Snake Oil

January 20, 2014September 30, 2023

Neil Young, Please Respect the Boycott of Israel

Dear Neil Young,

Many of your fans, including our organization DPAI, are concerned about the recent announcement that you plan to perform to a segregated audience in July 2014 in what is an apartheid state: Israel.

We sincerely ask that you reconsider your commitment to promoter Shuki Weiss who serves the interests of the state of Israel, providing select Israeli officials with VIP tickets to concerts he promotes.(1)

Israel truly stands apart on the world stage as an exclusivist, ethnocentric, settler-colonial state, with a powerful military and extensive political reach. Backed unconditionally and delivered impunity by the USA, Canada and the EU, Israel continues with its slow, gradual genocide against the Palestinian people who are indigenous to the land. Palestinian land has not only been stolen, but water resources pillaged, olive trees burned, and families separated from each other by a system of military sniper towers, checkpoints, walls and laws preventing family reunification (as you’ll read below). When the Indigenous people of the land, the Palestinians, protest the theft of their farms and destruction of their livelihoods, they are met with tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and foul smelling ‘skunk water’ and arbitrary arrest by the Israeli military.

People of conscience, including musicians, are feeling the substantial, persuasive moral weight to act urgently, ethically – and clearly, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is an effective, powerful means to end Israel’s impunity and make it accountable for its illegal actions.

At this time, we ask you to not cross the Palestinian picket line. We sincerely hope that soon, you will perform in a state that offers total equality in citizenship to both Palestinians (refugees included) and Jews in Israel. Sadly, that state does not exist, yet.

Your support for the Indigenous nationhood of Canada and the environment is commendable. We hope you will show similar concern for the Indigenous Palestinian people. With regard to Palestinian Indigeneity, Palestinian leader, MK Haneen Zoabi had this to say at the Capetown Russell Tribunal hearings in November 2011:

“Israel has confiscated my land and has started to define me as the invader of the land. They call us in the Knesset, in the courts, in the media the invaders of the land … when they confiscate our land in the Galilee and the Negev, they said they are going to redeem the land, redeem, I don’t know this word, I ask about it – salvation from me, the indigenous people, there. It is not about stealing the land, it is about stealing my homeland, my relation with my homeland. They are trying to transmit, to rewrite history, they don’t like history, they don’t like to read history, what happened before 1948 and that means we were there, the Palestinian people … they like more to write history. And they say I am a risk, they must reserve the land. So the crime is not really just to steal my land, they are trying to redefine my relation with my homeland. It is not my homeland anymore. I cannot claim it. They rewrite history and I am the invader of the land.”(2)

Israel goes to great lengths to cover up its crimes, claiming itself to be a leader in green technology and environmentalism. Greenwashing is a tactic used by Israel to shift the focus away from shocking facts such as:

According to the OECD, Israeli “water quality” is ranked 35 out of 36 countries, better only than the Russian Federation. Israel’s water score “is much lower than the OECD average” according to the OECD, “and suggests Israel still faces difficulties in providing good quality water to its inhabitants.”
Similar problems face air quality: Israel is ranked 27 out of 36 for harmful particulate matter in the air and, “Particulate matter and ground-level ozone concentrations frequently exceed limit values for the protection of human health.”
Because of Israeli discrimination, Palestinians face severe shortages of water, a report from Amnesty International found. Palestinians are systematically denied water for basic needs, and hundreds of thousands don’t even have running water. Israel appropriates 80 percent of the water from the occupied West Bank’s main aquifer, while allowing Palestinians a mere 20 percent. In the West Bank, 450,000 settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.
The fact that 95 percent of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption due to Israel’s siege and military attacks, and the use of desalination technology as a means to further isolate Gaza.
The frequent contamination of Palestinian villages by flows of raw sewage from Israeli settlements;
The systematic destruction of trees to facilitate settler takeover of land, such as in Wadi Qana, an area of rare natural beauty that is now also awash in settler sewage.
The threat of destruction of the West Bank village of Battir’s ancient irrigation and ecosystem by Israel’s colonization and apartheid wall – which has led to an emergency application to UNESCO to try to save the area.
Israel’s further entrenchment in the occupied West Bank under the guise of supposedly environmental companies like Better Place, which build settlement infrastructure. (3)

Here are more stark facts which no doubt Mr. Weiss has not made known to you:

Israel was established in 1948, as an exclusively Jewish state, after over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and land. For over 65 years, the Israeli government has used both ‘legal’ and arbitrary force against the indigenous people who still remained in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and who now comprise almost half (5 million) of the population which Israel controls.(4) Today, Palestinians are the largest and longest suffering group of refugees in the world. One in three refugees world wide is Palestinian, making up a 7.2 million refugee population worldwide.(5)

Jewish Israeli citizens enjoy systemic, institutionalized privileges such as legal advantage, well funded schools, universal healthcare, modern separate roads and high status in society, with full protection from the Israeli Army. A full 20% of the population (over 1.2 million) in Israel is comprised of Palestinians who carry an Israeli ID card. These people are subject to “Jim Crow”-style laws that enforce housing restrictions, discrimination, underfunded schools, and restrictive marriage laws. More than 50 Israeli laws discriminate against non-Jews.(6)

Approximately 2.4 million Palestinians live in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. Within this area, Israel has constructed an intricate matrix of sectors. Hundreds of Palestinian ghettos are isolated from each other using a system of sniper towers, patrol roads, cement walls, layers of barbed wire, electric fencing and arbitrary and permanent military checkpoints. Manless drones and frequent night raids inflict constant fear on a population where around half are children. From the International Court of Justice to the Red Cross, the apartheid wall has been deemed illegal. Its disastrous impact is felt on Palestinian farmers, villages, cities, families, schoolchildren, students and the entire people. From Jenin to Bethlehem, through the concrete-split streets of East Jerusalem, the wall has become another element of Israel’s colonization of Palestine, one more link in the apartheid chain.(7)

In Gaza, Israel’s collective punishment of 1.6 million people includes bulldozing once-productive farmland, shooting at fishermen as they try to make a living and bombing buildings that held preschools and universities. As the borders have been sealed shut, Gaza has been forced to depend on UN schools, and to subsist on what food and medical supplies Israel capriciously decides to let in.

Israel blatantly admits using cultural events to create a false image of itself as a progressive, artistic nation with a Western European flavor (8). Having big name bands from the USA play in Tel Aviv is a part of this larger, duplicitous effort to brand the state. Getting artists known for being true to their consciences and for working in solidarity with oppressed people, artists such as you, would be a real coup for Israel’s branding of itself, and we really hope that you refuse to allow your image to be used thus. Already the state is using your planned performance as propaganda, with the official Israeli Embassies of Canada and the US tweeting about it.

The call to boycott was made in 2005 and enjoys overwhelming support from Palestinian Civil Society. The boycott is an urgent call to people of conscience to act to hold Israel accountable for how it treats the Palestinian people. The international community has failed to act, and, in fact, has instead enabled some of Israel’s most violent aggression.

In late 2008 and early 2009, Israel implemented a brutal attack on the civilian population of Gaza. Over three hundred children were left dead, with a total of 1,400 people killed, from a population which Israel was holding captive under military force. In November of 2011, Israel launched another sustained attack on Gaza, this time murdering more than 160 people. The people of Gaza are subjected to regular airstrikes and shootings both in the “buffer zone” and at sea, in their own waters.

The cultural boycott really stepped up after the assault on Gaza and then Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010. As the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, was changing course and heading away from Israel at high speed, Israeli commandos killed nine volunteers at close-range, execution-style. This murder took place in International waters. Many highly respected musicians cancelled their concerts in Israel, or became outspoken in favor of the boycott.

Recently the American Studies Association (ASA) voted to join the academic boycott of apartheid Israel, a move that the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) followed up with a similar declaration of support for BDS, stating: “As the elected council of an international community of Indigenous and allied non-Indigenous scholars, students, and public intellectuals who have studied and resisted the colonization and domination of Indigenous lands via settler state structures throughout the world, we strongly protest the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the legal structures of the Israeli state that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples.”

In 1990, you played at a concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s release from South Africa’s apartheid prison system, as thousands of Palestinians, including children, languish in apartheid Israeli jails, we urge you to think about Mandela’s words: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Mr. Young, please respect the boycott, and make it known you will not play in Israel while it is an apartheid state and an oppressed people have called for solidarity and for artists not to cross their picket line.

Respectfully,

DPAI
We are a group, of over 1400 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

NOTES:
(1) http://pulsemedia.org/2012/12/12/israel-2012-the-question-of-a-nation-what-does-culture-have-to-do-with-politics/#more-37168
(2) https://www.kadaitcha.com/2012/01/09/haneen-zoabis-presentation-at-the-russell-tribunal-cape-town/
(3) http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/new-green-israel-ads-cnn-greenwash-sewage-occupation-and-apartheid
(4) Current demographic figures show: 1.2 million Palestinians with Israeli ID; 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza; 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank; 5 million Israelis excluding Palestinians
(5) http://www.al-awda.org/faq-refugees.html
(6) http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-Database
(7) http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ben-white/did-israeli-apartheid-wall-really-stop-suicide-bombings
(8) http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/about-face-1.170267?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.239%2C
(9) http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/29/native-american-studies-association-boycott-israel

SOURCE

December 11, 2013December 11, 2020

Chill Out Culture

The All Purpose Guide on How to Handle Criticism™ has been developed for when you’ve written very silly/racist/bigoted/mean things on social media and someone has the outrageous temerity to query you on them.

1.0 Scream “You gatekeepers!” and metaphorically roll eyes at sycophants.
1.5 Important update to improve book sales of defended icon: “You OBVIOUSLY haven’t read the book!”

2.0 Complain bitterly about being censored and silenced.
2.1 Whine piteously about how the critic is being “divisive”.
2.2 Quick security fix: “You’re singling out [Insert object of emotive bias] for criticism!”
2.3 Special multi-purpose combined update – “You have no sense of humor!” “it’s just a joke!!” “It’s only words on a screen.” “Get off your computer and do something important!”

3.0 Wail about “bullying” and launch into a satisfying tirade of ad hominem. They started it.

4.0 Moan about “call out culture” and call the patronising sods out back in a never-ending loop where “discourse” disappears up its own meta-orifice.

Coming soon …

5.0 …… Intellectual honesty?

This program is evolving open source software with a Creative Commons licence, so feel free to develop your own version – if you forget to credit the above version history, expect an interloper, who will test you on your proficiency with the program.

Callout Culture

Hi ho the diddlio
A-trolling I shall go,
First thing in the morning,
while i’m still a-yawning,
sizzling up some tender meat
racist ranters smell so sweet.

Oh white saviour –
the burden of empire
faithfully carried
on the backs of the willing,
Oh white saviour –
with rightness of whiteness
imperial bait and switch
rules still over the outflung colonies
with their vanguard ingrates.

Jinjirrie, December 2013.

What Does BDS Threaten and Who Really Makes Threats?

Last week, Salif Keita announced his decision to cancel his performance at the Jerusalem Festival of Sacred Music, held at the Tower of David in Occupied East Jerusalem, and funded by the American Zionist Shusterman Foundation. That the festival was held at such a location where Occupied people are routinely imprisoned, tortured, killed and their homes demolished for resisting Israel’s brutal Occupation, made a mockery of any pretense of “peace and reconciliation” through music.

Many BDS advocates and organisations, including BDS France and Professor Farid Esack from the University of Johannesburg and Chair of BDS South Africa, attempted to persuade Salif Keita to cancel his gig and respect the boycott. Other artists – Matt Schofield and his band, The Matt Schofield Trio, and Chris Daddy Dave – already had cancelled their Festival performances. The initial announcement of Salif Keita respecting the boycott was made on Ynet. The festival facebook page also recorded the cancellation, stating:

“Salif Keita canceled his participation in the Jerusalem Festival of Sacred Music. A few hours before his departure for Jerusalem the Malian musician Salif Keita decided to heed the demands of the cultural boycott of Israel and to cancel his participation in the closing concert of the festival.”

Several hours later, a statement withdrawing endorsement for the boycott call was released, blaming BDS for alleged “threats, blackmail attempts, intimidation, social media harrassment and slander”. Regardless of the statement in his name, Salif is thanked for his cancellation. One might speculate that such an announcement could act as cover for insurance purposes, or “a tactic that some artists resort to when they do not wish to violate the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, but do not have the courage to take a political stance”, or even to shield artists from real threats from angry Zionists in the future. The statement resembles a list of Israeli hasbara talking points. Is it coincidental that Adam Shay, program coordinator and researcher from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which participates in Israel’s hasbara strategy, recommended in May 2013 to

“focus on direct contact with the performers, their producers, agents, or anyone involved in the decision to play or not to play in a specific location. These efforts should not be carried out by the public at large, but rather by professional policy analysts familiar with BDS operations and methods, who can put BDS slander in perspective and present an unbiased picture of reality.”

The only concrete example given in the announcement is “slander stating that Mr Keita was to perform in Israel, not for peace, but for apartheid”. Yet this is not slander, but based firmly in fact. Since Israel deliberately and consistently uses all artist breaches of the boycott to spray whitewash over its very real apartheid and oppression, adding artists and quotes to the propaganda site Creative Community for Peace that shamelessly lobbies artists not to cancel, the example given is spurious.

As a former Israeli Attorney General stated:

‘Despite its best intentions, Israel has created a system of separation in the West Bank which fits the textbook definition of apartheid. According to Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel throughout the nineties, “In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.” He is not alone in asserting this perspective. Many notable Israelis like Meron Benvenisti, Akiva Elder, and Shulamit Aloni, to mention a few, agree that Israeli style apartheid is a reality.’

In 2009, the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) study affirmed that Israel is practising both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with these findings confirmed by the Russell Tribunal Cape Town session findings on Israeli apartheid.

Within Israel itself segregation is nearly absolute:

“For those of us who live here, it is something we take for granted. But visitors from abroad cannot believe their eyes: segregated education, segregated businesses, separate entertainment venues, different languages, separate political parties … and of course, segregated housing. In many senses, this is the way members of both groups want things to be, but such separation only contributes to the growing mutual alienation of Jews and Arabs.”

As Zazafl says:

Apartheid is wrong. This is not a threat.
Ethnic cleansing is wrong. This is not a threat.
War crimes are wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you not to play in a state that does all the above to a people is not wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you to listen to the Palestinian people and to simply not cross their picket line is not wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you to set aside your privilege and activate your conscience is not wrong. This is not a threat. There are no threats. To you.

Whether or not artists insist they are playing for peace and not politics, the Israeli regime believes differently and uses all culture as a political instrument to conceal its oppression.

In 2005 Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.” (Ha’aretz; 21/09/05)

As Brecht said: “Thus for art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group“. Gil Ron Shama, producer of the Jerusalem festival and Goodwill Ambassador for the Israeli Foreign Ministry (which ministry plays a major role in hasbara dissemination) to Muslim countries and with whom Salif Keita was to perform admitted “Here everything is political, even art“. Artists cannot breach the Palestinian-led boycott, play in Israel and ignore the fact that by doing so, they assist the Zionist regime in its concerted efforts to obscure its crimes against humanity committed daily against Palestinians.

Previously, there have been reports about other artists – Eric Burdon, Arch Enemy, Joy Harjo and Joker – receiving threats yet no evidence has been ever produced. Significantly however, the use of mythical ‘threats’ by Zionists to attempt to smear BDS and price-tag activists has been documented.

Evidenced by Israel pumping another NIS3m investment into the use of paid ‘covert’ hasbara troops to spread its fictitious promotional material, BDS and its human rights advocates are regarded as a serious threat by the Zionist regime. The campaign to ‘delegitimize the delegitimizers’ was formulated by the propaganda strategy outfit, the Reut Institute. In January 2010, Reut Founder and President, Gidi Grinstein, said “Therefore, an extraordinary effort is required to respond to and isolate Israel’s delegitimizers. We must play offense and not just defense.”

Propaganda and lawfare outfit NGO Monitor President, Gerald Steinberg, called in July 2013 ‘to respond to delegitimization “like we’re in a war. We need counterattacks.”‘

Commanded from the top by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the network of Israeli hasbara is immense, very well-funded and highly organised. In contrast, BDS is a broad-based, unfunded grassroots movement of conscientious individuals around the world who are in solidarity with the call of the oppressed Palestinian people for justice, freedom and rights denied to them by apartheid, settler colonial Israel. As with the global boycott called by the ANC against apartheid South Africa, BDS activists act spontaneously on an ethical basis, in accordance with guidelines affirmed by Palestinian civil society, solidly grounded in human rights and international law, with no formal hierachy of command.

It is the Zionist regime and its oppressive practices which are threatened by BDS, a movement which has snowballed since commencing in 2005, with strong support from prominent people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nigel Kennedy, Pete Seeger, Mira Nair, Cassandra Wilson, Ronnie Kasrils, Gil Scott Heron, Naomi Klein, Miriam Margolyes and many, many more.

Because the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is based in human rights and has firm anti-racist principles, the type of behaviour which the announcement in Keita’s name states is not commensurate with the moral grounds underpinning BDS. However, it is standard behaviour for Zionists who harass, slander and threaten daily. Therefore it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that if threats have been made, their source could be from Israel’s hasbara machine as part of a co-ordinated dirty tricks campaign.

A brief foray around the net reveals Zionist racism against the artist.

For example, on the original Hebrew Ynet cancellation story, the artist is excoriated by a racist Zionist: “let him go back to the trees he came down from – we don’t need him here”

On Salif Keita’s Facebook page wall, there’s more Zionist abuse against the artist:

Galit Levi: You speak about love and peace, but you act otherwise.

I think that you, who suffered ostracism yourself, about your color, you should be the first to call against this BDS, especially when they tell lies about the policy in Israel against Arabs who call themselves “Palastinians”.

Alon Idelson: You weren’t forced to cancel, you could come, but, you got chicken legs and afraid. Unlike many many other artists who got similar threats but gave the third finger to these threats & came to spread their message of peace & love to the people of Israel, which, as known, include jews, christians and muslims living together. Shame on you.

And bigoted Zionist attacks against Jews who support BDS:

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist Haha, read Yael the bigot, by condemning the boycott he “did not breach the boycott”. It’s like telling Jews who escaped from Germany in 1933 that by leaving because the Nazis persecuted them, they supported the Nazis’ wishes. Oh wait – BDS says that too! https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/brenner-lenni-exposing-zionist-collaboration-and-complicity-with-the-nazis

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist It’s always funny when professional anti-Israeli bigots blame those who fight their hateful messages for “being funded” by someone. Tsipi ___ is a professional activist in EU-funded organizations such as “Zochrot”. She’s getting her paycheck directly from associations that are dedicated to spread hatred, and then when she doesn’t like the fact that someone is exposing her lies, she uses terms like “Hasbara troll” and asks “who pays you”. But Tsipi is a professional hater not only against Israel – she will hate any group, as long as she is paid for it. On her blog you can read about her hatred of Israeli men, Israeli gays, and more – http://feminainvicta.com/

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist You racist bigot, look at the threat on the left, it’s because of your bullying and harassment that he canceled. He rejects your hateful movement, and expresses his love for the people of Israel. Shame on you! You are on the verge of becoming a terrorist.

And Zionist attacks and threats against BDS activists:

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist Falula, wherever you go, you will meet the Zionists who will name and shame you. We already understand that you and your gang have a problem with freedom of speech and think that they are the only ones who are allowed to spread their message. So no, in the real world, you will always find us defending against your lies.

With vile, genocidal Zionist racism:

Franco and Pepe Kalle Classic Round The reality is that Palestinians are no angels. They are the same people who use their kids and moms and girls as products to use. They are the ones who wanted to take over the Israel. Palestine should have not even existed. It is ashame that these guys cannot leave Israel and go to another country. Do not get me wrong, Israel has done some wrong but tell me what good Palestinian has done. Please some tell me. I am glad America is standing with Israel.

Perhaps the most ridiculously lurid and desperate Zionist accusation against BDS, which is a non-violent movement, is this one:

Adi Berger BDS is just like ansar al dine and the Al Qaeda groups who intimated and silenced artists in Mali.

Elsewhere on a Boycott Protest event wall, Israel’s anti-BDS Zionist propagandists also hate Jews who do not support their rightwing views.

Harvey Garfield: THE PROPHET ISAIAH WARNED THE JEWS that those seeking their destruction would emerge out of their own midst (Chapter 49, verse 17).

Jewish Leftists today serve as Jews-for-hire for every anti-Semitic and Israel-hating organization, magazine and web site on earth. These Jews who hate their own people are a tiny minority. Perhaps a mere five percent.
But they get around!

On another event wall for Tom Jones’ concert in Tel Aviv, there are serious, disturbing threats against BDS activists, and obscene photographs desecrating the Koran with human excreta which are unpublishable here, posted by proud Zionists:

Tim Collard: Won’t do any good. I have a photographic memory for these people’s names, and will happily pursue them all around the web.

Benji Hoshabyahu Arazi : BDS bullies belong in jail.

Robert Whyte: LEBANON BEING BOMBED AS I TYPE,SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EGYPT ETHNIC CLEANSING OF CHRISTIANS, GANG RAPES IN PAKISTAN, INDIA……ETC.ETC………………AND THE JEW HATERS ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THE NATURAL COURSE OF EVOLUTION IN A MOSTLY PEACEFUL ISRAEL. YOUR ALL NAZI’S AND IF I GET MY WAY……….BEFORE I DIE OF CANCER……..YOUR GOING PAY……………THAT WILL BE MY LAST ACT ON EARTH. HOW SWEET IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robert Whyte I SEE IN YOUR EYES……..YOU GOT ARAB BLOOD. NOW I GET IT. MAYBE YOUR GRANDMOTHER SUCKED DIRTY ARAB COCK………..ICH !!!!!!!!!!

Aviel Mesayev: Fuck Palestine …..nothing is apartheid here..i join IDF soon and you guys be very sad

Racist settler colonial ideologies really bring out the worst in people.

Adam Shay of the JCPA specializes in battling the cultural boycott and hyping BDS ‘threats’. He provides the ‘professional’ Zionist hasbara perspective on combating BDS efforts to persuade artists to embrace the boycott of apartheid Israel online:

The aim of such efforts needs to be avoiding cancellation of concerts. A cancelled concert is a BDS victory. Every concert cancelled endangers future concerts, as it puts the burden of proof on the band/artists and requires them to justify and explain why they choose to play where others have chosen not to. Along the same logic, every concert that goes ahead eases future pressure on the next scheduled concert and the next boycott battle.

Clearly, the Israeli regime is threatened by boycott, divestment and sanctions, its propagandists are on the back foot, and with yet another performer cancelling their date with apartheid, BDS is winning!

Robin D.G. Kelley : Empire State of Mind

“half of y’all won’t make it”

–Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”

In the face of creeping disfranchisement, unbridled corporate power, growing poverty, an expanding police state, 2.3 million people in cages, vigilantes and cops taking our children’s lives, a presidential policy of assassination-by-drone, global environmental disaster, attacks on reproductive rights, a war on trade unions, a tidal wave of foreclosures, and entrenched racism camouflaged beneath a post-racial myth, why do we care if Harry Belafonte and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter have “beef”? Do social movements need Mr. Carter’s money or power or influence? Is justice a matter of charity or wealth? So what if Carter believes—as he retorted in response to Belafonte’s skewering of navel-gazing black celebrities—“my presence is charity”?

Let me say at the outset that I am not interested in spats between celebrities or on expending precious energy on conflict-resolution for the Negro one-percent. Anyone familiar with the dictionary definition of “charity” will find the statement ridiculous, just as anyone familiar with Jay-Z’s philanthropic work will wonder why he would say such a thing. He has been a high-profile giver: he and his mother started the John Carter Foundation ten years ago to help fund college-bound at-risk youth; he tossed a million dollars into the Red Cross’s coffers after Hurricane Katrina; he is a partner in the Global Citizen Tickets Initiative—the brainchild of the Global Poverty Project meant to hip pop music fans to world poverty and compel them to act (via sharing on social media, writing elected officials, donating money) while dropping big bucks on concert tickets. And there was “The Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life,” the 2006 MTV documentary that raised awareness of Africa’s water crisis. Carter met with policy makers, advocates, and poor, water-starved families in Angola and South Africa, and committed to building 1,000 clean water pumps in Africa. Two years later, the United Nations honored his work with a special humanitarian award.

Does this mean Belafonte was wrong? Or Jay misspoke? Or that we need to place ‘Hova’s’ philanthropy and activism on a ledger against Bruce Springsteen’s, the celebrity Belafonte deemed more socially responsible? What does any of this do to advance a truly progressive agenda?

Focusing on the personal obscures what is really at stake: ideas, ideology, the nature of change, the realities of power, and the evisceration of our critical faculties under the veil of corporate celebrity culture. I use corporate here not as an epithet but as an expression of the structural dimensions of how celebrity is made and its ideological function. Celebrities endorse products; like any commodity, they have become “brands.” They may say and do very nice, uplifting, philanthropic things, but rarely do celebrities stand against the policies and ideas of neoliberalism and U. S. Empire. More often than not, they embody the ideology of neoliberalism (valuing wealth, free markets, privatization over human needs) and Empire (U.S. military and economic dominance over the world).

Words and deeds of high-profile individuals do matter, but too often we pay attention to the wrong words and the wrong deeds. Returning to Mr. Carter’s reply, it is what he says immediately after his charity line that should concern us. Applying his claim—that greatness alone is in-and-of itself a magnanimous gift—to the President, he adds: “Whether [Obama] does anything, the hope that he provides for a nation, and outside of America is enough. Just being who he is. You’re the first black president. If he speaks on any issue or anything he should be left alone.”

That Mr. Carter believes this is less important than the fact that his “brand” promotes it, and I’d venture to say that most African-Americans fundamentally accept its logic. The mere fact that Obama is the first black president, so the argument goes, should grant him immunity from criticism. The relentless attacks on Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and others for their relentless critique of the Obama administration conform to this logic. Rather than address their specific criticisms on their own terms, detractors dismiss West and Smiley by repeating the well-worn claim that they are motivated by personal slights or potential monetary gain, blame an intransigent right-wing Congress for Obama’s worst policies (foreign and domestic), respond to criticisms with a laundry list of accomplishments, or simply assert that critics of the president are “haters,” race traitors, who fail to appreciate the historic significance of a black man in the White House.

The idea that the President transcends all worldly criticism corresponds with a different sort of “Empire State of Mind.” Empires dating back to Egypt, Rome, Ancient China and Japan have depended on an “imperial cult,” the notion that an emperor is to be worshipped as a messiah or a demigod. Even modern empires, like the U.S., often fall back on hero worship, adoration of strength and might over the rule of law and justice. This is why cops and soldiers are “heroes” and dissenters and the civil disobedient are troublemakers or enemies of the state. The cult of Obama has the added dimension of being the tale of a singular black man overcoming historic obstacles, breaking the color line and achieving the highest office in the land. Such representation masks the fact that it wasn’t his achievements but our achievements, our tireless mobilization on his behalf, the work of nameless millions who elected him to office to serve the people. We have an obligation in a democracy to hold government accountable to the rule of law (that includes international law) and to protect the interests of the whole of the people.

And what about deeds? I find it remarkable that Jay-Z’s four little words could set off global outrage, but revelations that Rocawear, the Hip Hop apparel company he co-founded with producer Damon Dash, employed sweatshop labor barely registered a blip in the black blogosphere. Ten years ago, anti-sweatshop activists revealed that Rocawear, along with Sean Combs’s “Sean John” label, contracted with Southeast Textiles International S. A. (SETISA) in Choloma, Honduras, to manufacture their very expensive clothing lines. SETISA sewers earned between 75 and 98 cents an hour, worked 11 to 12 hour shifts with no overtime, and had excessive production goals (T-shirt makers, for example, had to complete a little over 18 shirts per hour, and they could not leave until they met their quota). Talking was prohibited. Permission from a supervisor was required for bathroom breaks. Drinking water (found to be contaminated with fecal matter) was rationed. All employees were subjected to body searches, and female employees were required to take pregnancy tests. Those who attempted to unionize were fired. After refuting reports, Combs was ultimately pressured into making some improvements in factory conditions, but Carter had little to say and never issued a public apology. In 2007, Carter sold the rights to Rocawear to Iconix Brand Group for the princely sum of $204 million, while retaining his stake in the company and overseeing marketing, licensing, and product development.

If we praise celebrities for wealth accumulation, then Rocawear is an unmitigated success. Jay-Z has done what most successful entrepreneurs do in the age of neoliberalism—seized upon the massively oppressive labor conditions produced by free trade policies, the creation of U.S.-backed free trade zones, deregulation, and the weakening of international labor standards.

And why not? Capitalists want to “live life colossal.” Milton Friedman Baby! Then again, who wants to tweet that their favorite celebrity made millions off of sweated labor, thereby perpetuating global poverty? Knowing fans tend to look the other way; the vast majority of acolytes are kept blissfully ignorant by the corporate image machine.

Enter MTV and the release of “The Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life,” following on the heels of Rocawear’s sweatshop revelations. I doubt it was a cynical ploy to defuse the controversy, mainly because for the Jay-Z consumer there was no controversy. His brand escaped pretty much unscathed. And yet, while Carter’s concern for the 1.2 billion people without access to clean water is genuine, the film’s explanation of the crisis is problematic. “Water for Life” blames civil war and the disruptions of military violence, urbanization, and poverty, and suggests that philanthropy and visionary entrepreneurs can solve the problem by providing clean water pumps and digging wells. How so many Africans became “poor” in the first place, the legacy of colonialism, not to mention water privatization, don’t really figure in the story. When asked about privatization at a U.N. press conference upon the film’s release, Carter appeared oblivious: “that’s just bureaucracy, I don’t have any expertise in that.” He didn’t know if water was being privatized, but he did notice that in the houses he visited, the families “paid fifty cents a bucket for [water].” He then went on to praise his long-time sponsor Coca-Cola for providing money for play pumps in Southern Africa (small manual merry-go-rounds that pump water as children play). At the time, Coke was targeted by protestors in India and Colombia for depleting scarce local water sources for its bottling plants, and releasing toxic waste water into the ground, damaging farm land and leaving residents with a variety of skin and stomach ailments.

To be clear, I am in no way criticizing Shawn Carter for lacking a sophisticated critique of the ravages of privatization. To expect as much is unfair, unrealistic, and beside the point. Most Americans share his view; neoliberal logic normalizing Empire and its exploitative practices is today’s common sense. However, it is the use of his brand to sell this new common sense, to promote corporate interests and obscure the real sources of inequality, that matter.

Alicia Keys – Home Wrecker?

Ironically, it has been the Alicia Keys brand–the angelic half of the Empire State duo—that has shown a particularly egregious disregard for human rights. On July 4th of this year, Keys performed in Tel Aviv, Israel, in spite of urgent pleas by Palestinian and Israeli activists, human rights advocates, and nearly 16,000 petitioners from around the world, to respect the global boycott of Israel for its illegal occupation of the West Bank and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Personal appeals from writer Alice Walker and Archbishop Desmond Tutu did nothing to dissuade Keys or her handlers from accepting the invitation. In response, she issued the following statement: “I look forward to my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.”

The statement is as ridiculous and ingenuous as “My presence is charity.” How can music unify an audience when policies of occupation and apartheid exclude the vast majority of Palestinians? What good are homilies about love and peace in a land where Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are prohibited from even entering Israel, contained by a massive concrete wall, economically starved, and living under military occupation? Where thousands of Palestinians are locked away in Israeli prisons—including hundreds of minors convicted of throwing rocks at tanks and well-armed soldiers and settlers? Where Israel continues to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, displacing Palestinians, demolishing their homes, uprooting their olive trees—all in violation of international law. Where, on more than one occasion, Palestinian mothers were forced to give birth on the side of the road or watch their severely ill children die in their arms for want of emergency care because they were held up at an Israeli checkpoint. Where the apartheid wall has turned a fifteen-minute walk to school into a two-hour ordeal for thousands of young children. For young Palestinians living in Israel who are not incarcerated, few could afford the $62.00 ticket to hear Keys. Nearly half of all Palestinians in Israel live in poverty. Most are legally excluded from residing in non-Arab communities based on their “social unsuitability,” attend severely underfunded schools, and are denied government employment.

The point of the non-violent global boycott, of course, is to apply economic pressure on Israel to change these policies: to end the occupation, dismantle the “apartheid” wall which violates international law; recognize the fundamental rights of all Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel and other non-Jews for full equality, and grant the right to return, as stipulated by United Nations resolution 194. The boycott is an act of tough love to achieve justice through peaceful means. Alicia Keys’ concert, on the other hand, served to legitimize and normalize Israeli policies of violence, occupation, incarceration, segregation, and settlement. Keys and her handlers knew this, as they were inundated with materials from organizations supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS)–including the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Boycott from Within. Activists hoped that Keys’ role as lead supporter of “Keep a Child Alive,” an NGO dedicated to helping HIV-infected children in Africa and India, would make her more sensitive to the lives of Palestinian children. The organization’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Twyman, and co-founder Leigh Blake received pages upon pages of material documenting the daily abuses of children at the hands of the Israeli military and settlers.

Rifat Kassis of Defence for Children International Palestine, and Shatha Odeh of the Health Work Committees, submitted a powerful letter appealing to Keys to cancel, outlining in devastating detail how the occupation and Israeli policies have affected Palestinian children. They reveal that since 2003, some 8,000 Palestinian children as young as 12 have been arrested, interrogated (often without access to parents and legal counsel), and detained by the Israeli army and prosecuted in military courts—some held in solitary confinement. (With a 98% conviction rate, it is no surprise that confessions obtained by coercion are rarely thrown out by military judges.) They discuss how military checkpoints and the apartheid wall have become barriers to basic and emergency medical care. And they point out that the blockade of Gaza “is the single greatest contributor to the endemic and long-lasting poverty, deterioration of health care, infant mortality, disease, chronic malnutrition and preventable deaths of children. Palestinian children in Gaza lack access to clean water, health care and are scarred by repeated Israeli military offensives and the constant fear of impending attacks.”

Keys’s decision to perform was made not out of ignorance or an abiding love for Israel or a personal mission to jump-start the peace process. It was about getting paid. The Alicia Keys brand stood to lose financially and likely feared retaliation from pro-Zionist forces. Indeed, her decision to violate the boycott earned her kudos from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies, who in turn placed a flurry of publicity pieces praising her “courage” in the face of BDS “bullies.” But as with Shawn Carter, I don’t blame Keys personally, nor do I question her humanitarian commitments. Alicia Keys is a corporate entity driven by profits and propelled by shareholders (backers and fans). Just as Jay-Z lovers ignored Rocawear’s callous use of sweated labor, Keys’s followers have quietly supported her Israel foray. The sad truth is that 16,000 signatures is nothing against the Keys-AIPAC alliance, and most Americans see Palestine through the official lens of the Israeli government and U.S. policy.

Had Keys paid a visit to Atta Muhammad Atta Sabah, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot by an Israeli soldier in Jalazoun refugee camp in the West Bank just six weeks prior to her concert, perhaps she might have changed her mind. She would have met a small, bright-eyed boy paralyzed from the waist down with holes in his liver, lungs, pancreas and spleen, and angry parents resigned to the reality that their son will never see justice. He was shot while attempting to retrieve his school bag. What if she had driven to Southern Israel to the Naqab desert and met a few of the 40,000 Bedouin whom the government plans to forcibly remove from their ancestral homeland to make way for Jewish settlements? And what if she decided to spend a few days in the West Bank after her Tel Aviv performance, meeting and playing for kids in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, touring the refugee camps, listening to their stories? She might have been passing through Hebron on July 9th, the day Israeli soldiers detained five-year-old Wadi’ Maswadeh for allegedly throwing a stone at a settler’s car. When Wadi’s father, Karam, complained about the arrest and treatment of his son, he was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken, along with his terrified, crying son, to the Palestinian Authority police. They were both eventually released.

Keys never met Atta Muhammad Atta Sabah or Wadi’ Maswadeh or any of the Palestinian children growing up in a world of refugee camps, home demolitions, settler and military violence, displacement, economic deprivation, and educational policies designed to literally deny their existence. The Keys brand could ill afford to expose their star to such “negativity,” lest she walk away from the machine. But here is the real tragedy: the Keys machine was never compelled to apologize or even mildly acknowledge that something is rotten in the state of Israel.

The sad truth is that Keys’s romantic involvement with producer Swizz Beatz, apparently while he was still married, was considered infinitely more scandalous than playing Tel Aviv. Twitter and Facebook and gossip columns were abuzz with accusations that Alicia Keys is a home wrecker. By contrast, neither her fan base nor the Alicia Keys “haters” had much to say about the wrecking of Palestinian homes. (This year alone, Israel announced plans to build another 2,000+ settlement houses in the West Bank.) Equally disheartening is the Black Entertainment Television (BET) poll that 59% of its on-line readers support Keys’s decision to violate the boycott. Of course, it is likely that AIPAC operatives posing as BET on-line readers skewed the results, but not by much. Most African-Americans simply don’t know a lot about Palestine, and many devout Christians among us tend to buy the argument that defending the State of Israel is tantamount to defending the Holy Land. Few vocal critics of New York’s “stop and frisk” policy, for example, know that the Israeli military version of “stop and frisk” in the West Bank means entering Palestinian homes in the middle of the night, forcing families out of bed, photographing all the boys and young men and taking their information. These routine acts are not part of ongoing investigations or require probable cause, but an official policy of surveillance and intimidation. Such outrageous policies should have generated some 1.6 million signatures rather than 16,000.

Let me repeat: I am not arguing that Jay-Z or Alicia Keys or any corporate mega-star is personally responsible for the kind of political and ethical blinders endemic to what has become a national corporate consciousness, an Empire State of Mind. Corporate celebrities, or rather their brands, are merely the messengers. The responsibility for shedding those blinders and developing an informed, global, ethical critique of materialism, militarism, exploitation and dispossession, rests with us. The absence of a broad-based, progressive black movement has not only opened the floodgates for the spread of neoliberalism as the new common sense, but it has severely hampered the ability of too many African Americans to think critically and globally about oppression and inequality—though, to be sure, this problem is not unique to the black community. Our romance with corporate celebrity culture merely fuels a persistent belief that the black one percent are our natural allies, our role models, our hope for the future. Many of us embrace black millionaires and billionaires—the P-Diddy’s, Russell Simmons’s, Jay-Z’s, and Oprah’s of the world—as embodiments of “our” wealth, without ever questioning the source of their wealth, the limits of philanthropy, or the persistence of poverty among the remaining 99%.

In the end, the difference between, say, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Alice Walker and the Jay-Zs and Alicia Keys of the world is not generational. It is not a simple-minded division between Old School Civil Rights and the Hip Hop Generation. Before Belafonte, Glover, and Walker became “celebrities,” they were activists first. They joined social movements and risked their bodies and futures before they even had careers. And in this respect, they have more in common with Hip Hop artists/activists such as Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli, Boots Riley, Rebel Diaz, Chuck D, Rosa Clemente, Immortal Technique, Twice Thou, Lupe Fiasco, Keny Arkana, and others. Their movement work was never about achieving wealth or success, but a commitment to fighting for a world where power rests with the people, not an oligarchy; a world where oppression, exploitation, dispossession, and caging of all people—irrespective of color, gender, nationality, sexual identity—is a thing of the past; a world where such corporate-backed philanthropy is unnecessary, and one need not buy high-priced concert tickets to fight oppression.

Robin D. G. Kelley, who teaches at UCLA, is the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009) and most recently Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012).

(Republished with permission)

July 30, 2013December 11, 2020

Why Has Burdon Uncancelled His Date with Apartheid?

Despite both Kadaitcha and Electronic Intifada approaching Eric Burdon’s manager for substantiation, no evidence has emerged of any alleged ‘threats’ outlined by Burdon’s support band T-Slam in the Israeli media. Now, Burdon’s August 1 gig in apartheid Israel is back on his tour calendar. This further casts into doubt the reliability of these hearsay threats.

On Burdon’s Facebook page, however, we find a sewer of abuse toward Burdon and BDS advocates, following his initial supposed cancellation. Some examples of the bigoted, bullying language used toward Burdon by zionist propaganderists include:

Michael Silverstein Guess you do not believe in your own music. You have proven that you are a Racist. You grew up in the era of peace yet you allow Racist to tell you how to run your life. Be a real man not a Racist that you have proven that you have turned into. I will be boycotting all your music and if you show up in my town we will be the one’s with signs to boycott your show

Scott Lawrence Eric-Im ashamed you canceled your Israel gig due to Muslim Fanatics threatening you I have always loved your music.

Marco de la Rosa Grow a BACKBONE already… Cringing before terrorist threats ? That craven attitude only FUELS the fanatics’ murderous impulses… Is this the same legendary artist whose music we loved ? ? Do you want Osama bin Laden and his murderous jihadi SCUM to be able to intimidate decent people with their empty threats ? Did the Navy Seals run away and hide ? or did they ELIMINATE that monster ? FACE YOUR FEAR and confront it head on… You would be SAFER in the Holy Land than almost anywhere on the planet – thanks to young women and men in IDF uniforms who have the COURAGE you lack… Shame on you… You have disappointed an entire generation…

Comm Net eric burdon is just a chicken …

Ruby Harris eric is a coward. he bowed to bds nazis. shame on you. McCartney is a hero. he didn’t! [NB McCartney’s cancellation had nothing to do with BDS]

Bobby Levit Eric Burdon is a coward…..cancels his show in Israel ….

Steve Toltz Burdon is a COWARD. Succumbing to the PHONEY BDS movement and the lies and anti-Semitic rants leveled at Israel. Where is that spirit of Rock and Roll that I grew up to with you in the 60’s? Shame on you…

Deborah Jankelle Salant You have lost another fan due to your weakness and caving to the boycott.

Cindy Zemel you are a coward! no one in the right mind would bow to these idiots.

Brian Alan I’ve destroyed and erased all your music. Shame you capitulated to terrorism. you’re a coward.

Rick Clayton Go to israel you puss.

Segev Afriat unlike my friend Barry Williams, I’m not gonna beg you to come to iisrael. if you wanna give in to terror, it only means you’re not good enough to come to israel. good luck with your music, you chicken

Nephtaly Hans Velez-Crespo Had you cancelled on matter of conviction, you would at least have something to show for it. You nonetheless cancelled because you are a straight out pussy who succumbed to threats by load mouth activist armed with a hateful agenda.

That’s how your fans in this region of the word will see you. No backbone. What a shame.

You still have the opportunity to fix this.

Scott Izes Ruth I commend you on your posts, especially considering you are talking to an ignoranus who puts the same degree of thought into her posts as she does in deciding to support 7th century barbarism over modern civilization.

Last week, Defence for Children International revealed its latest report on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children in military detention. Israel currently imprisons 193 Palestinian children, 41 of whom are between the ages of 12-15. In 19% of cases, solitary confinement was used for interrogation purposes on these Palestinian children. More than half of the 193 Palestinian child detainees are held inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Further

‘Israel is the only nation that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. With over 8,000 Palestinian children arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system since 2000, it is an unmistakably damaging and oppressive venture. How many young kids need to be detained, arrested and ill-treated before Israeli leaders realize that the routine ill-treatment of Palestinian kids is not okay?’

Will these imprisoned children who when free dwell in another open air prison in the West Bank behind Israel’s hideous illegal apartheid wall, soon hear distant strains of western rock music denied to them on the basis of their Indigenous ethnicity, Israel’s appetite for ethnosupremacist hegemony, oppression and Palestinian land?

Because of news of Burdon’s alleged cancellation proliferated by the Israeli media, a demonstration in support of boycott of apartheid Israel organised by the Scottish PSC at his concert in Edinburgh on July 24 was called off. Thus Burdon was shielded from receiving information directly about Israel’s criminal oppression of Palestinians including those 193 Palestinian children which it incarcerates and torments, Israel’s fiendish Prawer Plan for ethnically cleansing more than 40,000 Indigenous Bedouins from their homelands in the Negev, systematic apartheid against Palestinians in Israel and many other reasons for BDS.

Eric Burdon still has time to cancel his gig, to respect the boycott and disperse the unsubstantiated allegations of ‘threats’ against him. Some may feel the burden falls upon Burdon to explain why neither he nor his manager have made the effort to clear up uncertainty. Until there is clarity, questions about unsubstantiated Israeli media reports of threats, cancellation and uncancellation will remain as a cloud above Burdon’s long, distinguished rock and roll career.

UPDATE 31/7/13

Burdon arrives in Israel, with UPI reportng Burdon disclaims his gig was ever cancelled.

“Eric Burdon, the former lead singer of the British rock band The Animals arrived in Israel Tuesday, despite initially canceling the gig due to threats.

At a press conference in Tel Aviv, the 71-year-old rock legend denied he had ever thought to cancel his Israel trip despite reports a week ago claiming otherwise, Israel Radio said.

“The fact that I am here proves the point,” he told reporters. Burdon took advantage of the press conference to praise the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington, saying while he believes and dreams for peace, “we live in a world that also knows war.”

The Israeli rock band Tislam, which will perform with Burdon Thursday, also attended the press conference.

A week ago, Tislam said Burdon’s manager had said the singer was canceling the show in Israel because of threats.

At the time a statement released by Burdon’s manager said: “We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis. I wouldn’t want to put Eric in any danger.”

Ynet now claims [Google translation, which is not a reliable translator] [Hebrew original]:

“It was not my decision to cancel the show, it’s my manager, following the threat received a lot of emails just afraid for my life. I’m not afraid to play here and very happy to return to Israel,” he said today (Tuesday) Eric Burdon, band singer “Animals” legendary in Tel – Aviv.

Bardon, appears five (1.8) Zappa Amphi difference Binyamina, canceled his appearance a few weeks ago in the wake of political pressure pro-Palestinian organizations. Now as he returned it, said he was not involved in the decision and came to Israel to make the show.

Please note that this is an exceptional case. Rare that artists canceled their attendance on political grounds and then return them. “Above all, it is important for me to convey a message that the past is not Important,” he added today, “and I came to Israel as long as I wanted. It was important to play here and I’m concentrating all my energies towards performance. We are going to give a great Israeli show.”

Burdon said the evening will be planned jointly with the band “Slam.” Wearing a shirt on which the symbol of peace, met this morning with members of the band Burdon Israel in Tel – Aviv, after he had met in London and Yair Izhar budding more last month.

. @mariannaburdon ynet story says Eric says you cancelled his gig. True? where is evidence of alleged threats? http://t.co/rKMSCIjADA

— Jinjirrie ??? (@Jinjirrie) July 31, 2013

The Independent says Burdon’s statement quoted in Ynet comes from his management:

In a statement from his management today 71-year-old Mr Burdon said he had already arrived in Israel and that the concert would go ahead as planned.

“It was not my decision to cancel the show, it was my manager’s, who as a result of lots of threating emails she received, was genuinely afraid for my life,” he said.

“I’m not afraid to preform here and very happy to be back in Israel”

He continued: “Above all, it is important for me to convey a message that the past is not important, and the most important thing is and I came to Israel, as I wished to. It was important for me to play here and I’m concentrating all my energies towards the performance. We are going to give a great show to the Israelis.”

UPDATE 31/7/13 4pm EST

Tickets in blocks of 20 are still available for Burdon’s gig at Ampi Shuni.

Zionist and other media spin, stories and bare-faced lies following Burdon’s “uncancellation”

JNS:

‘Legendary 1960s band The Animals’ musician Eric Burdon will perform in Israel after initially canceling the performance due to threatening anti-Israel emails, his manager said.’

Times of Israel:

“After caving to threats and canceling a gig in Israel, aging rocker Eric Burdon will play here after all.

Burdon flew into Israel on Monday night for the Thursday concert. “If it hasn’t go to do with music,” he declared on arrival, “it’s bullsh*t.”

Burdon, the former lead singer of ’60s British band The Animals, was last week reported to have canceled the August 1 concert in Binyamina because, his manager said, he had been receiving daily threatening emails.

However, on Monday the concert was back up on Burdon’s website and was again listed among the concerts at the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater in Binyamina. No reason was given for the cancellation of the cancellation.

Burdon, whose band’s decades-spanning career including hits such as “The House of the Rising Sun,” “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” “It’s My Life,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” is once again scheduled to perform alongside Israeli legendary band T-Slam, as per the original plan.

Earlier this month, Burdon met up with members of T-Slam in Vienna and told them he was under pressure from anti-Israel activists to cancel the show. At that time, though, he seemed set on going ahead with the concert, telling the Israeli musicians, “Everyone needs music and there’s no connection to current politics. Everyone has the right to be entertained.”

But his manager later wrote to T-Slam to state that the show was off. “We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis. I wouldn’t want to put Eric in any danger,” his manager wrote, in comments released by T-Slam last week.

In a statement at the time, T-Slam said, “To appear with Eric Burdon, one of the founding fathers of rock & roll, was an almost dream come true. We’re sorry that despite his personal assurance to us, that he bowed to pressure and cancelled his concert.”

However, it seems Burdon’s reluctance to go through with the concert was short-lived and the show is back on track.”

JTA:

“Eric Burdon, lead singer of the popular ’60s band The Animals, said he will perform in Israel days after canceling a concert due to threatening emails.

On Monday, after saying last week that he had canceled his Aug. 1 concert in Binyamina, the concert appeared on Burdon’s website. It also was posted on the website of the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater, the concert site.

Burdon’s wife and personal manager, Marianna Burdon, had written to Tislam, the Israeli band with whom Burdon was scheduled to perform, about canceling the performance. “We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis,” Marianna Burdon wrote. “I wouldn’t want to put Eric in any danger.”

Performers have been under increasing pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, or BDS, not to play Israel.

…

Burdon, 72, last performed in Israel during the 1980s. He recently released a solo album.”

Forward:

“Eric Burdon, lead singer of the popular ’60s band The Animals, said he will perform in Israel days after canceling a concert due to threatening emails.

On Monday, after saying last week that he had canceled his Aug. 1 concert in Binyamina, the concert appeared on Burdon’s website. It also was posted on the website of the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater, the concert site.

Burdon’s wife and personal manager, Marianna Burdon, had written to Tislam, the Israeli band with whom Burdon was scheduled to perform, about canceling the performance.

“We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis,” Marianna Burdon wrote. “I wouldn’t want to put Eric in any danger.”

Performers have been under increasing pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, or BDS, not to play Israel.”

Arutz Sheva:

‘Eric Burdon Takes Back Cancellation of Israel Shows

Eric Burdon, lead singer of the 60s group the Animals, who created the group WAR, landed in Israel, Monday, less than a week after he announced he was pressured into cancelling his performances here.

Burdon will appear, as scheduled, with the Israeli group Tislam, in two performances Thursday at the Zappa Amphitheater in the Jabotinsky park in Binyamina, south of Haifa.’

Hayom:

‘Animals singer to perform in Israel despite criticism

Eric Burdon, former lead singer of British band The Animals, who last week canceled his performance in Israel citing political pressure, defies criticism, lands in Israel ahead of scheduled performance with Israeli rock band T-Slam.

Eric Burdon, the former lead singer in the British band The Animals, who last week canceled his performance in Israel citing political pressure, has had a change of heart.

Burdon landed in Israel on Monday evening ahead of his planned performance with Israeli rock band T-Slam at the Shuni Amphitheater in Binyamina.

In a statement released last Tuesday, Burdon’s personal assistant said, “We’ve been subjected to mounting pressure, including numerous threatening emails, daily. The last thing I intend to do is put Eric in jeopardy.”‘

Arutz Sheva again:

‘However contrary to a previous report last week, Eric Burdon’s Israeli appearance would go on as scheduled. It was previously stated Burdon would not come to the Jewish State due to threats from anti-Israel agitators.

The British singer led the 1960s group the Animals, famous for such songs as House of the Rising Sun and We Gotta Get Out of This Place. He also created the American band War, famous for ’70s hits Low Rider, Spill the Wine and more.

Burdon landed in Israel on Monday less than a week after he announced he was pressured into cancelling his performances here. He will appear, as scheduled, with the classic Israeli rock group Tislam (aslo spelled T-Slam), in two performances Thursday at the Zappa Amphitheater in the Jabotinsky park in Binyamina, south of Haifa.’

Jewish Press:

‘Another day, another BDS fail. Famous rocker Eric Burdon has rejected pressure to bow out of a performance in Israel and will appear with Israel legendary band T-Slam on August 1.

Despite the very best efforts of the very biggest haters, rock-n-roll legend Eric Burdon – star of the classic ’60?s rock band the Animals, War and solo careerist – will play in Israel. He will be performing on August 1 with the 80?s era Israeli band T-Slam.

The Israeli musician and co-founder of T-Slam, Izhar Ashdot, had personally invited Burdon to join them in a concert in Israel.

It’s been an on, then off, and now back on appearance promise by Burdon who originally announced he would be appearing with T-Slam after Ashdot personally invited him.

When Ashdot and fellow T-Slam band member Yair Nitzani met with Burdon in Vienna recently, the British musician informed them he had received messages from many people, asking him to refuse to play in Israel. But, as the Jerusalem Post reported, Burdon initially told the Israeli musicians, “It’s impossible to prevent music. Everyone needs music and there’s no connection to current politics. Everyone has the right to be entertained.”

Despite those brave words, briefly, Burdon decided to cancel his appearance after his wife and manager, Mariana Burdon, claimed there were not only requests for Eric Burdon not to play in Israel, but threats of physical violence as well.

However, as of Monday, July 29, the gig was back on.

In response to the prodding of the insatiable haters of Israel at the blog known as Mondoweiss (naturally, the creator of the blog is a Jewish anti-Zionist named Philip Weiss), Ashdot explained why, actually, no, he does not support a boycott of Israel, although he is against what he calls the “Occupation.”

The reporter Ira Glunts preened about supporting the boycott and about writing on Ashdot’s Facebook page that although he loved the Israeli singer’s huge anti-”Occupation” hit, “A Matter of Habit,” he was disappointed that the Israeli musician did not use the fact that Burdon had cancelled to “address the evils of the occupation and how it isolates Israel from the world community. In addition, I recommended that he address the occupation at the concert which was scheduled to go forward without Burdon.”

According to Glunts, Ashdot shut him down.

The singer wrote, among other expressions of disagreement with the thoughts express [sic] in my message: I am afraid that you miss the principal point. The song “A Matter of Habit” is the way in which Alona [the song’s lyricist and Izhar’s life partner] and I express ourselves in regard to the occupation and the damage that it causes our children. Burdon not coming to Israel disappoints me very much, but just as I am against the occupation, I am against boycotts. I, myself, have appeared more than once in the occupied territories, in front of settlers, they are part of my people and one day we must welcome them back without regard to their politics. [My translation, IG.]

Eric Burdon became a musician in the early 1960?s with the band which became known as The Animals. They were a hugely popular part of the “British Invasion” of the United States by British rock bands. Like the Beatles, the Animals also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. By the latter half of the 1960?s the band fell apart due to personnel changes and financial mismanagement. Burdon had a solo career, was part of other popular bands including “War” (“Spill the Wine”) and is still performing at age 71.

Despite the name of Burdon’s second band, he is clearly not someone who embraces the concept of war. It won’t be surprising if Burdon and Ashdot decide to – or feel the need to – speak out against Israeli violence at their concert. Perhaps they’ll even mention Arab terrorism? Nonetheless, a political disagreement is not the same thing as a decision to engage in economic warfare, and Ashdot, and now Burdon, refuse to be a part of that nefarious effort.

So Eric Burdon will bring his voice and his presence to Israel, and this is another “brick in the wall” against Zionophobia.

Rather than, as some Zionophobes suggested, Burdon and Ashdot sing “I Gotta Get out of This Place,” meaning, Israel, perhaps the two will instead sing together a different one of the Animals’ best known anthems: “Don’t Let Me be Misunderstood.”

Mondoweiss:

‘According to a personal message I received yesterday (Sunday) from Izhar Ashdot, Eric Burdon will be performing in Israel despite reports that he had cancelled his scheduled appearance due to alleged threats from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists. Mondoweiss covered the reported cancellation, as well as the U.S. Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott statement denying that the BDS movement uses violent threats.

Ashdot is a founding member of the popular Israeli rock group Tislam. He personally invited Burdon to appear with his group on stage on August 1 in an amphitheater in Binyamina, Israel. Ashdot wrote me that Burdon would be arriving in Israel today (Monday) and quoted the British rock legend as telling him that, “… he will stand by his promise of two weeks ago: ‘I believe in everyone’s right to music, without connection his/her politics.’” The Jerusalem Post reported that the legendary British rocker told Ashdot:

It’s impossible to prevent music. Everyone needs music and there’s no connection to current politics. Everyone has the right to be entertained.

…

I sent the Israeli rocker Annie’s post via Asdot’s Facebook page. I expressed admiration for his courage in answering the criticism of his song’s trenchant protest against the occupation and elucidation of the corrosive role of the military in its perpetuation. But I also expressed my “disappointment” that he did not use the Burdon cancellation to address the evils of the occupation and how it isolates Israel from the world community. In addition, I recommended that he address the occupation at the concert which was scheduled to go forward without Burdon.

Ashdot did not take kindly to my suggestion. The singer wrote, among other expressions of disagreement with the thoughts express in my message:

I am afraid that you miss the principal point. The song “A Matter of Habit” is the way in which Alona [the song’s lyricist and Izhar’s life partner] and I express ourselves in regard to the occupation and the damage that it causes our children. Burdon not coming to Israel disappoints me very much, but just as I am against the occupation, I am against boycotts. I, myself, have appeared more than once in the occupied territories, in front of settlers, they are part of my people and one day we must welcome them back without regard to their politics. [My translation, IG.]

Screenshots from Eric Burdon’s Facebook page wall