Artswatch Palestine: December – March 2019
Our digest of news from Israel’s cultural war against the Palestinians
Censorship & silencing
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Artswatch Palestine: September- November 2018
Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa (pictured) was on her way to Palestine Literature Festival when she was denied entry to her homeland, held in a prison cell, then flown back to the United States. Our digest of news from Israel’s cultural war against the Palestinians Dareen Tatour Dareen Tatour, Palestinian poet and citizen of Israel, was…
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Artswatch Palestine: June-August 2018
Artswatch: June-August report-
*Gaza – The War Against Culture.
*Gaza – The War Over Meaning
*Gaza – The Forbidden Subject
*Tatour – The Forbidden Poet
*Nakba – The Forbidden History
*Daniel Barenboim: Israel Is An Apartheid State
*Artists In Opposition To Israel’s Policies -
Patti Smith, Massive Attack, Viggo Mortensen among 70+ artists demanding free speech on Palestine
The full length version of the letter affirms that, ‘Boycotts which are anchored in universal human rights and aimed at achieving justice for marginalized and oppressed communities are a legitimate nonviolent tactic. They have been used worldwide, including against apartheid in South Africa and the Jim Crow segregation laws in the United States.’
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Young Fathers affirm support for Palestinian rights despite cancellation by German arts festival
“Regrettably, Young Fathers will not appear at Ruhrtrienalle Festival this year as the organisers have decided to cancel our show due to our views opposing the current Israeli Government’s grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people and our support of the non-violent and anti racist human rights movement, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
We feel it is a wrong and deeply unfair decision by the festival to take this stance and to also ask us to distance ourselves from our human rights principles in order for the appearance to go ahead…”
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Artswatch Palestine: October – December 2017
Our regular report on Israel’s war on Palestinian cultural life and expression.
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Leading artists stand with Lorde
‘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.’
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Artswatch Palestine: August-September 2017
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.
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Despite threats Kate Tempest affirms her support for Palestinian rights
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.
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Open Letter to the Board of Deputies of British Jews
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.
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Artswatch Palestine: June-July 2017
Our regular report on Israel’s war on Palestinian cultural life and expression. In this edition:
* How Israel maintains a free and thriving press
* Tatour – progress measured in small victories
* Theatre under seige in Acre
* Mohammed Bakri in France
* On not crossing borders (1): Gaza to Nablus is an impassable road
* On not crossing borders (2): the visa problems of a Palestinian photographer
* On not crossing borders (3): Thom Yorke and Abu Rahss -
Artswatch Palestine: April-May 2017
Artswatch Palestine: April-May 2017.
* Pinkwashing rejected
* The trial of Dareen Tatour
* The detention of Abu Sakha
* The banning of International Women’s Day
* A war of aggression on Amazon
* Ten years of PalFest
* On the red carpet in Gaza
* Regev’s dress at Cannes -
Artswatch Palestine: February-March 2017
ARTWATCH DIGEST: FEBRUARY – MARCH 2017
* Raiding Jenin
* Raiding Aida
* Shutting down a Theatre
* Controlling the film industry
* Putting poetry on trial
* Making Music -
Immediate Threat to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech
These are outrageous interferences with free expression, and are direct attacks on academic freedom. As academics with positions at UK universities, we wish to express our dismay at this attempt to silence campus discussion about Israel, including its violation of the rights of Palestinians for more than 50 years. It is with disbelief that we witness explicit political interference in university affairs in the interests of Israel, under the thin disguise of concern about antisemitism.
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ARTSWATCH December 2016 – January 2017
Regev Watch Miri Regev, Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sport, has commented , 27th December, on the change of presidency in the United States: ‘Obama is history,’ said Regev. ‘We have Trump.’ Christian Viveros-Fauné, writing in Artnet, suggests that ‘like Trump, the Likud politician consistently engages in a brazen, counter-factual brand of right-wing populism’. Viveros-Fauné charts the growing scope…
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Call for support for ‘Ambulance’ director Mohamed Jabaly
ARTISTS FOR PALESTINE UK STATEMENT The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) and the Norwegian Immigration Tribunal have refused to grant Palestinian film-maker Mohamed Jabaly a work visa to allow him to tour with his first film, Ambulance (2016), and to make a second film with his Norwegian producers, in Tromsø, Norway. Artists for Palestine UK (APUK)…
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Mohammad Abu Sakha: in prison for making children happy
One year after he was arrested by Israeli forces, Palestinian circus teacher Mohammad Abu Sakha (pictured,on left) is still behind bars, and without charges.
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One Hundred Years and Counting: Britain, Balfour, and the Cultural Repression of Palestinians
This report looks at the repression of Palestinian cultural expression by Israel and collusion and censorship here in the UK by British government ministers. It traces this relationship back to the wording of the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The briefing offers an essential perspective for understanding Israel’s attempts to erase the Palestinian past and future, and proposes practical steps groups such as ours can take here in the UK to end the silencing of Palestinian voices and perspectives.
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ARTSWATCH November 2016
The dangers of satire A blog by ‘John Brown’ in +972 magazine (27thNovember) reports on recent experiences of the Bedouin blogger Anas Abudaabes. The wild fires that swept through Northern Israel in mid-November provoked some Facebook posters in neighbouring countries into words of celebration. Abudaabes responded satirically, writing that the way to earn the respect of posters like these…
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ARTSWATCH October 2016
‘The National Puppet Theatre of Israel’ Habima, Israel’s National Theatre, has announced that in mid-November it will put on a show in Kiryat Arba. Kiryat Arba is a settlement in territory illegally occupied by Israel, and a place which, in the words of an editorial in Ha’aretz (26th October), ‘has become a symbol of the injustices of the…
