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.

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 — have long since noted that supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement are quick to falsely claim victories they haven’t truly earned.

For example, when Pharrell Williams and Natalie Imbruglia canceled their shows in Israel in 2016 and 2017, respectively, for reasons completely unrelated to politics, BDS activists falsely claimed that they did so in solidarity with the aims of their movement — which seeks to isolate Israel in the cultural, academic, economic, and diplomatic spheres with the end goal of eliminating it as the Jewish state.

Now, BDS activists are falsely claiming victory at the Oscars.

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

Natalie Imbruglia and the Desperation of BDS

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

It’s been a sad year for supporters of the cultural boycott of Israel — and conversely, an excellent year for those of us who believe in artistic freedom and the power of the arts to build bridges for peace.

No artist has canceled a show in Israel due to pressure from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — a movement that seeks to isolate Israel in the international arena for the ultimate purpose of eliminating it as the Jewish state — since December of 2015, and its supporters are desperate to claim any victory they possibly can.

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 constantly in touch behind the scenes and can confirm that Australian popstar Natalie Imbruglia canceled her March 1, 2017 concert in Tel Aviv for reasons completely unrelated to politics.

However, boycott supporters have continued to claim the opposite despite the lack of supporting evidence.

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

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.

Cover Photo: Getty Images  Credit: Luke Hales / Staff

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.