Banksy, artist turned hotelier, has responded to an appeal from Palestinians, and withdrawn an invitation to English DJ Fatboy Slim to perform at a street party outside the new Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.
Fatboy Slim scheduled a Bethlehem appearance the day after his planned March 12 performance in Tel Aviv. Artists for Palestine UK (APUK), have appealed to the DJ to cancel his Israeli show.
Fatboy Slim has not responded, instead telling the Jerusalem Post on March 1 that he was unaware of any protests.
Now he can be in no doubt.
Artists for Palestine UK commented:
Banksy’s decision sends a signal to those artists who like to think that a guest appearance in the Occupied Territories gives them licence to perform at an Israeli venue. But performing in Tel Aviv today is the equivalent of performing in Sun City during the time of Apartheid; it can’t be cancelled out by the gesture of false symmetry, such as the one which Fatboy Slim was planning to make.
We congratulate Banksy, and appeal again to Fatboy Slim: it is not too late to change your mind; don’t take your music to an apartheid state.
Artists for Palestine UK
London, 8 March 2017
[1] https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/2017/02/05/artists-to-fatboy-slim-please-dont-play-tel-aviv/
Artists for Palestine UK 
It IS a stupid decision, is there a better way to proclaim Palestinian rights than to see the same artist perform both in Tel Aviv and Bethlehem. Most of us are looking up cooperation and not division.
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Cathy, ‘division’ is the fundamental purpose of the apartheid policies that produce two separate legal systems – one for Jews and one for non-Jews, the separation barrier that separates Palestinian from Palestinian, more that 50 discriminatory laws within the 67 borders, the annexation of Palestinian land for use by the Israeli state, and more. ‘Cooperation’ with apartheid is hardly an option, and has nothing to do with human rights.
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@artists for Palestine
That security Wall has prevented Palestinian homicide bombers crossing an open border in order to detonate themselves in Israeli towns , buses , markets , hotels killing over a thousand people and injuring thousands more. No sympathy for Palestinian inconvenience when weighed against murder and mayhem cynically instigated by venal Palestinian leaders . No terror no wall . It’s called cause and effect
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Sinclair, 1) Had the separation wall been built for reasons of security and not as a land grab, then Israel would have been within its rights to build a wall ON ITS OWN LAND. As it stands, the highest court on the planet (the ICJ) decreed the wall illegal back in 2004 and ordered it to be dismantled.
2) Apartheid policies, as defined by the United Nationals, are not ‘inconvenience’, they are illegal under international law.
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Well done Artists for Palestine and Banksy!
There are still artists I haven’t forgiven and will never listen to as they played in apartied South Africa. I still haven’t walked into Barclays Bank as they refused to divest from S.A.
It’s a powerful weapon and you are using it in a principled way.
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