Michael Bolton performed in Lebanon on Wednesday night at the Jounieh Summer Festival.
Lebanon has literally passed laws to ensure that Palestinians can’t own land, can’t get many jobs, can’t go to university and can’t build even within their overcrowded camps.
Some two thirds of Lebanese Palestinians live under the poverty line.
Lebanon built a wall around one of those camps, complete with watchtowers. Lebanese police don’t get involved as rival terror groups shoot at each other in these camps, often with fatal results both to each other and to residents there.
Lebanon had rejected the idea of granting citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lived there for decades. Nor do their children have any rights.
Lebanon accepts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees – but turns back any who are Palestinian.
By any objective measure, Lebanon is a far worse place for Palestinians to live than the West Bank is.
Yet no one went on Bolton’s Facebook page and demanded that he cancel the concert in solidarity with the Palestinians who are being oppressed, by law, every day in Lebanon.
Roger Waters didn’t issue any public statements calling for Bolton to think about the situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon and show how much he cared by publicizing Lebanon’s crimes.
No supposed pro-Palestinian group created any Twitter hashtags protesting Bolton’s appearance or calling on everyone to boycott him because he decided to show such insensitivity to the Palestinian people.
Electronic Intifada didn’t publish any articles about how awful it is that Lebanon can continue to repress its Palestinian population with impunity and artists aren’t showing proper respect for them.
No “human rights activists” threatened to disrupt Bolton’s future concerts because of his clear support for a government that is anti-Palestinian.
No one was offended that Bolton entered the stage carrying a Lebanese flag, a flag under which many Palestinians have been killed over the years and under which they are being discriminated against today..
Even though Palestinians are treated like garbage in Lebanon, artists like Bolton perform there every year without a peep of protest.
What possible reason is there that the “pro-Palestinian” crowd never organizes any actions against Lebanon?
I can only think of one reason.
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