Friday, 23 February 2018Rich Mix | Bethnal Green Road | London E1 6LATickets £12 advance purchase, £15 at the doorDoors 8pm As part of Israel Apartheid Week 2018, Artists For Palestine UK and War on Want aren’t missing a beat, presenting a compelling and unmistakable musical showcase of some of the leading musical wordsmiths of our time. The…
Our regular report on Israel’s war on Palestinian cultural life and expression.
Personal messages of solidarity and support to Lorde from Brian Eno and Roger Water, Peter Garbiel and more…
‘We deplore the bullying tactics being used to defend injustice against Palestinians and to suppress an artist’s freedom of conscience. We support Lorde’s right to take a stand.’
Statements by musicians Peter Gabriel and Robert Wyatt, poet Michael Rosen, playwright Caryl Churchill, writers Selma Dabbagh, Hari Kunzru and Ahmed Masoud, producer Kate Parker and filmmaker Ken Loach – on Trump and the occupation of Jerusalem.
Nick Cave declared his love for Israel, and the Israeli regime reciprocated, providing further proof, if any were needed, of the propaganda value to Israel of appearances by international artists. We have sampled, and repropduced below, tweets from nine Israeli government bodies and spokespeople and seven lobby groups, all of which work hard to counter the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) human rights movement and promote Israel’s interests.
“Who would have thought it, that Nick Cave would allow himself to ease the conscience of a major oppressor? No-one is ‘trying to silence artists’, it is children who are being silenced, it is a whole people that is being denied its right to exist, and it is common decency, not artistic freedom, that is at stake in Israel’s ongoing aggression towards the Palestinians… Fighting for common decency is a matter of solidarity — of maintaining a vision of what is right, in the face of overwhelming powers — and he has, by his vanity, broken a picket-line.” Andrew O’Hagan, author.
Waters: ‘Nick thinks this is about censorship of his music? What? Nick, with all due respect, your music is irrelevant to this issue, so is mine, so is Brian Eno’s so is Beethoven’s, this isn’t about music, it’s about human rights.’
Nick Cave has used the opportunity of a press conference in Israel to speak out about ‘silencing’. People around the world will be surprised to read that Cave has chosen not to speak out about the trial of the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour or the targeting of journalist Makbula Nasser in Israel; nor the indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial of Palestinian artists, journalists and human rights defenders in the occupied West Bank; nor of the denial of permits for Palestinians musicians or of cancer patients seeking to exit Gaza.
Not the Radiohead Experience
A musician from East Jerusalem said Israeli officials jeopardised his band’s UK tour last week by withholding his electric guitar at security at Ben-Gurion Airport
Apo Sahagian, the lead singer of Apo and the Apostles, said security officials held his guitar back for further testing, promising that it would be on the next EasyJet flight to Luton, but after three days there was still no sign.
Palestine Now: Documents of a Disappearance 1917–2017Saturday 4 November 2017, 11.30pm – 6pmZilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery, Presented by Artists for Palestine UK Marking 100 years since the Balfour Declaration took Palestinians’ fate out of Palestinian hands, this day-long event traces the legacy of colonialism – through films, readings, and special guest presentations. Sessions feature writers Ghada Karmi, Karma Nabulsi…
In the words of a recent UN report, ‘Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people’.
Domination means Palestinian writers under house arrest. Literary festivals broken up. Travel bans for actors and musicians. Social media under surveillance. Media centres raided and plundered. The normalized use of military force against a captive population. The steady expansion of illegal settlements.
‘You stand at a crossroads; you can either heed the cry, respect your brothers’ and sisters’ picket line and stand with them in their struggle for the basic human rights we all take for granted, or you can turn your backs on them, take the shilling, and entertain their lords and masters at the banquets and balls.’
In recent years, people promoting the mantras of ‘constructive engagement’ and ‘bridge-building’ with Israel have cited Professor Noam Chomsky in their defence. He is alleged to oppose the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005.
Artists for Palestine UK contacted Professor Chomsky to ask him to clarify his position.
Presented by MARSM in association with Artists for Palestine UK – Balfron Promise, the title of 47SOUL’s album and concert tour, refers in part to the Balfour Declaration, and also to the Balfron Tower in Tower Hamlets, where they once lived, and from where longstanding tenants were evicted as the block was gentrified. We’re delighted to support the 47SOUL preview party…
Artists for Palestine UK (APUK) strongly condemns threats made against British artist Kate Tempest as a result of her support for Palestinian rights. A poet, spoken word artist and author, Tempest is one of more than 1200 UK-based artists to sign APUK’s pledge to uphold the cultural boycott of Israel. This conscientious decision by so many principled artists stands in stark contrast to the shameful intimidation tactics, including personal threats, directed against Tempest, which led to the cancellation of her concert, scheduled for October 6th 2017 at Berlin’s former airport Tempelhof.
‘Dear Raymond Simonson,
We’re reading the blurb for Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat’s presentation on Tuesday at JW3, and curious to know if JW3 as an organisation supports the views it expresses.
The blurb says ‘Nir Barkat was 7 years old…when Israel’s capital was finally reunited’. You will know that the United Nations Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the International Court of Justice consider that East Jerusalem is Palestinian territory illegally occupied by Israel. Where does JW3 stand?’
Roger Waters, Ken Loach, Caryl Churchill and Thurston Moore are among many leading artists calling for London’s celebrated Roundhouse to cancel its involvement with a festival designed to promote Israel as a progressive and liberal destination with a ‘glittering’ capital city.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has made the following chapter, which focuses on ‘Brand Israel’, available to the BDS movement which seeks to unmask and challenge the weaponisation of culture in Israel’s war against Palestinians.
What are we to make of the UK’s main Jewish organisation calling for the Barbican to remove a video artwork from a science-fiction themed exhibition?
Apparently you had not seen ‘In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain’, the video installation by Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour and Danish author Søren Lind, when you chose to write to the Barbican to demand its removal.