“Any self-respecting liberal should be able to support the principles of freedom, justice and equality anywhere in the world.”
“Israel does not represent all Jews in the world and they are not a monolithic group.”
“Apartheid is a universal crime.”
“Whether exiled Palestinians want to return to Palestine, it is their inalienable right to do so.”
“Cultural boycott has grown rapidly with many artists refusing to tour in Israel.”
“Peace to the oppressed is meaningless without JUSTICE.”
“Churches and Mosques have been co-opted by the Israelis and used as cattle barns, bars, etc.”
“Self determination = ending all three forms of Israeli oppression”.
“11.22 million Palestinians in the world. 69% of the population are refugees”.
“Equality or nothing!” -Edward Said .”
“93% of the land in Israel is for Jews only”.
“At the very least, do no harm. Remove your support for Apartheid.” “Refuse to support evil.”
(I asked via @USACBI “would you please ask Omar whether he thinks the increased mobilisation by Israel against BDS is measure of effectiveness? and whether he sees any other signals from Israel as to the effectiveness of BDS?”)
“Israeli anti-boycott law shows Israel sees boycott as threatening & drops last vestiges of true democracy.”
“Israel cannot bomb ideas and morals into submission, which is why Palestinians should maintain the moral high ground”.
My comment: not taking a firm stand against all bigotry, prejudice and racism is cognitively dissonant with any movement grounded in human rights and discredits such a movement. It is the argument which is necessary to attack, rather than make speculation about behaviour. Personal attacks are always poor fallacious substitutes for argument.
Related Links
Omar Barghouti at the University of Maryland: “BDS is not a central command, it’s not a political party — it’s a global rights movement,” Barghouti said. “At the core of this is our deep belief that moral right can and should prevail over military might.”
“As a human rights activist I identify with the cultural boycott of Israel”.
The Festival says it will sue – yet instead it could direct its ire toward the apartheid Israeli regime against which BDS is the tactic chosen by Palestinian civil society with the international grassroots community in solidarity, since the international political community has failed to enforce 35 UN Security Council resolutions against Israel or prosecute it for its horrendous contraventions of the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity of apartheid, colonialism and collective punishment.
Ynet reports on the Festival’s promoter’s reaction to the cancellation (translation from Hebrew):
During the conversation, there was no time to be angry because we were in a state of crisis management and had only a few hours until Cassandra was supposed to board a train to the airport. These were hours of decision and the conversation was pertinent. She sent me examples of emails she received and my impression was that it was just a vocal minority.
I told her that in recent years the rate of tours of A-list artists in Israel is only increasing, and I gave as an example among others, Madonna, who will open her national tour and Guns N’ Roses announced their arrival. Everyone who was and will be here exercises deliberation and beyond that her decision is puzzling, because the subject never came up in the past and she is not a girl but an active artist who chose enter a contract with us and has already received full payment.
…
“The festival is not less good without Cassandra Wilson.”
The 56- year-old, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist has delved into numerous musical areas over the last three decades, including jazz, blues, pop, country music and folk. She has released over 20 albums under her own name and recorded and performed with a wide range of artists, including celebrated jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pop crooner Elvis Costello and R&B and soul singer Luther Vandross.
You can express your appreciation of Cassandra’s act of solidarity by tweeting her at @reallycassandra or send a message here.
2012 is shaping up to be a great year for BDS cultural boycott wins – BDS is snowballing!
UPDATE 22/2/12
Israeli racists are now tweeting threatening, abusing messages to Cassandra Wilson.
@reallycassandra replies to one apartheidist tweeter: “you are sadly mistaken, ill-informed, and ignorant. I am closer to being a Semite than you will ever be. Racist? Impossible.” #
Other tweeters slam the cancellation as being one at Palestinian request, ludicrously and hypocritically calling for a boycott against her even whilst condemning the legitimate BDS call.
Grammy-winning jazz singer Cassandra Wilson has called off her scheduled concert in Holon tonight, after receiving requests from pro-Palestinian activists asking that she join an artistic boycott of Israel.
…
Tuesday morning’s surprising last-minute cancelation comes months after Wilson signed a contract to perform in Israel ? but only one day after she received full payment for her scheduled appearance, according to the director of the Holon Theater, Guy Telem.
Telem says he spoke with Wilson at length on Tuesday in an attempt to convince her not to cancel the appearance.
“Her first explanation was that she read recently about Israel’s intention to attack Iran and she feared for her safety and the safety of her people,” said Telem. He recommended she speak with official agencies in Israel and the United States to inquire about whether there were any official travel warnings, rather than relying on media reports. He also said such warnings have been in the media for months, including well before she signed the contract to travel to Israel.
Wilson later admitted that her decision stemmed from a desire to support Palestinians’ civil rights, Telem said.
Telem said he asked Wilson whether she actively supported the Palestinian cause before pro-Palestinian activists approached her about canceling tonight’s concert; Wilson had no answer, he said.
For legal reasons, Wilson refused to disclose the names of the groups that approached her, said Telem.
Haaretz then interprets and insinuates rather than reports:
It seems that she pulled a fast one and the singer’s manager has agreed to refund only part of the money as of now, he said. But the damage done to the festival is much greater than just her appearance fee and the damage to the theater’s reputation; there is also the matter of compensating the public and other large expenses related to the appearance.
…
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart canceled a performance in Israel in recent months, citing political reasons, and took on a more profitable deal in Malaysia instead.
The Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee met at the beginning of the month to discuss the boycott. It establisheded a special subcommittee to look into how to compensate Israeli promoters in the cases of politically motivated cancelations. The subcommittee is supposed to present its recommendations within 90 days, but no progress has yet been made.
While many artists have canceled appearances in Israel over the past few years for political reasons, it seems that many only develop their political awareness on the matter after they sign the contracts to perform. Promoters are now introducing clauses to protect against such cancelations, stipulating that the artist is aware of possible political pressure to cancel their appearance.
The promoters might also make the performers aware of the highly developed and well-funded duplicitous Israeli propaganda campaigns which attempt to convince artists to perform regardless of the global boycott movement, along with a full kit explaining why Israel is an apartheid, racist, settler colonial entity and why so many artists of conscience have decided to support the boycott.
… a coalition of artists — Artists Against Apartheid — called for a comprehensive boycott against CCFP, which they categorized as a “complicit propaganda institution seeking to normalize Israeli apartheid and strongarm entertainers into its service.”
CCFP is also closely linked to StandWithUs (SWU), a US-based pro-Israel and anti-boycott organization devoted to expanding Israeli propaganda on US college campuses and crushing Palestine solidarity activism in local communities. As The Electronic Intifada reported, SWU has tight ties with the Israeli government to combat BDS.
…
As much money and effort that Israeli lobby groups are pouring into these propaganda ventures to battle the expanding BDS movement, it is a clear indication that they’re feeling the heat. With groups such as CCFP, AIEF, the Jewish Federations of North America and their public relations wing, the Jewish Community Relations Council, pouring millions of dollars into desperate attempts to stifle and censor Palestinian voices and the BDS movement, the BDS activism community will continue to hold Israel and its enablers accountable, from Tel Aviv to Hollywood.
Tweets of Support for Cassandra’s Cancellation
Please click to enlarge
DOUBLE HAPPINESS
Khader Adnan ends his steadfast 66 day hunger strike against Israeli arbitrary military detention without charge or trial. There are currently 309 Palestinians held illegally by Israel in this manner.
In a move in support of human rights and justice, the New York Indie band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart announced they will not play Israel. Israel’s “Walla” press reports the cancellation was political.[1]
If you’ve not yet enjoyed their music, watch their video “Heart in Your Heartbreak”:
The group was contacted by pro-justice activists.
Bandmembers Peggy Wang, Kip Berman, Kurt Feldman and Alex Naidus join other artists such as Roger Waters and Maxi Jaxx of Faithless who have chosen to respect and or advocate for the boycott. This year has already seen cancellations by afro-beat musicians the Tuneyards, blues rocker Cat Power aka Chan Marshall, as well as the highly respected French intellectual Jacques Ranciére, who cancelled his visit to Israel, in which he was scheduled to give public lectures in Tel Aviv university.[2]
The cultural boycott continues to grow among artists of conscience, as the PACBI [3] continues to gain support for its peaceful non-violent approach. The end of South African apartheid was fueled by a similar but tactically different movement led by some high profile musicians in the UK and elsewhere.
Day 65 of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike against the totalitarian, ruthless Israeli regime and its criminal system of arbitrary military detentions without trial or charge which contravene the Geneva Conventions. After 64 years of Israeli land theft, brutalisation and racism, Palestinian people remain steadfast – they will NOT be broken by Israel and in the end justice and humanity will triumph.
Khader Adnan, Bobby Sands
by David Rovics
Khader Adnan grew up near Jenin City
You could say he was a product of his time
Ever since he was a kid he’d get arrested
Though he was never charged with any crime
Spending half his life in prison
A life lived like so many of his friends
Arbitrary and indefinite detention
Never knowing if your jail time would end
Khader Adnan was arrested last December
Again he wasn’t told the reason why
He was shackled, he was beaten, he was tortured
There beneath the Middle Eastern sky
Perhaps there was a moment when he realized
That right then, with his body, he’d say no
But from then on he refused to eat another meal
Like in Belfast not many years ago
Khader Adnan grew up in a war zone
But all the tanks and planes were only on one side
It was a type of war that they call occupation
Settlement, removal, fratricide
And anyone who talked about resistance
Who thought they did not deserve to be a slave
Would be looking down the barrel of a gun
And often find themselves inside an early grave
Khader Adnan loves his wife and daughters
And he likes to eat his daily bread
But in prison he can’t see his children
Or live life with the lady that he wed
So on behalf of all the children without fathers
He decided he had to strike a blow
He said I will have dignity or death
Like in Belfast not many years ago
Each time Khader Adnan was arrested
In prison he would learn a little more
And soon he became the teacher
And he’d talk about the times that came before
They talked about civil disobedience
They talked about the ballot and the gun
They talked about the Occupied Six Counties
And the H Blocks in 1981
Khader Adnan talked of perseverance
And how someday their people might be free
How someday they might hear their children laughing
Unafraid, how someday things could be
And then at 3:30 on one morning
The soldiers came, their rifles pointed low
And they took Khader Adnan from his family
Like in Belfast not many years ago
They say Khader Adnan is a terrorist
Just like they said of Bobby Sands
Because he dares speak out against injustice
Because he dares to make a stand
Because he dares believe that he is human
And he does not deserve to live this way
Because he dares to consider an alternative
Because he dares imagine a new day
Khader Adnan lost his liberty before he was born
To fight for life it’s death he must embrace
But just like others come before him
There are others waiting to take his place
And even the great powers can lose interest
In supporting such a vicious status quo
Because you can’t break a man who won’t be broken
Like in Belfast not many years ago.
We are citizens of Israel who support the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel’s policies of colonialism, occupation and apartheid towards the Palestinian people. We have recently learned of your planned concert in Israel, and therefore write in order to urge you not to come. Please hear us out.
Israel’s attempts to mask systematic human-rights abuses and decades-long oppression against the Palestinians, relies on its ability to maintain a progressive and democratic image in the eyes of the international community. Israel often goes as far as promoting itself as “the only Democracy in the Middle East”. Israel’s apartheid policies, however, are inherent even to something as seemingly light-hearted and joyous as a concert: Palestinian fans of your music living under the brutal military occupation of the West Bank or the hermetic siege of the Gaza Strip will be prohibited from coming to Holon and enjoy your performance. These 4 millions who are being denied their most fundamental rights include many Palestinian women, whom the Isha festival will certainly not empower.
Palestinian Freedom Riders have recently challenged Israeli segregated buses which they are not allowed to travel on. These buses carry instead Israeli settlers to and from their homes, illegaly built on stolen land.[1][2][3] The ethnic-supremacist state of mind does not end there, unfortunately, as we have learned only yesterday of the Tel-Aviv city councilman who appealed to the state to allocate segregated buses for African refugees and migrant workers in the city[4].
Prominent figures, including many musicians and artists, have come here to witness for themselves the treatment of Palestinians living under Israeli rule, and have vowed not to lend their legitimacy to these crimes.
Alice Walker made the following comments on her visit to Palestine: “Going through Israeli checkpoints is like going back in time to American Civil Rights struggle…I am a big supporter of BDS. I frankly think that it is the best, absolutely the best way.”[5]
“One of the things so painful to remember about the segregated south is that no matter what white people did to them black people were not allowed to fight back, not even with a word or a glance, hence the expression “reckless eye-balling” which led many a black person to be beaten or killed. The idea that the people of Palestine are not even supposed to fight back… To collectively punish them (by bombing and starvation) for electing their own government in a democratic election acknowledged by most observers to have been fair, is sadistic as well as internationally condemned as illegal.”[6]
Professor Robin Kelley offers this analysis: “My last book was about [the jazz musician] Thelonious Monk. … And so for people of my generation, the Israel-South Africa nexus, dispossession of Palestinians … these were the key questions for anyone politically active in the 1980s. … witnessed a level of racist violence that I hadn’t even seen growing up as a black person here in the States (laughs), I have to say, and I’ve been beat by the cops. The level of racist violence from the settlers is kind of astounding. … The key thing was the kind of engagement that helped us better understand why the boycott is central… And part of what the boycott does is it delegitimizes the claim that this is a normal situation. It’s not a normal situation, it’s a settler-colonial situation, a situation of oppression.”[7]
The Palestinian people are being denied some elementary freedoms: the freedom of movement, the freedom to access their stolen lands and the freedom to protest injustice without facing brutal repression.[8] Those living in the Gaza strip (56% of whom are children) live under a debilitating siege, limiting their access to water, medical supplies, and construction material.[9] This unimaginable situation takes place only an hour away from your scheduled performance. In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, 40 minutes away from the scheduled venue, kids are being abducted from their homes, in violation of international law, and taken into violent police interrogations with no access to their parents or a lawyer.[10]
Representatives of Palestinian civil society, including over 170 different organizations such as women, academic and workers organizations, have called for a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel’s policies. International artists are asked not to perform in Israel until it abides by its obligations under international law and reverses these policies.[11]The call is all the more relevant for a concert such as yours, which is scheduled to take place at a state-owned venue, as part of a state-sponsored event, sponsored by the municipality of Holon as well as the Israeli army radio station (Galei Tzahal).
Many artists have come to perform here with the good will and intention to use their art as a means of changing Israeli public opinion and spreading the message of peace. One such example would be that of Roger Waters. These artists have later come to realize that their performance, as well-meaning as it was, has been hijacked and used to send a green light to the ongoing Israeli policies of oppression.
We have therefore learned that not performing is important to the promotion of justice in this region, as Israeli policy makers are coming to understand that the international community does not approve of their brutal policies towards the people of Palestine. Some prominent artists have stated:
Roger Waters: “In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance. For me it means declaring my intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine, but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their governments racist and colonial policies, by joining a campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights demanded in international law.”[12]
Faithless: “We’ve been asked to do some shows this summer in your country and, with the heaviest of hearts, I have regretfully declined the invitation. While human beings are being willfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that this is either ‘normal’ or ‘ok’.”
Macy Gray: “I had a reality check and I stated that I definitely would not have played there if I had known even the little that I know now.”[13]
Understanding that the picket line has clearly been marked and that you cannot avoid taking a political stand on this matter, we are now asking you to take a moral stand. We ask that you reconsider your participation in whitewashing Israeli apartheid, please stand against oppression and for liberation, against deep rooted racism and in favor of justice and equality for all.
