It does disturb me all the news and activities that are lead by the Jordanian Left party against the Jordan Summer Festival. Their base point of objection is on the French multinational advertising and communications company Publicis who are organizing the event and who happened to be the organizer of the Israeli celebrations for their 60 years independance.
The truth is that even after more than 15 years old of a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, the Israeli issue is still a very sensitive matter to the Jordanian people in particular and to the Arabic people at large. I would recommend more governmental advertisment aka the ones of Jordan first to help getting more acceptance and backing for the peace treaty, but that is all a different matter. The matter here is that the Jordanian Left party is using this sensitive issue in order to fail the Jordanian Summer Festival.
While our sub-democtaric system allows such social political movements, and I personally do respect freedom of speech and people’s right to stand for what they believe in, I find it sad to watch some democratic means help in not only damaging the image of Jordan but also the economical benefits that the government has been relying on out of this festival. It is one thing to object on a certain policy and to ask for a change, and another thing to call for a boycott and failure of a major event that had a lot of money spent on and a lot of hope and expectations were built upon.
So how much awarnace do people have of Publicis as a company? Does the Left Party know the amount of years this company has been serving the local Jordanian market? and we have any official statistics of their market share? I personally remember several awards they boasted in the newspaper last year after the Jordanian Ad Awards summit.
And are we start boycotting any multi/inter national company that deals with Israel? If yes, we would better off start with shutting down the computer we are working on! That would be more damaging to our economy, isn’t it? and would just raise our sense of patriotism and make us feel of how good of arabas and citizens we are!
People, object as much as you like, but please, please, please, try to build instead of destroy. Suggest alternatives, pressure to get what you believe is right, but don’t, don’t destroy any attempt that can possibly bring us more money under this difficult economic situation.
Fadi Zaghmout 
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