Israel/Palestine

jimmie

(318 posts) Wed Mar 28, 2012, 10:50 PM Mar 2012

Controversy in Morocco over Israeli participation in belly dance festival

The third annual International Belly Dance Festival in Marrakech, has stirred controversy in Morocco after it was announced that Israel will partake in the event

The Mediterranean Delight Festival has been met by a surge of objections whether by Marrakech youths who refuse to have Israeli participants in their city or by rights organizations that oppose normalization of ties with the Jewish state.

Statements lashing out at the festival started with the appearance of two Israeli names on the list of participants: Belly dancer and belly dancing trainer Simona Guzman and stylist and owner of an Israeli belly dancing school Asi Haskal.

Both are among a group of belly dance experts who will be assigned the mission of training participating dancers as well as organizing workshops about the mechanisms of belly dancing and belly dancing performances as part of the festival’s activities.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/26/203353.html

4 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Controversy in Morocco over Israeli participation in belly dance festival (Original Post) jimmie Mar 2012 OP

Belly dancer unmoved by Morocco anti-Israel protests oberliner Mar 2012 #1

Good for her in rising above this. Ruby the Liberal Mar 2012 #2

If only belly dancers were in charge of these governments oberliner Mar 2012 #3

Very true jimmie Mar 2012 #4

oberliner

(58,724 posts)

1. Belly dancer unmoved by Morocco anti-Israel protests

Reply to jimmie (Original post)

Thu Mar 29, 2012, 01:05 PM

Mar 2012

Just days after an Israeli diplomat was forced to cut short a working visit to Morocco on Sunday, and a day after a Jewish man was murdered in Fez on Monday, an international belly dancing festival set to take place in Marrakech in May has come under fire for including performers from Israel, Arab media reported.

“This is an international festival and it is about promoting art, it is not political,” Simona Guzman, who will perform and run workshops at the third annual International Belly Dance Festival, told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

“We are talking about the body language of dance, and there is no distinguishing between people’s nationalities,” she said. “It makes no difference if someone is Jewish, Muslim or Christian.”

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=263664