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.
18:20 on 24/10/13.
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