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Israel

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Mia Khalifa caused a storm of controversy over the weekend after expressing support for Hamas and Palestine amidst the war situation happening in the region. As a result, Mia Khalifa lost her business arrangement with Playboy and an endorsement deal due to her support of Hamas.
On Monday (October 9), Playboy, which now operates as a subscription-based digital platform, sent out an email to its users stating that Mia Khalifa, real name Sarah Joe Chamoun, will no longer share content across its network.

“We are writing today to let you know of our decision to terminate Playboy’s relationship with Mia Khalifa, including deleting Mia’s Playboy channel on our creator platform,” the email said, as reported by Daily Mail.
Khalifa, 30, has been actively sharing replies on X, formerly Twitter, regarding the situation between Israel and Hamas. For those unaware, Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant group that was founded in 1987 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Taking to X, Khalifa wrote, “Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal” in one reply. In another, she wrote, “I can’t believe the Zionist apartheid regime is being brought down by guerrilla fighters in fake Gucci shirts – the biopics of these moments better reflect that.”
After Hamas gunmen attacked the Supernova Festival this past weekend and left over 260 dead, images from that incident and accounts from survivors made their way to social media. Again, Khalifa showed support for the actions, depicting one such image of Hamas as a “resistance painting” but that X reply no longer exists.
Beyond Playboy, Khalifa also lost an advisor deal with Red Light Holland, a company that produces “magic mushrooms” in the Netherlands and also entered into business with Wiz Khalifa via the Mistercap brand owned by the former adult star. The CEO of Red Light Holland, Todd Shapiro, fired Khalifa online and she screencapped the exchange with her own X quote reply that we’ve posted below.


Photo: Edward Berthelot / Getty

On Saturday, Bruno Mars was set to become the third American artist ever to perform two sold out concerts at the 70,000-capacity HaYarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel — following Madonna in 2009 and Michael Jackson in 1993.

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He played his first show there last Wednesday with two Tel Aviv acts opening, running nearly four hours in total. Both shows were promoted by Bluestone Group, which is owned by Live Nation Israel.

“I say Tel Aviv!” Mars shouted to the audience. “The Hooligans made it to Israel – thank you so guys so much for coming out,” Mars told fans after opening his show with his hit 2016 song “24k Magic.”

Mars’ Saturday show was supposed to be the second-to-last date on a brief world tour that previously stopped in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Oct. 1 and was headed to Doha, Qatar, for an Oct. 8 show to follow the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix.

Early Saturday, though, reports began to circulate of a coordinated Hamas-led terrorist attack that would escalate the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict. Later that day, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on television and declared that his country was now “at war” with Hamas. By afternoon, Live Nation Israel issued a statement that the concert was canceled. (The following day, Mars also cancelled his planned Doha concert.)

“All ticket purchases to the show will receive an automatic refund to the credit card through which the purchase was made,” said a statement that Bluestone Group shared online.

Securing the venue, located inside Tel Aviv’s one-and-a-half-square mile Yarkon Park, along the banks of the Yarkon River, during active fighting would present unnecessary risks to concertgoers, a source tells Billboard, noting that the decision to cancel was made a few hours after the attacks began that morning. By 2 p.m., Bruno Mars and his 60-person crew were at Ben Gurion Airport, where they boarded a flight to Athens.

From Athens, Mars was supposed to travel to Doha for his performance, but he was reportedly unable to pack up and transport his production gear out of Israel in time for that performance. On Sunday, hours before he was scheduled to take the stage in Doha, Lusail International Circuit racetrack announced on Instagram that Mars would not perform, and that French producer and artist DJ Snake would take his place.

Mars’ concert cancellation represents a symbolic setback for Israel’s touring business. For more than a decade, artists announcing plans to perform in the country faced harsh public criticism from activists and artists like Roger Waters and Brian Eno, who urged musicians to boycott the country over what they describe as its unjust treatment of the Palestinians.

In 2018, Lana Del Rey was booked to headline the Meteor Music Festival when Waters urged her to reconsider. (Her trip fell apart due to scheduling issues.) Waters, a proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led campaign to isolate Israel, has also targeted Radiohead, Bon Jovi and Jennifer Lopez, albeit unsuccessfully.

New generation promoters like Tel Aviv-based Bluestone Group — which Live Nation bought in 2017 as a joint venture of several investors, including Maverick’s Guy Oseary — has worked to increase the potential gross artists can make playing Israel, while also helping them to navigate anti-Israel backlash. In 2023, the country hosted a number of top tier Western acts including Imagine Dragons, Tiesto, Ozuna, Christina Aguilera, the Black Keys and Guns N’ Roses.

Bruno Mars‘ concert in Tel Aviv on Saturday (Oct. 7) has been canceled following a deadly attack by Palestinian militants. Mars, who performed his first concert in Israel on Wednesday (Oct. 4) at Tel Aviv’s Park HaYarkon, was scheduled to return to the venue on Saturday. The show was put on halt after Hamas launched […]

Sony Music has set up a joint venture with label ONEWAY. Records focused on English-language repertoire from Israel.
ONEWAY. Records, which was founded by music executives and brothers Josh and Sam Fluxgold, who formerly managed Dennis Lloyd, the Israeli indie-pop artist known for his 2016 single “Nevermind” (released by Warner Italy).

The new venture will work to discover and develop new artists from Israel with “international appeal,” Sony says in a press release.

The Fluxgolds discovered Lloyd and helped guide his international success, which has featured Gold and Platinum records across several markets and sold-out world tours in the U.S., Europe and Australia. “Nevermind” peaked at No. 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2018 and reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.

“Josh and Sam have a proven track record for breaking Israeli talent abroad,” said Daniel Lieberberg, president of Sony Music Entertainment Continental Europe and Africa, in a statement.

The Fluxgolds will remain in Toronto, Canada, where they run ONEWAY., a Sony Music spokesperson confirms. 

“During our time working in the Israeli market, we recognized the substantial talent that is being overlooked and underrepresented in the region,” the Fluxgold brothers said in a joint statement. “Together with our partners at Sony Music, we look forward to showcasing the unique Israeli sound and artists that the world has been missing.”

Sony will continue to lead its Israel business from its Continental Europe and Africa Head Office in Berlin, a spokesperson says, in contrast to its two main rivals, which have set up operations there over the past three years. Universal Music Group opened an office in Tel Aviv in 2020, becoming the first major label to set up standalone operations in the country; it is led by Yoram Mokady, a lawyer and entertainment executive. Universal Music Publishing Group followed suit in 2021, hiring Itamar Shafrir as general manager of the new outpost. 

Warner Music Group said in May that it was launching Warner Music Israel and would open an office in Tel Aviv. Running the new imprint is Mariah Mochiach, general manager of Warner Music Israel, a veteran A&R and artist manager who worked for more than 10 years at Lev Group Media, which has acted as an Israeli distributor for Warner Music.

While still a relatively small market, Israel is a growing territory that ranked 27th in global music collections in 2021, with 35.6 million euros ($35.2 million), up 5.5% from 2020, according to international collections body CISAC. Pop artists like Noa Kirel, who is signed to Warner Music imprint Atlantic Records, are big at home but have struggled to cross over, though that could change for Kirel, who is slated to represent Israel at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, U.K. (Israel has won the contest four times since 1978.)

Last year, UMG and Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment said they would award an international recording deal to the winner of the upcoming season of The X Factor Israel, something previously unheard of in the Israeli music market. Cowell was set to be a judge on the fourth season of the show but pulled out in May of 2021, Variety reported.