces attacked Palestinian civilians.
The music scene
has become a major draw for Israeli tourists visiting the south coast of the
Sinai Peninsula, along with its beaches, dive sites, and low costs compared to
Israel.
In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic hit
international travel, more than 700,000 Israelis visited Egypt, according to
the embassy in
Cairo, the great majority of them heading to the relative
security of southern Sinai.
Direct flights between Tel Aviv and the Sinai resort
of Sharm El-Sheikh are to start on Sunday, making the region’s resorts even
more attractive to Israelis.
The flights were one of the fruits of a September
visit to Egypt by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the first by an
Israeli premier in a decade.
“This agreement will bring Israel and Egypt closer together,”
Bennett said last month.
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