The ongoing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in opposition to Israeli policies marked another victory with the cancellation of the second Mediterranean Delight International Belly Dancing Festival, which was slated to be held in Marrakech, Morocco, in May. The first such festival was held last year in spite of protests from BDS supporters and other activists who charged that it aimed to whitewash the apartheid crimes of the Israeli regime.
The festival, which was being produced by Israeli belly dancers, teachers and the owner of an Israeli belly dancing school, is now scheduled to be held in Loutraki, Greece, in June. One of the organizers, Simona Guzman, has blamed “fanatic Moroccan Islamists movements” for the cancellation, but the festival in fact had received widespread condemnation from across a wide spectrum of Moroccan society.
In another development, tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters in Rabat, Morocco, cut short the visit of Israeli diplomat David Saranga, head of the European Parliament Liaison Department-Mission of Israel to the EU.
