On Tuesday (22/10/13) Rihanna performed in Tel Aviv, Israel.
I pretty much fully covered this concert on the day in a post that can
be read below. However now we've had time to reflect it seems
appropriate to re-summarise it;
Arriving in Israel only six hours before her scheduled stage time
Rihanna eventually arrived on stage more then an hour late after being
delayed by a trip to the Dead Sea. Apart from being an unessecery drain
on Rihanna's time this photoshoot was intended to act as an excuse as to
why Rihanna had arrived late after making an unscheduled trip to the
Greek island of Crete. The idea being to demonstrate that the scenery
around Israel's Dead Sea is different from the scenery on Israel's
Mediterranean Sea coast line.
After eventually arriving on stage Rihanna worked her way through the
standard set-list with all the enthusiasm of someone who wasn't quite
sure what day it was or which country they were in. For this concert
Rihanna dispensed with the usual costume changes and wore a single
outfit throughout. Although people who worry about these sort of things
will have noticed that Rihanna's choice of an all black outfit probably
reflected her mood the only significance of this outfit was that it
wasn't the standard costumes. The absence of the standard costumes and a
very sparse, stripped back stage set was intended as a clear snub to
Israel. The message being that Israel not worth the full Rihanna
experience.
Amid much talk of Bat Mitzvah's one of the early reviews of the concert
pointed out that Rihanna didn't refer to Israel as a nation at any point
during her performance which was true. It went on to claim that Rihanna
changed the lyric "All I See is Dollar Signs" in the song "Pour it Up"
to "All I See is Palestine" which is probably less true. It did though
reflect that the concert had been a big snub to Israel and was the sort
of rumour that would have helped protect Rihanna from abuse from
pro-Palestine campaigners.
If the concert itself wasn't enough of a snub almost immediately after her performance Rihanna left Israel for the Dominican Republic where she is set to perform on Saturday (26/10/13).
Rihanna herself announced this on Twitter/Instagram by saying she woke
up in Greece, went to the office in Israel and was leaving as soon as
possible for the Dominican Republic.
On Wednesday (23/10/13) US Secretary of State John Kerry met the Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss amongst other things
Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. Therefore Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live
Nation (the management) were hoping that this snub of Israel would be
viewed by Fatah who for some reason are representing the Palestinians in
those peace talks as the US getting tough with Israel. The idea being
that Fatah would be convinced that the US' tough stance would help stop
Israeli settlement building meaning that this current round of talks are
indeed a complete waste of time.
The problem though is that the management made sure that Rihanna was out
of Israel long before the Kerry/Netanyahu meeting began. That's because
the management knew that even though the meeting took place in Italy
Netanyahu rather then Kerry would have had a much better idea of what
was going on with Rihanna because nothing that's happened to Rihanna in
the last year has fooled Israel in the slightest. So far from being a
show of strength Rihanna's early departure from Israel was actually the
US covering in fear because as always they know that diplomatically they
are far outgunned by Israel.
As is becoming something of a trademark of his Presidency and indeed his
life US Barack Obama was of course on hand with a bullsh*t excuse to
cover up this failure. On this occasion the excuse was that Obama needed
Rihanna in the Caribbean in order to help drive immigration reform
through the US Congress. Personally I think it was a very bad idea for
Obama to publicly admit that the reason he has allowed this operation to
continue is because he thought he could get his pound of flesh out of
it too.
Rihanna is of course in the Dominican Republic. I mean no offence to
them but that really p*sses me off. That's because not only is Rihanna
being denied the opportunity to play with some of the best in the
business (myself included) she isn't even the Caribbean island she calls
home.
(Originally Posted) 18:20 on 24/10/13.
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