war crimes

January 12, 2013December 11, 2020

Arutz Sheva’s Gutter Yellow “Journalism” Smears Stanley Jordan

The online news service, Israel National News, has misrepresented the reporting on Jordan’s cancellation from this blog. A link to the story from the INN dizzying spin would have enabled readers to determine the truth of the matter. Is this too much to ask of Israel’s mainstream media?

On the 6th January, following effective advocacy from supporters of the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, Stanley Jordan, who was to headline the Red Sea Jazz Festival at Eilat this month announced that he was cancelling his gig, apologising for any inconvenience caused.

With an embarrassing display of gutter journalism, INN implies that this blog reported Stanley Jordan as having had his “hayday [sic] in the 80s” bowing “to a cultural boycott by Arab sympathizers after initially chosing [sic] to honor his commitment and “hold a special event later on in the year to promote justice for Palestinians.””. Is Israel so far up against its apartheid wall that it now selects hasbeens to headline its Festivals?

Jordan is a major jazz fusion performing and recording star, who has played with the likes of Miles Davis, Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie, and who has developed a unique two-handed tapping guitar technique. He is also an academic specialising in music therapy. Sometimes the best therapy for dysfunction is to withhold music altogether.

Israel’s opportunistic government unashamedly uses all culture as propaganda – apparently it is not beneath its media propaganderists to misuse cancellations by principled artists after calls to boycott to misquote the messenger and smear the artist as well. Yet perhaps the headline of the INN story betrays how close the Israeli-government sponsored festival was to closing after Jordan’s cancellation.

Eilat Jazz Show to Go On Without Stanley Jordan http://t.co/0Gm77OFv

— Arutz Sheva Briefs (@israelnatbriefs) January 11, 2013

Artists who still have not committed to cancelling their entertainment of apartheid at the Red Sea Jazz Festival and respecting the boycott are Erik Truffaz, Benjamin Taubkin, Marcelo Pretto, Jacky Terrasson, Yuri Honing, E J Strickland, Wolfert Brederode and the Motion Trio. To help persuade these artists to stand on the right side of history with the oppressed Palestinian people demanding justice, freedom and human rights, information for action is available on the Boycott the Red Sea Jazz Festival facebook page.

Thus far, artists who have cancelled their performances at this year’s Red Sea Festival include the Portico Quartet, Andreas Öberg and Stanley Jordan. Before the 2012 Israeli Government-sponsored Eilat festival, Tuba Skinny decided to refuse to play while in Rome en-route to Israel after receiving information about the cultural boycott, only a few days prior to their scheduled gig. Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri of Puerto Rico and jazz musician Jason Moran of Houston followed Tuba Skinny, cancelling their appearances at the Festival. None of these artists have rescheduled performances in Israel to date.

Note to INN – this is the Kadaitcha blog, which publishes many different writers and sources, including @Jinjirrie. The story on Stanley Jordan’s cancellation from the Red Sea Jazz Festival was sourced from Don’t Play Apartheid Israel and first published on the Refrain Playing Israel blog.

First Win for Cultural Boycott in 2013 : Stanley Jordan Cancels

Stanley Jordan headlines 2013 Eilat Festival BREAKING: American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist Stanley Jordan has decided to respect the cultural boycott of Israel, and cancel his planned appearance as the headlining artist for the Israel Red Sea Jazz Festival (his image was used to create publicity posters in Hebrew for the state-funded event).

Jordan engaged in a long discussion on his facebook fan page with many people including Palestinians. He initially chose not to respect the cultural boycott call but rather perform in Israel, and then hold a special event later on in the year to promote justice for Palestinians.

https://twitter.com/stanley_jordan/status/287652054288191488

There is an outpouring of support for his decision to cancel ((see screenshot below).

Jordan’s cancellation comes on the heels of cancellations by other Jazz musicians who were featured artists at the same festival. Both Portico Quartet and Andreas Öberg refused to play in Israel. Groups in France and Switzerland are asking Erik Truffaz to refrain playing in Israel. A Dutch group has asked Yuri Honing to also cancel.

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel

We are a group of 950 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians and 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.

JOIN Boycott the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Apartheid Israel on Facebook

SOURCE

Stanley Jordan Cancels – Facebook Thread

How Zionists Use State-Sponsored Antisemitism

State-sponsored antisemitism has been used as a deliberate strategic ploy by zionist leaders from the inception of political zionism at the end of the 19th century till the present day.

Joseph Massad explains in his excellent latest oped:

‘Palestinians understood well these arguments and always insisted and insist that their struggle is against Jewish colonisation of their lands and not against Jews qua Jews. When Khaled Meshal arrived in Gaza a couple of weeks ago and made a speech to that effect, he insisted: “We do not fight the Jews because they are Jews. We fight the Zionist occupiers and aggressors. And we will fight anyone who tries to occupy our lands or attacks us.”‘

Antisemitism – anti-Jewish bigotry – like other forms of bigotry and racism, serves noone except the ruling elite. Resist!

December 15, 2012December 11, 2020

Stanley Jordan, Please Respect the Boycott of Israel

Dear Stanley Jordan,

We are aware that you, Kenwood Dennard and Alex Blake, are slated to play at the Eilat Red Sea Jazz Festival in January, 2013, and wish to persuade you to reconsider and cancel. In 2005, Palestinian civil society called for boycott as a principled tactic to achieve justice and the rights denied to them by Israel. SInce then, prominent musicians such as Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Cat Power, Cassandra Wilson and many others have responded in solidarity and with vocal support. The Portico Quartet has already cancelled their performance at Eilat. A letter sent to the director of the band said that “the decision to cancel the arrival of the ensemble Israel stems directly from the Israeli government’s decision to build 3,000 housing units in E1”.

The call to boycott is made to people of conscience across the globe because governments have refused or been unable to act to implement justice guaranteed to Palestinian people under international law. The Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is similar to the effective means employed by anti-apartheid activists to end South African apartheid. Noted anti-apartheidists like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Alan Boesak, Ronnie Kasrils and others have stated that the apartheid practised by Israel is far worse than that which they experienced in South Africa.

As you observe in your NLP studies, while music can be employed as a healing tool, 65 years of music have not healed Israel’s constant oppression of the Palestinians and denial of their basic human rights. Music has not helped to end the criminal occupation of Palestinian lands, to allow equal rights for all in Israel and to recognise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Israel continues to steal Palestinian land and prevent the Palestinian people from attaining self-determination, while pretending to be for ‘peace’ under the pretext of interminable negotiations, ‘security’ and ‘the right to defend itself’.

In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry specifically denoted all culture as propaganda, a means to obscure Israel’s oppression, to anaesthetise its first class citizens from the results of their state’s actions, to dehumanise Palestinians and send a false message to the world that all is normal. Musicians who breach the boycott are used to promote these lies and are flaunted on Israel’s propaganda sites to bolster excuses for ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Portico Quartet supports BDS — Portico Quartet announcement of support for BDS – http://www.facebook.com/porticoquartetmusic/posts/10152308885645234

Please do not compromise yourself and your music by being appropriated and used in this way against a moral right. Music can move the spirit of the planet, yet it can also drown out the cries of oppressed people.

As the powerful entity in this grossly unequal situation, Israel intends to dominate the message, and sees all criticism of its crimes as delegitimising. Nevertheless, the truth about its oppression is beginning to ring out clearly. You can assist Palestinian people in gaining their rights by choosing to do no harm to their chosen tactic of resistance – please cancel, and stand in solidarity with the voiceless who rely upon those who can use their voice to support their just cause.

Best regards

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel

December 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Roger Waters Speaks at the UN Against Israel’s Oppression of Palestinians

Text trancript of Roger Waters’ UN speech – the full text of Waters’ address is below the UN transcript

“The BDS movement, which has spread from Palestinian civil society to activists around the world, is part of that non-violent resistance and I support it whole heartedly, but let us be clear that the disparity of power, and the reality of the occupation, and the response of the occupied is the reality we face unless we find recourse in international law and hold all parties to it. “

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The 3rd of December, 2012, marks 2000 days of siege by Israel on the people of Gaza – collective punishment, a crime against humanity. End Israel’s oppression and apartheid, equal rights for all, recognise the right of Palestinians to return to their lands, and until these are achieved, boycott, divest from and sanction Israel!

Don’t forget to boycott Israeli goods for Christmas – and join the campaign in Melbourne

Following the UN vote admitting Palestine as a non-member observer state, Netanyahu has announced 3,000 more illegal Jews-only settler houses in Occupied East Jerusalem. The reactions of Western governments has been one of horror as they believe this development will make two states geographically impossible, as if two states weren’t already geographically impossible. Still, their concern for protecting the mirage of the possibility of two states blows their continued support for Israel as a willing negotiator if only the Palestinians would negotiate, out of the water. The UK mutters about diplomatic withdrawals – I’ll wake up a little more if the UK threatens an arms boycott. Otherwise this sort of thing is symbolic. It may cause Israel to feel more isolated, delegitimised and even belligerent. There’s a couple of possibilities the zio-elite may have in mind to get their noxious impunity from the West back – the obvious is to precipitate another conflict. Otherwise is an early election possible? Netanyahu on the other hand may have decided to go for broke and to snatch Area C in the West Bank in total.

“Those who place their hope in the Palestinian Authority taking steps to hold Israel to account naively failed to grasp that the Palestinian Authority essentially manages the occupation for Israel
through its “security coordination” with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has “always been the obedient servant of the United States and Israel.” It must not be forgotten that in October 2009, Abbas, under pressure from Israel, the United States and European diplomats, abandoned a resolution requesting the UN Human Rights Council to forward Judge Richard Goldstone’s Report on war crimes in Gaza to the UN Security Council for further action.

Meanwhile, the settlement expansion and land and water expropriation will persist unabated, and Israel will continue to cement its status as an apartheid state.”

How will Israel and the adminstrators of its occupation in the West Bank and Gaza keep up their pretence now? Ban ki Moon: “Israel’s construction plans ‘fatal blow’ to the two-state solution”.

Other Links

The Indonesian occupation of West Papua must be challenged and ended.
Senator Faulkner’s speech is wide-ranging and well worth reading in full, particularly in regard to transparency of political donations and corporate accountability.

Tag: war crimes