Music industry boycott of Israel? Not so much

By: David Renzer and Steve Schnur

When we saw the article “Radiohead announce Israel gig despite industry boycott,” 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 attempted cultural boycott of Israel — couldn’t help but ask ourselves, “What industry boycott?”

Despite the many groups and individuals calling very loudly for a cultural boycott of Israel — as part of the strategy of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate Israel and ultimately eliminate it as the Jewish state — more than 800 international artists, from all corners of the industry, have performed in Israel over the last 5 years.

In 2016 alone, more than 230 international artists performed in the tiny country, including: The Chemical Brothers, Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Ricky Martin, Major Lazer, Queen and Adam Lambert, Eagles of Death Metal, Sia, Julian Marley, Carlos Santana, Joss Stone, Avicii, Tame Impala, Wiz Khalifa, Megadeath, Elton John, Deep Purple, Eroz Ramazzotti, Jason Derulo, Craig David, Donovan, Jethro Tull, Ibeyi, and Sean Paul, among many others.

To read the rest of the piece on The Times of Israel, please click HERE.

We at Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) — an organization comprised of prominent members of the entertainment industry dedicated to promoting the arts and culture as a means to peace and to countering the attempted cultural boycott of Israel — were happy to hear of your upcoming trip to Israel.

We are aware that there are groups opposed to the trip, and feel that it’s important to note that these groups are not merely opponents of particular actions of the Israeli government; they are opponents of Israel’s very right to exist. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, though often painting itself as a human rights movement, is in fact a political campaign aiming to create a Palestinian state — and only a Palestinian state — on the ashes of the Jewish, democratic State of Israel.

BDS asserts a very black and white narrative and actively works to prevent people — particularly influential peoples such as yourselves — from seeing anything they disagree with, anything that would add some shades of gray. We, however, are of the opinion that in order to learn about such a complex and often confusing region of the world, there’s nothing quite like brushing aside the screen of the media seeing it for oneself from a wide variety of angles.

We hope that while you’re in Israel, you’ll have the chance to contribute to a more peaceful future in the region by experiencing and supporting initiatives which bring together Israelis and Palestinians through sport. One of the biggest impediments to peace is that Israelis and Palestinians simply don’t understand one another, and there are numerous sport-based projects designed to correct that.

For example, the “Twinned Peace Sports Schools,” a project of the Peres Center For Peace, foster “values of peace and coexistence amongst young Palestinians and Israelis by changing attitudes toward the ‘other’ and diffusing stereotypes” through soccer. And Peace Players International uses basketball to bring Israelis and Palestinians together in a  “safe and neutral space where young people can begin to form deep personal bonds and lasting friendships.”

Sports — just like art and music — connect people across the world, allowing them to bridge even the biggest differences and to come together in peace.

We at CCFP wish you an enjoyable and illuminating trip.

Rock Band BETTY Slams Boycott Groups in Exclusive Interview to CCFP

By: Nick Lieber, Editorial Associate and Analyst, Creative Community For Peace

Perhaps best known for their Broadway play “BETTY Rocks” and contributing the theme song to the television show “The L Word,” the band BETTY is fronted by three outspoken and dedicated female musicians who use their art and raise their voices “to strive for a better world through political and social activism,” as Amy Ziff, the cellist and one of the vocalists of the band, told Creative Community For Peace (CCFP).

At CCFP, an organization 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, we believe that art is powerful. It is humanity’s shared language and allows us to connect on a deep and meaningful level, to encounter new and challenging ideas, and to make positive changes in society. BETTY clearly agrees.

“I think artists and musicians have the responsibility to help society in a myriad of ways,” Amy said when asked what the role of art and artists should be in the world. “We look forward to continuing to perform and host workshops around the world to empower women and girls, as well as people in the LGBTQ community, and to lend our voices for social change.”

BETTY has been fortunate enough to travel around the world, not only in their private capacity as independent musicians, but as American cultural ambassadors.

“We’ve had amazing and unique experiences everywhere we’ve gone,” Amy said. “Argentina, India, throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, Mexico…to name a few.”

One place they had never performed — at least until this month — was Israel.

“We’ve always wanted to perform in Israel,” Amy told us before the show. “We are most excited about making a connection with people here in Israel, and we hope that our music and performance resonates with them.”

Connect and resonate, they did. And it won’t be too long before they return.

“We are really excited about the upcoming women’s festival here in Israel,” Amy said, referring to a new project scheduled to take place in October 2017, “bringing together American and Israeli artists for cultural exchange.”

And what do they have to say to those who are opposed to cultural exchange between Americans and Israelis and support a cultural boycott of Israel?

“People that wish to impose cultural boycotts on Israel are either misinformed about the country, or anti-Semites disguising themselves under a mask of “anti-Zionism,” Amy said.

We at Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) greatly appreciate BETTY’s commitment to equality and cultural exchange. We look forward to seeing them continue rocking out around the world.

The Pink Floyd musician and outspoken BDS proponent was one high-profile attendee at the screening of the film that he narrated.

A group of pro-Israel students at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have condemned a recent film screening on campus hosted by a pro-Palestinian group, accusing the event of perpetuating antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The Students for Justice in Palestine movement held a screening on November 30 at UCLA of the film “The Occupation of the American Mind,” a cinematic creation that claims to expose “Israel’s public relations war with the world.”

One high-profile attendee at the screening was the film’s narrator, Roger Waters, the renowned Pink Floyd musician and outspoken proponent of the BDS movement against Israel.

The documentary film has come under fire for its approach in purporting to show the different ways in which Jewish Americans as well as Israeli activists do everything in their capacity to lobby pro-Israel ideas, laws and actions in favor of Israel; thus developing an ever-growing operation that seeks to gain control of the American government and public opinion.

While some of the student body at UCLA attended the event and reportedly had a positive reaction, others were alarmed by the event and the discussion that followed it.
In an article submitted to UCLA’s newspaper, the Daily Bruin, a group of pro-Israel students expressed their concerns and even bewilderment at the university’s administration for enabling what they said was a blatantly antisemitic event on university grounds.

“The film is an intellectualization of the centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that a group of powerful, manipulative and domination-obsessed Jews have gained control of politics and media through a combination of wealth, power, influence and deceit,” read the letter penned by two students and endorsed the representatives of several campus groups. “The film asserts that through sheer mendacity and careful scheming, Jews concocted stories of suffering, when in reality, they were the true oppressors.”

“Rather than initiate a constructive dialogue about the role of the media in this conflict, ‘The Occupation of the American Mind’ devotes its energy to flirting with and perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” the students lamented. “Our interest in writing this piece is not to silence the viewpoints put forth by the film. Rather than silencing voices, our goal is to combat ‘bad speech’ with constructive speech.”

They explained that while they are both eager to promote their fellow students’ constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, they were disappointed in those from the student body who backed the event, charging that they provided a platform of “identity-based hatred” that violated the university’s code of conduct.

“Along with their right to screen this film comes our moral responsibility to call it what it is: inflammatory, anti-Semitic propaganda,” stated the letter criticizing the film screening.

The group of pro-Israel students said that they felt their peers had failed to discern between pro-Palestinian activities and antisemitic agendas.

The Radicalism of Roger Waters

Hatred and Discord at UCLA and a Campus Near You

Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters recently narrated a film entitled “The Occupation of the American Mind,” which purports to expose a vast conspiracy between the “Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby…to shape American media coverage of the [Israeli-Arab] conflict in Israel’s favor.”

Other participants in the film include: Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist who has expressed support for deadly rock-throwing attacks against Israelis as a “birthright and duty” of the Palestinians; Max Blumenthal, whose anti-Israel tirades are favorites of the arch anti-Semite and white supremacist David Duke; and Stephen Walt, best-known as the author of a controversial book alleging that a pro-Israel lobby controls American foreign policy in the Middle East.

In fact, nearly every supposed expert participating in this film is at best highly critical of Israel — and at worst entirely hostile to Israel and her very right to exist — immediately ruling out any chance that it is meant to be a serious and balanced critique of a lack of diverse perspectives in the American media.

Waters himself has previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany, saying that when it comes to Israel, “the parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious,” blamed a mythical “Jewish lobby” for a lack of support for his views within Hollywood and the wider United States (disturbingly mirroring anti-Semitic canards of extreme Jewish power), and downplayed and almost tacitly supported the firing of rockets into Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization.

But perhaps the best evidence that this film was created as pure propaganda rather than a scholarly pursuit is its stamp of approval from the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). SJP is the leading anti-Israel organization on US campuses, well known for its radical views and tactics — which we at Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) would argue often infringe upon freedom of speech.

SJP makes a habit of disrupting and shutting down events which present narratives with which they disagree. Just this year, SJP chapters have disrupted events from Georgetown to UC Irvine, from the University of Maryland to the University of New Mexico — among many others — that were deemed to be too pro-Israel.

Earlier this year, for example, SJP at UC Irvine was chastised by university administrators for violating student conduct policies after disrupting the screening of an Israeli film. In 2014, the SJP chapter at Loyola University in Chicago was suspended for blocking Jewish students from attending an event. And that same year, SJP at UCLA was reprimanded by the president of the University of California system for violating the principles of “civility, respect, and inclusion.”

Today, Waters himself is set to participate in a screening of the film with SJP at UCLA. Isn’t it rather telling that this film — criticizing the media for only showing one narrative, highlighting only one side of a complex conflict, is being screened by an organization that makes a habit of silencing all narratives but their own?

That a cohort of those who have expressed their desire to eradicate Israel as the Jewish homeland has produced a film without balance is no surprise. But to those us us who wish to build bridges, it is quite disheartening.

This film may soon be coming to a campus near you, bringing a myopic narrative — which is counterproductive to the nuances a peace resolution requires —  in the hope of isolating Israel in the form of boycotts, helping to deny Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to achieve the diplomacy and dialogue so necessary needed to form the mutual respect, compromise, and cooperation on which the road to peace will ultimately be paved.

As always, we at CCFP — an organization comprised of prominent entertainment industry executives devoted to promoting the arts as a means to peace and to countering the cultural boycott of Israel — are disappointed that Roger Waters, who could do such good in the world by raising his voice for peace, has instead chosen to align himself with the voices of hatred and discord.

Why Artists Can’t Perform in Israel & Palestinian Territories

By: Nick Lieber, Editorial Associate and Analyst, Creative Community For Peace

Last year, to our great disappointment, American musician Ms. Lauryn Hill canceled her scheduled concert in Israel, citing her inability to also perform in the Palestinian Territories.

“When deciding to play the region, my intention was to perform in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah,” she wrote on Facebook, announcing the cancellation of her show. “Setting up a performance in the Palestinian Territory, at the same time as our show in Israel, proved to be a challenge.”

What was missed in the ensuing uproar, the praise she received for supporting justice or the criticism for singling out Israel, was the reason it proved to be such a challenge in the first place.

Ms. Lauryn Hill was hardly the first musician to try and fail to perform in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and, unless something changes, she certainly won’t be the last.

So what’s the problem? Did they all have simple scheduling conflicts? Perhaps they were unlucky finding available Palestinian venues? Did the Israeli military prevent them from performing there?

From her vague message, it could have been any or all of them, when, in fact, it was none.

The truth is that artists are unable to perform both in Tel Aviv and Ramallah because Palestinian venues, due to pressure from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), refuse to host anybody who has performed in Israel.

As Ali Abunimah, a leading BDS activist and founder of the Electronic Intifada, notes, PACBI welcomes visits by musicians, but not if those visits are accompanied by visits to Israel or attempts to facilitate dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.

PACBI’s message is clear: You must choose one or the other. You can’t perform for both Israelis and Palestinians. You can only perform for either Israelis or Palestinians.

We saw echoes of this dangerous and divisive message in 2013, when Alicia Keys performed in Dubai after her concert in Tel Aviv. PACBI 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 last year 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.

Ms. Lauryn Hill, on the other hand, decided to cancel her performance “and seek a different strategy to bring [her] music to ALL of [her] fans in the region.”

At Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), we were disappointed that Ms. Lauryn Hill chose to punish her Israeli fans for the hypocrisy and intolerance of a Palestinian organization. We reject PACBI’s black and white narrative that you’re either with Israel or the Palestinians.

Unless and until PACBI is challenged, and their “you’re with us or against us” mentality is called out and rejected, it is unlikely that anybody will be able to perform for all of their fans in the region.

Until then, the many hundreds of musicians who have performed in Israel, including Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Elton John, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Alan Parsons, Brian Wilson, Craig David, Jason Derulo, and Suzanne Vega will continue to find themselves barred from Palestine.

Billboard ran a story earlier in the week about the first ever Palestine music expo with many factual inaccuracies, including referring to Ramallah, Haifa and Jerusalem as “three Palestinian cities,” and  referring to the “sovereign state” of Palestine. A few of our board members wrote to Billboard calling for a correction, which the website did make. See our letter to the editor & the original article below.

Lettor to the editor:

In Billboard’s 10/3 story, ‘Palestine Music Expo, with Cooking Vinyl and Glastonbury Co-Sign, Looks to Draw Attention to a Burgeoning Industry,’ writer Richard Smirke refers to Palestine as a ‘sovereign state’ and further cites the ‘…Palestinian cities Ramallah, Haifa and Jerusalem.’ While the current situation in Israel can often be complex and impassioned, these two statements are blatantly false and incendiary. To casually drop such confrontational terminology into a soft-news piece is not only politically insensitive but also journalistically irresponsible.

As a Co-founder of Creative Community For Peace, we applaud and support any arts festival in Israel that brings artists and audiences together in music, creativity and constructive dialog. However, we find the use of such antagonistic terms to be disturbing. We may not all share the same politics or the same opinion on the best path to peace between Palestinians and Israelis, but we do agree that cultural boycotts (advocated by many Palestinians against Israel) and combative semantics will not advance hopes for diplomatic co-existence.

Furthermore, the article neglects to explore – or even mention – the Palestinians well-documented policy of ‘anti-normalization,’ whereby Palestinians are encouraged and/or threatened not to play with Israelis, and international acts that play in Israel are not welcomed to Palestinian territories. “Anti-normalization,” explains Haaretz, “seeks to police all interactions between Israelis and Palestinians, and, as such, disrupts programs that it perceives as being unaligned with its agenda. This makes life particularly hard for those of us in the ‘people-to-people’ community – who bring Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians together in school, agricultural, high-tech and advocacy programs.”

Independent artists including Madonna, Elton John, Santana, Alicia Keys, One Republic, Robbie Williams, Rihanna, Alanis Morissette, Alicia Keys, Macy Gray, Paul McCartney, Baaba Maal, Black Eyed Peas, Missy Elliot, Metallica, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga, Seal, Erykah Badu and many others have refused to bow to pressure from such organizations, and have enthusiastically performed – to audiences of every nationality – in Israel. We also don’t see any inclusion of Israeli artists who have collaborated with Muslim and Arab musicians and promote co-existence, such as David Broza or Idan Raichel. CCFP would welcome the opportunity to discuss our ongoing efforts to support and encourage these artists, promote the arts as a means to resolution, and correct the aggressive misinformation of movements like BDS (the boycott Israel movement).

We respectfully request that Billboard correct the misstatements described above and allow us to present the other side of this discussion – one of which you were apparently not aware – in the interests of fair journalism, freedom of artistic expression, and promoting positive dialogue that can continue to build bridges.

Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) is an organization dedicated to promoting the arts as a bridge to peace and to countering the cultural boycott of Israel. CCFP is comprised of people from a cross-section of the cultural world who represent a broad range of opinions on politics and on the best path to resolving the conflicts between Palestinians and Israelis. But we all agree that singling out Israel as a target of cultural boycotts will not further peace.

Artists Bid Farewell to Shimon Peres

By: Nick Lieber, Editorial Associate and Analyst, Creative Community For Peace (CCFP)

“Dear friends,” Shimon Peres said to Barack and Michelle Obama three years ago, “after everything I have seen in my life, I earned the right to believe that peace is attainable.”

Believe in peace, he surely did. And for the last few decades of his life, the once prime minister and president, who passed away this week at the age of 93, fought strongly for it.

We at Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) join world leaders and Hollywood artists — many of whom have met President Peres — in mourning his passing and celebrating the enduring legacy of peace he leaves behind.

“In memory of this remarkable human being, Shimon Peres,” Madonna wrote with a photo she posted on Instagram. “A symbol of peace not only for Israel but for the Middle East and the rest of the world.”

“I am deeply saddened at the news of the passing of Former President of Israel Shimon Peres. The world has suffered a great loss,” wrote disco diva Gloria Gaynor, who performed in Israel last July. “My prayers go out to his family, friends, and countless people who have benefited from his life’s work of commitment to peace in Israel and beyond.”

“Godspeed my friend,” said actress Sharon Stone, who together with actor Robert DeNiro, was a guest of honor at the Presidential Conference hosted by President Peres in Jerusalem in 2013.

“R.I.P. Shimon Peres,” actor Michael Douglas shared on Facebook. “We spoke on a panel in 2015 when I visited Israel to receive the Genesis Prize. He was an extraordinary man of peace. I send my deepest condolences to his family and to the people of Israel.”

“President Shimon Peres was a voice of reason who also happened to have the sensibility of a poet…thoughtful and soft-spoken, but his words echoed loudly around the world,” singer Barbra Streisand said. “His mind was expansive and his heart was compassionate. He was a brilliant statesman, gifted with the ability to listen to others who did not share his views and still remained determined to find a path forward.”

Actress Morgan Fairchild called his death a great loss for Israel, for the world, and for peace. Paula Abdul, who met President Peres in 2013 and famously called him “sababa” (Israeli slang for “cool”), said “I’m deeply grieved that Shimon Peres has passed away. Going to Israel was life-changing for me [and] I treasure the memory of my visit [with] him. Shimon Peres’ warmth [and] kindness moves my heart to this day.”

The loss has been taken particularly hard by Israeli artists. The story of President Peres’s life was the story of Israel itself. He served as an inspiration and a source of hope for the people of the embattled country desperately wanting a better future for the entire region.

“A visionary. A man of peace. A friend of all people,” Israeli actress Gal Gadot, best known for her roles in The Fast and the Furious and Wonder Woman, wrote on Twitter. “Goodbye dear Shimon, your memory is cherished and your legacy lives on.”

A visionary. A man of peace. A friend of all people.
Goodbye dear Shimon, your memory is cherished and your legacy lives on. pic.twitter.com/TEYaXzKySF

— Gal Gadot (@GalGadot) September 28, 2016

“I have had the privilege to know a rare man [whose] contribution to Israel is impossible to explain in words,” Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli said. “Rest in peace, dear man.”

Though President Peres is gone, we can — and at CCFP we will — ensure that his legacy lives on by continuing to work for the peace he long desired. We believe in the power of the arts and culture to build bridges toward peace.

A-WA: Building Musical Bridges

By: Nick Lieber, Editorial Associate and Analyst, Creative Community For Peace

If you haven’t yet heard of the Israeli band A-WA (pronounced “EY-wah”), you will. The musical trio, comprised of sisters Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim, made a splash last year with the release of their video “Habib Galbi,” which blended hip-hop and reggae with traditional Yemenite music.

They have become a hit in Israel — “Habib Galbi” was the first song in Arabic to make it to number one on the Israeli pop charts — and around the world. They have also — perhaps surprisingly for an Israeli group — attracted a substantial fan base throughout the Arab world, particularly in Yemen.

“We met a Yemeni Muslim guy in New York,” Tagel, the youngest of the three sisters, told Creative Community For Peace (CCFP). “After the concert he said that the first few minutes of the concert he couldn’t move, he was hypnotized. He felt that we took him back to his neighborhood and memories in Yemen.”

Seventy years ago, the Yemenite — meaning Yemeni Jewish — population in Yemen was over 50,000. From 1949-1950, most of them — including the paternal grandparents of the Haim sisters — were brought to Israel to escape the increasingly dangerous climate for their community. They and their descendants now number approximately 350,000.

Today, there are no diplomatic relations between Israel and Yemen, and Israeli citizens are banned from the country. Consequently, most Yemenite Jews find themselves cut off from Yemen and Yemeni Muslims, a situation which the Haim sisters believe to be a source of regret and nostalgia in Yemeni communities in Yemen and abroad.

However, through their music, infused with Yemenite folklore and beats, A-WA and other Yemenite Israeli musicians have managed — on a cultural level — to stay connected with the land their ancestors lived on for millennia. They have also — during their performances in Europe and the US, as well as through social media — managed to rekindle the relationship between Yemenite Jews and Yemeni Muslims.

“There was a Yemeni Muslim family that immigrated from Yemen to Paris three years ago and they come to our shows with their little boy and girl dressed up in traditional Yemeni clothes,” Tair, the eldest, told us. “They just love our music and say how much comfort and love they get from it, and that they’re very proud of what we’re doing.”

“For people from Yemen, they’re proud of the community, and the Jewish people who came from Yemen,” Liron, the middle sister, explained.

“They say they’re missing their Jewish brothers,” Tagel added.

“Sometimes people, mostly students from Yemen, come to our shows or write us on Facebook saying ‘Thank you for making us feel strong in these hard times,’” Tair said. “And in Berlin we were the guests of honor at an event called Yemenite Saloon. They took questions from fans from Yemen, and it was really nice.”

We couldn’t help but wonder if their Israeli identity makes it difficult to connect with their fans in the Arab world. In some countries of the Middle East, it’s a crime to interact with Israelis, even to befriend them on Facebook. In others, pressure from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to refrain from “normalizing” relations with Israelis deters people from extending a hand.

“Sometimes they just don’t know what to do with us,” Tair said. “I always say we confuse them in a good way. We celebrate everything that we are. We’re women and Yemenite, and Israeli and Jewish. We’re musicians. And it’s okay to be many things. This is one of our messages to the world. you can be many things and have many identities, and you can feel free to express each one of these.”

“Sometimes they say we know you’re from Israel but we don’t care, it’s just such beautiful music,” Tagel said.

“There was a man [at the Yemenite Saloon] who said ‘Hi I’m from India and I want you to know that we listen to you and we love you there,’” Liron added. “And then a guy from Dubai said ‘Yeah our taxi drivers listen to you.’ And there was a Palestinian guy there.”

“It was beautiful, just beautiful,” Tair said.

“As little girls, we found ourselves very open and identifying with other cultures. I loved Arabic and Greek music from a very young age, so now when I meet somebody from Greece or Morocco I find myself saying ‘OH! Do you know this singer?’” Liron said.  “And it’s all connected to us — and we don’t think of politics. We don’t see people as countries, as flags — just as humans, as souls. It might be naive to look at things like this, but it’s a much better and accepting way to communicate with people.”

For the most part in their encounters with their fans around the world, the sisters let their music do the talking, not purposefully emphasizing the fact that they’re Israeli. But sometimes, they find themselves becoming unwitting ambassadors for Israel, correcting the misconceptions people have about the country of their birth.

“One woman in France asked us where we’re from so I told her from Israel, from Tel Aviv,” Tagel said. “And she said ‘But you’re a woman — are you allowed to sing?’ I couldn’t believe that’s what she thought. And the way to show people that we aren’t necessarily what they thought is to come open-minded and to set an example.”

“Someone told us that we bring lots of love, that you can tell, both onstage and off stage that we have lots of love to give,” Tair added.

“And that was nice to hear because it’s exactly what we want to do,” Liron said. “To bring love, to unite people.”    

At Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), we believe in the power of musicians to unite, to bring people together through their music, to expose them to new cultures and perspectives and allow them to connect on a deeper level, overcoming preconceived notions and biases. A-WA is the perfect example.

A-WA will soon be on tour in the United States, performing in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, and elsewhere throughout the second half of September. To see a full listing, please click here.

Carlos Santana and Joss Stone brought messages of peace to Israel

By: Nick Lieber – Editorial Associate and Analyst, Creative Community For Peace

Music will not solve all of the world’s problems. A song can’t end poverty. An album won’t cure disease. And a concert won’t bring about that long-awaited and crucially important peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

But it can help. A song can raise awareness. An album can raise funds. And a concert can bring Jews and Arabs together, providing an opportunity for people from different walks of life to interact, to see beyond their differences and learn what unites them.

It can also provide a platform for musicians to raise their voices loudly and forcefully for peace, as Carlos Santana and Joss Stone did a couple weeks ago.  At Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), we commend them for doing so, and we are hopeful that their actions and words will serve as a shining example for the many musicians who continue to perform in Israel.

To read the entire article, please click here.