Lately some musical artists have voiced that they had not heard of the cultural boycott of Israel, or they would have never scheduled to play in Israel. Tuba Skinny, of New Orleans was due to play for the Israeli Red Sea Jazz Festival, and just days before, they cancelled [2] after being informed of the boycott by humanitarians. Denise Jannah and Ramon Valle (of the Netherlands) became aware of the the boycott two days prior to their three scheduled concerts in Israel, they played in Israel anyway. Denise’s experience in Israel, and correspondence with BDS volunteers, evidently created in her great regret that she had played for the apartheid regime, and she has written a letter stating she now supports BDS, where she states:
Please let me start by telling you this: of a cultural BDS boycott Ramon and I had NO knowledge, none at all. This is where the problem started, for had I known I would have done things differently: the reasons for this boycott are valid.[1]
(Zdob si Zdub before the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in Düsseldorf.)Vintage punker Jello Biafara and advocate of the (USA) Green Party was also scheduled to play Israel, he also cancelled his performance. He was also unaware that his actions would be interpretated as showing support for Israeli apartheid. He thought he would be letting his Israeli fans down if he cancelled, and that his Israeli fans were all anti-zionist and against apartheid. He cancelled after Punks Against Apatheid [3] launched an extensive education campaign making him more aware of the PACBI’s call for a cultural boycott of Israel. [4]
Now Moldavian punkers Zdob si Zdub have announced on their “gigs” page that they will be in Tel Aviv at the Barby on 5 November. [5]
The chances are high that when they contracted to play in Israel, they were not informed of the boycott. Usually, the only way bands can often be contacted are through their booking agents or management. Punk bands are noted for making stands against government oppression. Punk bands are not known for breeching boycotts or crossing picket lines that exist for causes like human rights and justice. It can only be assumed that these punkers from Moldavia are not aware of the boycott because they have not been contacted. The BDS movement has not taken hold in Moldavia or Russia, and apparently it needs much wider exposure in the Netherlands and the USA.
As of this publishing, the contacts we have for these Moldavian punkers, who participated in the Eurovision Song 2011 Contest in Dusseldorf (and placed 12th) are:
on Facebook see http://www.facebook.com/zdobsizdub?sk=wall
Please participate in letting this band know what they are probably unaware of, that there is a cultural boycott on now of Israel. They they are being asked to respect this global call.
Zdob si Zdub, performing in Israel is a clear violation of support for human rights and justice. Punk music and apartheid don’t belong together.
EXTRACTS from Denise Jannah statement [for full statement see link below]
September 10, 2011.
Please let me start by telling you this: of a cultural BDS boycott Ramon and I had NO knowledge, none at all. This is where the problem started, for had I known I would have done things differently: the reasons for this boycott are valid. Saying this I do acknowledge all those in Israel who do want Peace and are equally tired of the whole situation. I too detest what is happening in Gaza and the way the Israeli government is going about, it’s all absolutely horrendous! And this is the same reason why Ramón and I have sincerely supported “Music For Gaza” in Rotterdam, September last year. This had not been my first time supporting the Palestine case, by the way, I once did through Amnesty International as well. To be accused of violating this boycott is extra painful to us. The boycott is supposedly a worldwide one, known also in all Europe. I hereby respectfully suggest to the BSDI to make sure that this becomes a 100% reality indeed. Because unless I seriously missed something I had never heard about it in the Dutch Jazz scene, and I am still to hear from any of my Dutch colleagues what they know about it; nor have I received word from any musical organization here in the Netherlands so far about this boycott, I’m sorry to say.
And then we are being urged -understandably so!- to cancel our concerts, just 2 days before. I have no objections against the open letter sent to us. I respect its writers, its contents, and agree with them/it too. But any serious working professional would know that breach of contracts will have legal consequences. Unfortunately no one of those pleading with us or downright accusing us have come forward with any idea whatsoever for a possible legal solution in this matter. In this light all we can do is stick to our sincere intention that we’ve had in the first place: to work through our Music with the talent that we’ve been blessed with to help spread Love, preach Peace, talk to people’s hearts and point out to everyone in our audience that we ALL have a responsibility to help make this world a better one, be it on a smaller or very big scale. And with all this in our hearts it’s extremely painful to have been accused of all we have been accused for and to have been called all that we were called unto this day.
The accusation that we work/have worked (in our case as musicians, work=to perform) for the Israeli government is very far from the truth and I strongly object and resent it. Maybe people don’t know this, but performing in a certain venue doesn’t automatically mean that one has been hired by that venue itself or whoever is behind it, as other musicians will also know. The agency that booked us for a few concerts is privately owned, besides: Jazz is considered commercial music and therefore doesn’t get any government support in Israel anyway. Anyone thinking that I would willingly perform for the Israeli state doesn’t know me at all. But I can’t blame anyone either. I’ll have to be content with knowing that they who really know me, will also know that I have never shied away from taking a stand, be it political or otherwise. Again I regret to not have known about the BDS boycott, and I also wish that Ramon and I, especially after “Music For Gaza”, had been informed personally, be it as a follow up, together with all the others that were involved that evening (or maybe they have been? I don’t know.) With better international information by BDS/BDSI, Ramón and I wouldn’t have to feel as if we’re standing trial today.
The Palestine people simply deserve their Freedom, their Justice, their Land, and I pray for Peace for the whole region.
In spite of everything I want to thank everyone who has reacted towards me/us this past week, no matter how harsh and painful it has been for me/us to swallow sometimes. I can still say thanks because I believe in the Divine who knows my heart, and I know too well that every experience is a learning one and that everything happens for a reason. No, my conscience has not been blinded (another one of the accusations), quite the contrary. The talks and encounters I’ve had while in Israel: I’m grateful for these chances of direct communication and enlightenment. The talks were with Israeli and non-Israeli who oppose their government/the Israeli regime and have dedicated themselves to the Palestine cause. We talked about me returning and crossing the border with them into Gaza. I have been on the Israeli radio in a live interview that was to be about my music, where I openly talked about me and Ramon performing for the children of Gaza at the event “Music for Gaza”, last year September, and what moved us to do so. And in that same live interview I also mentioned and talked about the BDS movement and its boycott: that I hadn’t known about it beforehand but that I fully agree with the reasons that have originated this boycott. I knew beforehand that I wouldn’t leave our strive for Peace and Justice untouched during our concerts, and I haven’t. Music is our art, and also our tool.
The BDS boycott and movement is a legitimate way to raise public awareness and a nonviolent way of resistance.
Please know that our strive for World Peace, which I think we all share has only gotten stronger since last week’s experience. And to use our talent as artists to keep giving our efforts accordingly, will be the only way, in moving forward from here on, to make up to everyone we have made feel let down.
Peace and Blessings,
It came to our attention recently that you had recorded a video, for Israeli press “Ynet” stating that you “just want to say ‘hi’ to all your fans in Israel, see you very soon in Tel Aviv.”
We know that you are aware that Shuki Weiss works tirelessly to promote musical events in Israel. Shuki has also persuaded Marianne Faithfull to record a video similar to yours. In fact, there are at least seven artists who appear to have been willing to vocalize, in videos, that they indeed WILL play in Israel.[1]
In one sense, we are pleased to see that cultural boycott campaigns are recognized as potentially effective in getting artists such as yourself to cancel. We have never seen any other nation except Israel, persuade artists to record videos such as these, and for good reason. No other nation has seen so many artists cancel their concerts, as a response to the rational and humanitarian call for a cultural boycott.
But, on the other hand, we want to remind you both, Marie and Per, that you each still possess the right to refrain playing in Israel. If even one of your duo feels that playing in Israel is indeed the wrong thing, then we urge that one to have the courage to refrain.
Please know that you are planning to play in Israel in violation of a boycott called for in 2005. This boycott was further intensified in 2009, after Israel’s many violations of international law and documented war crimes in Gaza. [2]
19-year old Swedish human rights worker Tove Johansson had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks. http://palsolidarity.org/2006/11/1726/
Israel’s illegal and violent actions on humanitarian aid volunteers in the summer of 2010 led to nine deaths on the Freedom Flotilla. Executions took place at close range, and multiple bullets were fired directly at the heads of these unarmed civilians, whose aim was solely humanitarian in nature, all by well-trained and armed Israeli commandos.
Did you know that the Israeli Navy acted as pirates, in international waters? Perhaps you have read the Kurt Wallander detective books. Did you know Swedish author Mankell fearlessly joined the flotilla in 2010? Afterwards he said “Israel has never before been so condemned. Israel has painted itself into a corner. The world does not look the same as it did a week ago.” Upon his return to Sweden, Mankell charged that “all the ships (in the flotilla) were hijacked, and this was really piracy.” [3]
Have you heard of Tove Johansson from Stockholm? Tove could very well be one of your fans. In November of 2006, Tove was brutally attacked by Israeli colonists resulting in a broken cheekbone, a fractured skull and damage to her eye muscles. Tove knows that Palestinians undergo this violence on a daily basis. She was attempting to walk small children to their homes from their school. She was spit at, then kicked, then attacked with a glass bottle. In a statement from the Swedish government :
“The Swedish government is dissatisfied with Israel’s investigation of an attack in the contentious West Bank city of Hebron that left a Swedish activist with a broken cheekbone, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. “We’re concerned that this hasn’t been followed up, and we intend to speak to the relevant authorities and ask for more information about the incident,” said Petra Hansson, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Foreign Ministry. ” [4]
Shuki wants you to think you are “playing for people, not for governments.” It would be utterly ridiculous for you to agree to play a concert for colonists in Ariel, and invite Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert.
Some Israelis are boycotting products made in the settlements. Some of your Israeli fans may disagree with their own government. Some of your Israeli fans may have even attended protests against the wall.
The small sacrifice your Israeli fans would have to make by not hearing you perform live is equivalent to nothing compared to the aims and goals of the boycott. Musicians who refrain from playing Israel are very humanitarian focused, and they usually agree that:
Racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel is wrong, and it resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa.
Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza is wrong and it violates international law and multiple UN resolutions.
The Palestinian Nakba is a fact. Israel is responsible for the Nakba — in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem — and Israel continues to refuse to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced. International law stipulates that they have a right to reparations or to return to their homes.
Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle, don’t you also agree that international law should be upheld and that the Palestinian people’s rights are as valid as any other people’s?
We hope you will refrain, as you put it so well, “Listen to your heart,” not to pressure from musical contracts.
Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
We are a group, of over 760 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.
[1] After a months long BDS campaign, the group August Burns Red, decided to cancel their concert in Israel. Their video still remains on Shuki Weiss’s youtube channel at the time of this publishing.
[2] See the Goldstone Report http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf
[3] See Wallander – writer may bar Hebrew Version of books http://hello.news352.lu/edito-46181-wallender-writer-may-bar-hebrew-version-of-books.html
[4] ISM Report: Swedish Human Rights Worker Viciously Attacked by Jewish Extremists in Hebron. http://palsolidarity.org/2006/11/1726/
As ancient geezers ourselves, we support the principle of keeping
going. So, the Yardbirds still playing gigs – excellent. The
Yardbirds playing a gig in Israel, which illegally occupies
Palestinian land and shows no sign of withdrawing – surely not.
Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty, founder members of the band –
when you were enjoying such success during the 1960s, the British
Musicians’ Union had a policy of boycotting apartheid South
Africa. We’ve been looking on-line for evidence that the Yardbirds
broke that ban, and we’re happy to say we can’t find any. The
world famous Yardbirds appear to have respected the South
African liberation movement’s call for artists and musicians to
assist them by denying legitimacy to the racist state.
Have you thought through the implications of your appearance at
the Barby Club in Tel Aviv on October 29? You’re telling
Palestinian civil society organisations that are similarly calling for
a cultural boycott of Israel that their dispossession and their
oppression don’t matter. The Palestinian Teachers’ Federation;
the Writers’ Federation; the League of Palestinian Artists; the
General Union of Palestinian Women; and many others – your
performance at the Barby will in effect tell all of these people that
you side with the Israeli military occupation, that you don’t mind
helping to airbrush the cruelties of racism and ethnic cleansing,
and that you’re happy to behave as if there isn’t a Palestinian
struggle for liberation and justice.
So we’re hoping you might think again.
Here’s Roger Waters talking about why he supports the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Here are
Faithless and other musicians singing ‘Freedom for Palestine’.
Here is Elvis Costello explaining why he withdrew from his two
scheduled concerts in Israel.
There’s a wave, Yardbirds – a whole international wave of people
supporting justice for the Palestinians via consumer boycotts,
academic boycotts, cultural boycotts. You can cancel your gig and
ride that wave – or you can let one night at the Barby dash you on
the shore. Please think again. Please don’t go.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Haim Bresheeth
Mike Cushman
Professor Adah Kay
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Please reply to: BRICUP, BM BRICUP, London WC1N3XX
email: www.bricup.org.uk
The next protest against illegal Israeli occupation sponsor, Max Brenner, is in Newtown on Saturday, September 10 at 1pm, and Australia’s demented version of the white supremacist British EDL, the Australian Defence League and Australian Protectionist Party (APP), will be there to protest alongside Zionist white supremacists against BDS.
The NSW leader of the APP, Darrin Hodges, is an ex-Stormfront forum member who once opined that “[Hitler] laid a foundation that we should build on” but who now identifies The Muslim rather than The Jew as being Public Enemy #1. Martin Brennan, the former leader of the ADL, was last month deported back to England as an illegal immigrant but looks forward to joining the EDL as they attempt to march through Tower Hamlets on September 3 (slight problem being police have banned the march). One of Brennan’s closest supporters was another foreigner named Roberta Moore, former leader of the EDL’s ‘Jewish Division’: on the one hand, Moore was unhappy with the number of ‘Nazis’ belonging to the group; on the other hand, the EDL was unhappy with Moore’s cultivating links with the ‘Jewish Task Force’.
In an Australian JDL Facebook group now secret or defunct and assisted by Meir Weinstein from the Canadian JDL (which collaborates with the Canadian EDL), Ms Moore offers Australian JDLers assistance lining up Australian Defence League honcho Martin Brennan with the Australian Jewish Defence League, which is supporting a demonstration against an Islamic Conference early in July.
Boycott, divestment and sanctions are the principled non-violent method chosen by Palestinian people to oppose the illegal Israel Occupation, to end Israel’s apartheid, for equal rights and the recognition of Palestinian people’s rights to return to their lands. BDS was one of the primary methods used by the anti-apartheid movement to end white South African apartheid.
Recently, Zionists and white supremacists including from the Australian Patriotic Defence Movement (APDM), a fascist organistion here in Australia, joined forces to oppose a BDS protest near Max Brenner in Brisbane. Birds of a feather protest together.
While the Fairfax press is quick to smear BDS falsely as anti-semitic, it neglects to examine the far right white supremacist anti-semites who protest alongside the their zionist counterparts. White supremacists who support Israel’s apartheid regime hate Arabs only slightly less than they hate Jews. The alliance between the odd bedfellows is an opportunistic, twisted marriage of convenience.
“People are angry, but they can’t explain why.” I’d suggest someone made a similar mash up of the Cronulla times 50 loon over at Slack Bastard’s, except his voice sounds more like a jackhammer than anything remotely associate with music. Maybe I need to listen to some TISM for inspiration. And the Brechtian further incarnation – Root!
These two fallacies play directly into the Zionist regimes’ interminable ‘security’ hasbara, which is code for zionist expansionism and disposal of its surplus ‘sub-human’ Palestinians. Zionism treats Palestinians as sub-human, in the same way as white supremacists regard Jews. Zionism resonates well with the sense of entitlement other settler colonial entities have over surplus sub-humans in their colonies, often including the way these other settler colonial entities have treated Jews.
UPDATE 8/8/11
The AJDS releases a despicable document in which the most shameful thing besides trivialising the holocaust, impugning bds activists as antisemites and nazi supporters and slandering Australians for Palestine is it makes no mention of the white supremacist far right nationalists aligning directly with anti-BDS zionists against legitimate protest by Palestinians and supporters for rights. So much for ‘democratic’. Apparently, the Palestinian protest isn’t polite enough for these apologists for apartheid.
The next protest against illegal Israeli occupation sponsor, Max Brenner, is in Newtown on Saturday, September 10 at 1pm, and