As Israeli concert promoters prepare for their busiest concert season in history, the Boycott Israel movement continues its efforts to target individual artists to try to convince them to cancel their concerts, with Radiohead as the latest target.
Boycott activists have also recruited several artists to join their efforts, who have once again penned an open letter to try to convince Radiohead to cancel – under the guise of protesting against Israel for “humanitarian“ reasons.
Unfortunately, their letter is filled with inaccurate accusations against Israel, including false claims of “apartheid’ and “genocide.” Trying to appeal to artists natural empathy for the downtrodden, the boycott movement falsely characterizes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a movement seeking peace and justice, and drives the prospect of peace further away.
The cultural boycott is built on the premise that there can be no dialogue or communication between Israel and the rest of the world. That Israel should be ostracized, demonized and bears sole responsibility for the problems of the region. To support this, Israel is branded as an apartheid state when in fact it is the only democracy in the region where all its citizens are subject to the same laws and are in fact free.
While we may have vastly different opinions on the supremely complicated Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we can all agree that the arts — through their ability to create dialogue — can and should be an important part of the solution.
We applaud Radiohead for joining their peers and using their art as a way to bring people together. On their US tour, Radiohead chose two Israeli acts — one Jewish and one Arab — to open for them, sending the powerful message to the world that coexistence is entirely possible, and music can be a catalyst for making it happen. Radiohead are sure to continue to foster this message when they perform in Israel in July.
Unfortunately, artists continue to be subjected to tremendous pressure from some of our peers in the entertainment community. Rather than expend this energy to divide, we hope that one day these groups and individuals will band together to unite. We invite them to sit at the table with us and work side by side to be sure no one is silenced.
The above response was sent to the 20+ media outlets worldwide which covered this story including NME, Pitchfork, Yahoo News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Vulture and The Washington Times.
BY DAVID BRINN, Jpost.com
APRIL 16, 2017
With a staggering number of international musical acts streaming to Israel, does anyone even remember BDS?
The variations on “Hava Nagila” and “Hatikva” – two “Jewish” songs that foreigners most often associate with Israel – are going to be stretched to their limits over the next few months, as the onslaught of international artists performing at local venues rises to a crescendo.
That quaint obsession has turned into a clichéd but almost obligatory requirement for many visiting bands and artists from the US and Europe, and is a source of pride for concert-goers. But the musicians in question often come away from their experience in Israel with considerably less anachronistic, more vibrant impressions.
“Most of the artists that come here leave as goodwill ambassadors for Israel,” says Guy Beser, the CEO of Bluestone Entertainment, one of the country’s leading concert promotion companies.
“They feel the warmth of the audience and of the people. We take them to the North, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem, and they fall in love with the country. And when they stay and perform in Tel Aviv, they immediately understand that the country is nothing like they expected. After experiencing the real reality of Israel, they leave with a different impression. And the artists talk to each other and the managers talk to each other.”
Beser – who together with his partners in Bluestone, including Madonna’s Israel-born manager, Guy Oseary, has previously brought Bon Jovi, Backstreet Boys and Enrique Iglesias to Israel – has an action-packed summer ahead, with shows by Aerosmith (May 17), Britney Spears (July 3) and Guns ‘n’ Roses (July 15). They’ve joined a thriving industry full of veterans like Shuki Weiss who have been importing entertainment to Israel for decades, including some of the world’s top entertainers like Paul McCartney, Elton John, The Rolling Stones and Madonna.
British comedian Eddie Izzard landed in Israel Thursday afternoon to perform in Tel Aviv in the evening and then to run in the Palestine Marathon on Friday…or so he thought.
Responding to the comedian’s tweet, the official Twitter account of the Palestine Marathon made it clear that they would not allow this, writing, “British comedian Eddie Izzard cannot run for freedom this Friday if he entertains in Tel Aviv on Thursday.”
Eddie Izzard was surely attempting to show his support for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, yet the Marathon — following the decree of BDS and their concept of “anti-normalization” — has essentially told him that that’s impossible, that he has to choose between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Normalization,” in short, is defined as any cooperation or interaction with anybody who violates the central premises or guidelines of the BDS movement, and does not aim to realize its three stated goals, which ultimately aim for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.
The “anti-normalization” movement, an outgrowth of BDS,” is dedicated to pressuring Palestinians, Arabs, and people in general not to engage in projects with those whom they consider to be guilty of “normalization.”
So, because Eddie Izzard is performing in Israel — a violation of the BDS guidelines — he is considered guilty of “normalization” and hence is a persona non grata amongst Palestinians. Sadly, this is not a unique situation.
Back in 2009, legendary musician Leonard Cohen scheduled concerts in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Unfortunately, his show in Ramallah was cancelled and BDS claimed victory, saying, “Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel‘s colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel.”
More recently, the same thing happened to Ms. Lauryn Hill, who canceled her show in Israel in 2015 after it became clear that she would be unable to perform in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah, since no Palestinian venues — thanks to pressure from BDS — would agree to host her if she performed in Israel as well.
And it isn’t just the Palestinian Territories — but rather the entire Arab world — that BDS tries to make off-limits to artists who perform in Israel. In 2013, when Alicia Keys performed in Dubai after her concert in Tel Aviv, BDS urged the venue in Dubai to cancel her show and “tell her that she is not welcome in Arab countries,” simply because she performed in Israel. We saw it again when the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon (CBSI) called on the Lebanese people to boycott Chris Brown’s show if he continued with his performance in Israel, which he did.
In all of these cases, artists are told that they they can either support Israelis or Palestinians — but not both — and that if they perform for Israelis, then they have automatically taken a stand against Palestinians and are no longer welcome among them.
Music, art, and comedy should be used to bring us together, never to tear us apart. Those of us who care about peace must do our utmost to tackle this “us or them” mentality being spread by BDS.
We at Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), an organization comprised of prominent members of the entertainment industry dedicated to promoting the arts as a means to peace and to countering the cultural boycott of Israel, are supremely disheartened by this discriminatory tactic, which has long been propagated by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.