The "Ground" and "Nabya" music festivals, which kick off on Sunday in Egypt, are causing controversy not because of their content, but because their organizers are from the Israeli Occupation. 

The organizers chose to hold the two festivals in the Sinai Peninsula, 350 kilometers from Tel Aviv, wanting to attract a young and trendy Israeli Occupation audience for the Jewish Passover holiday and travel for the holiday in Egypt. But this timing coincides with Egypt's commemoration of the "liberation of Sinai," which was occupied by the Jewish state from 1967 until 25 April 1982.

Since Wednesday, the Egyptian branch of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for a boycott of the Israeli Occupation over its occupation of Palestinian territories, has called via Twitter for a boycott of the Tulip Hotel in Taba, which was chosen by the organizers of the Nabia festival to host the festival.

But in contact with AFP, the hotel said it would not host any event.

And the BDS Egypt branch wrote, "Every year... we listen to the tales of the valiant resistance... But unfortunately, as we prepare a celebratory publication, like every year, we discovered that the Zionist occupation... returns to Sinai again."

Israeli Occupation tourists, as well as festival goers, come to Sinai on various occasions. In 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 700,000 Israeli Occupation tourists traveled to Egypt according to the Israeli Occupation embassy in Cairo, primarily to the coastal resorts and diving resorts in Sinai hosting them at bargain prices to the Eilat resorts on the other side of the border.

As of Sunday, it will operate direct flights from Tel Aviv to Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai.

But what Egyptians see as problematic is the timing of these events, which bring together Israeli Occupation and international artists.

Farah Murad wrote on Facebook, "I don't have a problem with Israeli citizens spending holidays in Sinai, but hosting big parties...in the week of the Sinai Liberation Day...and in Ramadan? The time when the Israeli forces kill Palestinian citizens..."

Egypt is the first Arab country to recognize the Israeli Occupation in 1979, and in return it regained Sinai.

The two countries have recently strengthened their relations. In September, Naftali Bennett was the first Israeli Occupation prime minister to visit Egypt in 10 years, before returning in March.