The Jordan Festival Fiasco

With a number of artists backing out from participating (yes boys, Elissa too), the Jordan Festival has proven to be a failure already. The whole controversy started when someone announced (based on what, I don't know) that a French company by the name of Publicis, that was in charge of Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, is organizing the festival.

According to the company's spokesperson, however, Publicis is neither organizing the Jordan Festival, nor has organized any anniversary celebrations for Israel. While the company's CEO, Maurice Levy, is in fact a self-proclaimed Zionist who participated in the celebrations, then again his company has organized a number of events in Jordan, including the most recent Nobel Prize Laureates Convention and the World Economic Forum in Petra.

So what's all the fuss about? Forget Rousan who wants to boycott the festival because of its financial implications on the Jordanian citizen, if no proof was found on the festival's association with normalization, then why are people still set on boycotting it?

The government, of course, was absent from offering clarifications to counter the accusations, and this isn't the first time. Remember the McCain episode? There's still a lot of ambiguity about the whole incident, simply because nobody remembers any officials providing explanations. Now the situation is repeating itself, and whatever they say at this point is hardly going to change people's minds. Too little, too late.

Maybe they'll cancel the festival to cut their losses, I don't know. Our economy seems to be suffering one blow after another.