Israeli Burning Man-style festival in West Bank sparks controversy

According to The Guardian, local Palestinian residents and authorities were not consulted about the event.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FEBRUARY 17, 2020 21:03

An Israeli group is planning to hold the Dead Sea Burn, a Burning Man-style event, in the West Bank's desert, near the border with Jordan, the Dead Sea and Jericho.
Burning Man is an annual nine-day event in the desert during the summer at Black Rock City, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada that attracts over 70,000 people. The event includes music, performances, and art installations, all performed and organized by participants for the community for free.

The Dead Sea Burn event has sparked controversy because of its location and has received harsh criticism from Palestinians and Israel's Burning Man community, as reported by The Guardian.

In fact, the military has more restrictive rules for Palestinians living in the area and West Bank Palestinians who would like to attend the event would first need to get permission from the Israeli army, and the event's location belongs to a territory claimed by Israeli settlements, explains The Guardian.

The Dead Sea Burn event is organized by a few members of Midburn, Israel's representative of Burning Man. The members broke away from Midburn and decided to organize their own event. Neither Midburn nor Burning Man are associated with the event.

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Israeli group plan Burning Man-like event in occupied West Bank

PLO secretary general criticises invitation for Palestinians to attend as insulting

Oliver Holmes and Quique Kierszenbaum
Sun 16 Feb 2020 13.21 GMT
Last modified on Sun 16 Feb 2020 18.15 GMT

A plan by an Israeli group to hold a Burning Man-style event in the deserts of the occupied territories has sparked frustration among Palestinians and dismay from Israeli festival enthusiasts who say it goes against the original event’s founding principles.

The annual gathering in the Nevada desert in the US, with its massive art installations, costumes and symbolic burning of an effigy of “The Man”, has gathered a global following.

In Israel, its official partner, Midburn – which combines the Hebrew word for desert, “midbar”, with “burn” – has been running events, or “burns”, since 2014. But since the group had trouble finding a location in Israeli deserts, several “burners” broke away to form their own, unofficial festival.

Organisers say the Dead Sea Burn event has already received approval by Israel’s military for up to 15,000 people to assemble on land near the border with Jordan, the Dead Sea and the Palestinian city of Jericho. It will still need Israeli police permissions before it can go ahead in April.

Yaron Ben Shoshan, who is a joint-lead on the project, says he has been pushing for Palestinians to attend and argues his efforts are not political, although he understands why people would see it that way.

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