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May 19, 2016 5:24 pm
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Major International Firms Nissan and Orange Justify Co-Sponsorship of Concert Featuring ‘Protocols’ Loving Lebanese Singer

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The poster for Majida El-Roumi's concert features well-known corporations Marriott, Uber, Nissan and Orange Telecom. Photo: Facebook event page.

The poster for Majida El-Roumi’s concert features well-known corporations Marriott, Uber, Nissan and Orange. Photo: Facebook event page.

Major international brands have justified their co-sponsorship of an upcoming charity concert in Egypt headlined by a popular Lebanese singer who recently praised the famed antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claimed that global terror attacks are part of a “Zionist plot” towards global domination.

The Friday, May 20 performance by Majida El-Roumi — a former United Nations Goodwill Ambassador — is taking place with the support of companies such as Nissan, Orange, Marriott and Uber, pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon first reported.

Earlier in May, during a press conference, El-Roumi accused  Zionists of being responsible for instability in the Arab world and around the globe. She was quoted by the Arabic newspaper Al Nilin as saying:

When I was 15-years-old, I read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and what is happening today is mentioned in detail in those protocols. Any Arab who sees what is happening today in the Arab world, everything we see and we are seeing today, are mentioned in the book of Protocols, which calls for destabilization of the Arab world to start, and it is not limited to the Arab world. What happened in the French capital of Paris and Brussels recently is a Zionist plot with the complicity of Arab and international worlds…International Zionism is behind the fragmentation of the Arab world. They have something in their minds called the world government. All of us were created on this land to serve them.

Co-sponsor Orange — a French telecommunications company — made headlines last year when it announced it would be ending its partnership with Israel’s second largest mobile company, Partner Communications, over brand licensing. Anti-Israel activists from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement claimed responsibility for the move, saying it was a direct result of their campaigns to pressure the company. Following intense backlash, Orange CEO Stephane Richard said he “sincerely regrets” the controversy and that his company “does not support any form of boycott, in Israel or anywhere else in the world.”

A spokesman for Orange told The Algemeiner that their sponsorship of the event should not be seen as a statement of approval for El-Roumi’s views:

The Orange subsidiary in Egypt is a sponsor of the charity concert, which aims at funding a hospital. That should not be seen in any way at endorsing  the views of any individual involved in the event. Indeed, Orange abhors and rejects antisemitism in any form and combats it as well as all forms of discrimination. As you may also know ,Orange has a long-term presence in Israel which it is continuing to develop through the Group’s ‘Open Innovation’ initiatives such as Fab Israel, a start-up accelerator, and its subsidiary Viaccess-Orca and Orange Business Services. A third session of the Orange Institute, the group’s in-house think tank, is taking place this year for the third time in Israel. Orange will also again proudly take part in the DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Conference in September.

Chris Keeffe, a spokesperson for Nissan, told The Algemeiner, “Nissan is one of many sponsors of this event, including other international companies. The concert is in support of a local charity, featuring a popular singer who is a UN Goodwill Ambassador. It’s a performance to support the activities of a local NGO which will help burn victims.”

The concert — which will take place at the Great Pyramids of Giza Sound and Light Theater and is also partly sponsored by the Egyptian Tourism Ministry — will benefit of the Ahl Masr Burns Hospital which, according to the event’s Facebook page, “is a non-governmental, social developmental organization that aims to revolutionize the concepts of charity and health care development in Egypt.”

Other brands which are listed as sponsors of the event, including Marriott International and Uber, failed to respond to The Algemeiner’s request for comment by press time.

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