Tag: Israel

Over 1,000 musicians support Eurovision boycott over Israel inclusion

“As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal.”

Leading figures including Paul Weller, IDLES, Primal Scream, Paloma Faith, Kneecap and Sigur Ros are among more than 1,000 musicians supporting the boycott of Eurovision. In an open letter published today by No Music for Genocide, the signatories say the contest will “whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians.”

The artists, including former Eurovision winners Emmelie de Forest and Charlie McGettigan, say they “stand in solidarity with Palestinian calls for public broadcasters, performers, screening party organisers, crew, and fans to boycott Eurovision” until the contest’s organisers ban Israel, due to what an independent UN Commission of Inquiry has described as its genocide in Gaza.

Following the 95th General Assembly of Eurovision organisers the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Geneva last December – where members voted in favour of reforms but did not suspend the Israeli broadcaster KAN – five European broadcasters withdrew.

The musicians supporting the boycott, who include over 100 from the UK such as Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Nadine Shah, and Charlotte Church, said: “We applaud the principled withdrawals of the Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Slovenian, and Dutch broadcasters, and the many national selection finalists committing to refuse to go to Eurovision. Just as artists stood against oppression in South Africa, we stand together now.”

After the General Assembly, it was revealed by Israeli media that Israeli president Isaac Herzog had launched “an intensive, months-long diplomatic campaign that unfolded largely behind the scenes,” lobbying European broadcasters to support Israel’s inclusion. Responding to the news, José Pablo López, the president of Spanish broadcaster RTVE said: “Israel maneuvered in the shadows for months. What seemed like a democratic debate in Geneva was just a farce cooked up in backroom offices… The government of Israel will continue using the festival as it sees fit.”

The artists, including Young Fathers, Macklemore, Hot Chip, and Roger Waters, highlighted that Herzog was “named in South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice for inciting to genocide.” The International Association of Genocide Scholars, meanwhile, has said that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, as have leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International.

The EBU swiftly banned Russia over its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, saying at the time that “the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s Contest would bring the competition into disrepute.” The musicians, including Idles, Young Fathers and Hot Chip say: “Yet more than 30 months of genocide in Gaza – alongside ethnic cleansing and land theft in the besieged West Bank – aren’t considered sufficient to apply the same policy to Israel.”

The letter, whose signatories include Mogwai, 47 Soul and Peter Gabriel,  added: “there are moments in time when passive silence is not an option. We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies, Arts Sponsorship, War Crimes: Briefing

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In Britain, around 450 cultural organisations are currently partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies. The information below should make those organisations think again.

As well as being a major funder of arts projects across the world, Bloomberg Philanthropies funds the Bloomberg-Sagol Center for City Leadership at Israel’s Tel Aviv University. The Center provides leadership training to municipal officials, including those governing settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, which Israel occupies illegally.

The establishment of settlements in the West Bank is deemed illegal by the UK and other governments and has been found to be in violation of international humanitarian law by the International Court of Justice. It has been identified as a war crime by the UN Human Rights Commissioner and Amnesty International among others, and acts relating to settlement establishment are being investigated as potential war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Bloomberg Philanthropies is directly implicated in these internationally unlawful acts, which are likely to constitute international crimes.[1]

The Bloomberg-Sagol Center, its students, staff and funders are committed to a project of Palestinian dispossession that entails crimes against humanity. As evidenced below, graduates use their position as state officials to champion and uphold policies of occupation, annexation and violence against Palestinians, in the West Bank, in Israel and in Gaza[2]. Teaching staff have close links to Israel’s military intelligence. One of its founders provides funding for an annexationist political party; the other has publicly supported Israel’s military violence against Palestinians and used his platform and financial influence to strengthen the Israeli state, whose system of domination Amnesty International says amounts to the crime of apartheid.

The Bloomberg-Sagol Center perpetuates war crimes through its training of Israeli settler leaders and officials in the Palestinian West Bank. It also empowers officials who incite crimes against humanity.

Armed with this knowledge, British and other international cultural organisations should not partner with Bloomberg Philanthropies for as long as it is implicated in grave violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. 

The evidence

1.   Trainees

Yisrael Ganz (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2022) is leader of the Mateh Benjamin Regional Council, which governs 47 settlements and outposts in the illegally occupied West Bank. He is also leader of the Yesha Council of settlers in the whole of the West Bank. He speaks in plainly annexationist terms, here, in a February 2025 briefing: 

“In order to … assert the Jewish people’s historical and biblical claim, Israel must assert its sovereignty over the West Bank … We have to say, ‘This is our state. We will stay here forever, and this is part of the State of Israel.’ And the only way to do this is to apply Israeli sovereignty over these areas.”[3]

In May 2025, Ganz welcomed the Israeli government’s announcement of 22 new settlements in the West Bank: “This historic decision sends a clear message – we are here not only to stay but to establish the State of Israel.”[4]

Yakov Gutterman (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2023) is Mayor of Modiin Illit, an illegal West Bank settlement. In August 2025, Guterman was one of the West Bank mayors who called on Netanyahu to declare Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian land illegally occupied by Israel. He is particularly active in attempts to persuade Haredi (Orthodox Jewish) communities in the West Bank to vote for annexation[5].

Oshrat Gani Gonen (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2022) leads Drom-Hasharon Regional Council in the Central District of Israel. In 2024 and 2025, as council leader, she visited units of Israel’s occupying forces in the West Bank. In the months leading up to her first visit in February 2024, the Israeli military had killed 362 West Bank Palestinians, including 96 children[6]. For Gonen, this was a “bold and determined operation”[7].

On March 2025, Gonen again visited occupation forces, posting on Facebook:

“We toured the Jenin area this week with the Commander of the Central Command Avi Bluth, the Menashe Brigade, as well as the commanders of spatial defence and the Nishon battalion. The commanders presented to us, the heads of the councils in the area, the activity of the IDF in the refugee camps and Palestinian cities in Samaria. We were impressed by the scope of activity …Thank you to the general, and all the commanders and soldiers who spend nights like this protecting our safety.”[8]

Oshrat Gani Gonen was applauding war crimes. A report by Human Rights Watch in November 2025 described how the Israeli forces she had been to visit “emptied the camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams of virtually all [their] residents … the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank in one operation since the 1967 war.”[9] The soldiers had moved systematically through the camps, storming homes, ransacking properties, interrogating residents, and eventually forcing families out.

Human Rights Watch concluded that: “The Israeli government carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its operations in the West Bank (Operation Iron Wall) starting January 2025.”

“Major-General Bluth should be investigated for individual criminal responsibility, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Oshrat Gonen posted this photograph of herself in Jenin with the unit accused by Human Rights Watch of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel Parosh (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2022) was Mayor of Elad in the Central District of Israel until 2024. In 2015, he visited the Hebron Hills in the West Bank to show solidarity with the settlers. Parosh said:

“It is important to strengthen these settlements, which absorb daily terror, and continue to settle the Land of Israel with a true devotion. Therefore, it was important for me to come and speak to the residents instead. I’m glad that my friend, head of the council, invited me on a tour, and I’m sure we’ll continue to help the settlements as per the tradition.”[10]

In 2015, the year of Parosh’s visit, a UN report found that:

“the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank … was a situation of oppression and humiliation of an occupied people …. [there are] frequent reports of excessive use of force by the occupying power in the West Bank, continued settlement construction, and [mal]treatment of Palestinians, including children in Israeli detention.”[11]

Yair Revivo (Bloomberg-Sagol Class of 2023) has been Mayor of Lod since 2013. Revivo is a supporter of the Garin Torani movement, devoted to the displacement of Palestinians from neighbourhoods they have lived in for decades. He has appointed the head of Lod’s Garin Torani as the city’s CEO and stormed a mosque during Eid Al-Adha prayers.[12] According to Human Rights Watch, the city authorities have provided accommodation to ultra-nationalist groups which violently target the Palestinian population.[13]

Incitement to genocide by Bloomberg-Sagol trainees

The ICJ has ordered Israel to “take all measures to prevent public incitement to genocide” – but  Bloomberg-Sagol trainees are making significant contributions to a discourse that dehumanises Palestinians, legitmates violence against them on a mass scale and establishes conditions for genocide.

David Azoulay, Mayor of Metulla and part of the Bloomberg-Sagol Centre’s Growth programme[14] said that “the whole Gaza strip should be empty just like Auschwitz, flattened, just like Auschwitz is today”[15]. In February 2025, Azoulay’s words were cited by South Africa in its ‘Public dossier of openly available evidence on the State of Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.’

Israel Gal (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2022), Mayor of Kiryat Ono, said in a podcast, “We don’t have anything to do there (in Gaza) except move the population from side to side, to say to them go from here to there, from there to there, through your sewage and through the winter  and through the hot summer and move them from the side like a herd of cattle.”[16]

Nissan Ben Hamo (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2022), Mayor of Arad, wrote that an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza had “fought bravely against human animals”[17].

Alon Davidi (Bloomberg-Sagol class of 2026) Mayor of Sderot told the TV channel ‘Now 14’: “we [are] surrounded by enemies and we need to teach them a lesson, destroy them. These are animals, monsters.”[18] 
In a 2023 statement to Israel National News, he said, “Every inhabitant of Gaza is ISIS. They must all be hit. … I have no pity for them.  Those who live there, two million people, are Nazis…”[19]
In January 2026, Davidi was welcomed on to the Third Cohort of trainees on the Bloomberg-Sagol Leadership Programme.

2.   Teachers

In Israel’s universities, academic activity is entangled with military and security interests[20]. Tel Aviv University, home to the Bloomberg-Sagol Center, exemplifies this entanglement[21] – as do teachers on its City Leadership Programme.

Nimrod Kozlovski, course lecturer, is a veteran of the Israeli military’s ‘Electronic Warfare Unit’ and according to his biography an ‘expert in cyber warfare and cybersecurity’[22]. He co-founded the company CyTactic with another veteran from the Special Operations Division of Israel’s Military Intelligence.

Moty Cristal, course lecturer, is a reserve lieutenant colonel in the Israeli military, a former negotiator for the Israeli government[23], and according to his X/ profile, a ‘political activist’. He has reposted the anti-Muslim racist Tommy Robinson and other far-right figures on X. Cristal is an advisory member of the Cytactic Board.[24]
 

3.   Funders

The Center was founded and is funded by Yossi Sagol and Michael Bloomberg. Each is explicit that their philanthropic work is tied to the strengthening of the state of Israel which in 2024 was found by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to violate the international prohibition on apartheid[25]. Each has been willing to support policies that breach international law.

Yossi Sagol is Chairman of Sagol Holdings, his family’s global investment company. He is a long-time supporter of annexation. In 2020, he donated 35,000 shekels to the political party of  Gideon Saar, currently Israeli Foreign Minister[26]. Then as now, Saar advocated for the incorporation of Palestinian territory into Israel[27]. In 2022, Saar was a guest at the dinner held to inaugurate the Bloomberg-Sagol Center[28].

Michael Bloomberg (former Mayor of New York and principal funder) has justified  Israel’s military actions against Palestinians, even when these have amounted to war crimes: in 2014 he defended Israel’s shelling of three UN schools in Gaza, which killed 17 children[29]. In the 2020 race for nomination as the Democrats’ Presidential candidate, Bloomberg declared that he would “never impose conditions on our military aid for Israel” .[30]

In April 2024, while Israel was turning West Bank refugee camps into what UNRWA called ‘ghost towns’[31], he announced the $27.8 million Bloomberg Philanthropies Regional Initiative, intended not to resuscitate Palestinian life but to ‘rehabilitate and improve the areas of Israel hit hardest by war’[32].  Moshe Davidovich, mayor in one such area, hailed the programme: “Thanks to Michael Bloomberg and other amazing Zionists, who are opening their hearts and their wallets, I am convinced that we will not only restore the north [of Israel], but we will lead it to a prosperity that it has never seen before”[33].

Conclusion

In July 2025, a UN Report concluded that the private sector and its executives should be held accountable for the corporate machinery that sustains the “displacement and replacement of the Palestinians” from their homes and lands.[34]

In September 2025, Amnesty International published a report that called on public institutions, as well as states, to live up to “their obligations and responsibilities under international law and standards” with regards to Israel’s military occupation, system of apartheid, and genocide against Palestinians.

Amnesty said: “The actions and commitments of everyone – states, public institutions, companies and the public – must match the gravity of the situation amidst a staggering loss of Palestinian lives, [and] the irreparable damage caused to Palestinians”.[35]

Strengthening the infrastructure of illegal settlements is not philanthropy; it is an act that facilitates the commission of international crimes.  Likewise, training officials who incite genocide and implement apartheid is not advancing ‘city leadership’; it is complicity in grave crimes against the Palestinian people.

British institutions should pressure Bloomberg Philanthropies to abide by international law and should not accept its funding until it does. They should instate consistent ethical policies to prevent such complicit funding being accepted in future.

*Photo: Armed settlers stand on a cliff overlooking the Palestinian village below (AFP)

[1] ICRC (accessed 01.2026) International humanitarian law: Settlements https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/settlements

[2] West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/20/west-bank-israel-emptying-refugee-camps-a-crime-against-humanity

[3] The Jerusalem Post (2025) Israel Ganz: PA seeks Israel’s destruction, West Bank sovereignty a must https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-843607

[4] Reuters (205) Israel announces new West Bank settlements despite sanctions threat https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-announces-new-west-bank-settlements-despite-sanctions-threat-2025-05-29

[5] Israel national News Arutz Sheva (2025) Internal pressure on haredi parties to vote for sovereignty in Judea and Samaria https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/412121

[6] United Nations (2024) Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-112

[7] Gonen (2024) Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/oshratganigonen/posts/pfbid0H4nuZBYx4XmuMn6KPo2Ci1dEXZdeuL64nxyvGdY8ZtJwF9iDVEA6BF43ytXMSqG5l

[8] Gonen (2025) Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/oshratganigonen/posts/pfbid036u48bruSKnwXagKTM442oGPr9UuVCzeLsjkgmyNvJdadEA74UkK6RcTSkC7rFsoAl

[9] Human Rights Watch (2025)  All my dreams have been erased: ​​Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/11/20/all-my-dreams-have-been-erased/israels-forced-displacement-of-palestinians-in-the

[10] Israel National News Arutz Sheva (2015)  https://www.inn.co.il/news/293908

[11] United Nations (2015) Human Rights Council discusses human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian and Arab Territories https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2015/03/human-rights-council-discusses-human-rights-situation-occupied-palestinian

[12] +972 Magazine (2024) A Lyd without the Nakba https://www.972mag.com/lyd-nakba-film/

[13] Human Rights Watch (2021) Abusive Policing in Lod During May Hostilities https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/12/14/israel-abusive-policing-lod-during-may-hostilities

[14]  Wayback machine web-archive, Bloomberg-Sagol Growth Program page listing Metualla mayor, David Azulay https://web.archive.org/web/20251214170944/https://bloombergsagol.tau.ac.il/en/the-growth-program

[15]Haaretz (2023). ‘Israeli Local Council Head Calls to ‘Flatten Gaza Like Auschwitz Today’ in Radio Interview’ https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-18/ty-article/israeli-local-council-head-calls-to-flatten-gaza-like-auschwitz-today-in-radio-interview/0000018c-7bf9-de44-a9be-7ffd05e90000

[16] Youtube (2024) Israel Gal Did Not Surrender to Populism #6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7MA-7fGrN8&t=31660s

[17] Ben Hamo (2023) Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1107326583802698&set=a.647774469757914

[18] Now 14, broadcast  https://special.now14.co.il/article/שבים-לה/

[19]  Israel National News Arutz Sheva (2023) https://www.inn.co.il/news/617925

[20] Verso Books (accessed 01.2026) Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3009-towers-of-ivory-and-steel?srsltid=AfmBOorMEbm71v9SRP76GrUDC4yGC7Z5QI3o9Ee4Q3zZiPSjrAibB_5E

[21]Tel Aviv University Annual Report 2024 https://www.freunde-tau.org/wp-content/uploads/TAU-2024-Annual-Report.pdf

[22] The Jerusalem Post (2024) Nimrod Kozlovski: Israeli cyber frontlines: Inside the digital warfare of the war with Hamas https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-781682

[23] Nest Negotiation Strategies website, founder Moty Cristal (accessed 1.2026) https://www.crisis.company/about-moty-cristal

[24] Moty Crystal cited in the Financial TImes (2025) The Other Israel-Iran War https://www.ft.com/content/37f21221-a2c3-47c5-b337-7cd168becaf4

[25] Human Rights Watch (2024) World Court Findings on Israeli Apartheid a Wake-Up Call https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/19/world-court-findings-israeli-apartheid-wake-call

[26] Ynet news (accessed 01.2026) Gideon Saar is counting on 7.2 million shekels from Derech Eretz and the Ya’alon merger https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/H1PDGVknD

[27] The Jerusalem Post (2018) Gideon Saar: Oslo is obsolete: Time for a victory mindset https://www.jpost.com/opinion/oslo-is-obsolete-time-for-a-victory-mindset-561808

[28] eJewish Philanthropy (2022) Your Daily Phil. 4th April. https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/your-daily-phil-mike-bloomberg-visits-israel-to-launch-new-mayors-center-another-view-on-huc/

[29] Mondoweiss (2020) Remember when Bloomberg defended shelling a school? https://mondoweiss.net/2020/02/remember-when-bloomberg-defended-shelling-a-school/

[30]Jewish Currents (2020)Time and again, Michael Bloomberg’s unquestioning devotion to Israel has led him to defend immoral and disastrous policies. https://jewishcurrents.org/the-one-issue-that-matters

[31] UNRWA on Facebook (2025)
https://www.facebook.com/unrwa/posts/more-than-ten-months-into-operation-iron-wall-destruction-has-been-relentless-je/1331664908993838/

[32] The Jerusalem Post (2024) Michael Bloomberg launches regional innovation hubs in war-stricken Israeli cities https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-797770

[33] The Jerusalem Post (2024) Bloomberg’s $27.8 million project to boost Israeli cities hit hardest by war is ‘up and running’https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-797770

[34]  UN Report (2025)  From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/

[35] Amnesty International (2025) Pull The Plug on the Political Economy Enabling Israel’s War Crimes – briefing https://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/pull-plug-political-economy-enabling-israels-crimes-briefing

Caryl Churchill Pulls Donmar Play Over Barclays’ Role in Arming Israel

  • Caryl Churchill walks away from Donmar Warehouse over its sponsorship with Barclays
  • Stephen Dillane, Samuel West, Bilal Hasna among artists backing Churchill’s decision, urging Donmar to drop the bank
  • Move follows growing pressure on UK arts institutions, including Sadler’s Wells and the Almeida, over ties to complicit funders

Caryl Churchill, one of Britain’s greatest living playwrights, has withdrawn a play from the Donmar Warehouse upon learning that the theatre receives support from Barclays, which invests over £2 billion and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting to nine arms companies supplying weapons to Israel.

Speaking about her decision, Caryl Churchill said:

“Theatres used to say they couldn’t manage without tobacco sponsorship, but they do. Now it’s time they stopped helping advertise banks that support what Israel is doing to Palestinians”

Her action has been met with widespread support. Over 300 theatre workers have signed an open letter, published in full below, backing Churchill and urging the Donmar Warehouse to cut ties with the bank.

Actors Alex Lawther, Asif Khan, Maggie Steed, Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson say they share Donmar Warehouse’s mission to foster “a more empathetic society”, and this is precisely why “they can no longer overlook Donmar’s relationship with Barclays, which enables Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians”.

Barclays currently invests over £2 billion and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting to nine arms companies whose technology and weapons are used in Israel’s brutal assaults on Palestinians. 

Barclays is also the only UK-headquartered bank that acts as a ‘primary dealer’ of Israel government bonds, directly helping the state raise funds to finance the mounting cost of its military assaults.

The bank’s role in other human rights and environmental harms has also come under fire. Last year, Barclays was named the largest financier of the fossil fuel industry in Europe for the eighth consecutive year.

Directors Richard Eyre, Ian Rickson, Maxwell Stafford-Clark, writer Simon Stephens and theatre-maker Tim Crouch are among those who say that “Donmar Warehouse’s relationship with Barclays directly contradicts its commitment to “keep environmental responsibility at the heart of our work”’.

Churchill’s withdrawal comes amid growing calls across the UK cultural sector for institutions to cut  their ties to organisations complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. 

  • In May 2025, 435 theatre and arts professionals demanded that the Almeida Theatre end its relationship with Bloomberg Philanthropies. 
  • Since November 2023, Sadler’s Wells has faced growing pressure over its sponsorship from Barclays, whose Chairman Nigel Higgins also chairs Sadler’s Wells Board.
  • In September 2024, over 1,000 artists and Islington residents, including Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson, and Jeremy Corbyn MP, signed an open letter demanding Sadler’s Wells sever its ties with the bank.
  • Later that month, dancer Eve Stainton withdrew from the Sadler’s Wells East launch programme, citing “moral objections” to its Barclays sponsorship.

Culture Workers Against Genocide, who co-organised the open letter, said:

“There is an ethical dissonance amongst arts leaders on six-figure salaries partnering with corporations whose actions contradict the values their institutions claim to uphold. Caryl Churchill’s principled stand reflects the growing refusal among artists to stay silent while the arts are used to launder the reputations of corporations complicit in genocide.”

Read the letter in full:

Dear Tim Sheader and Henny Finch,

Continue reading →

Dozens of ex-Eurovision contestants demand exclusion of Israel from contest

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Britain’s Mae Muller and Bianca Nicholas joined Charlie McGettigan, Salvador Sobral and dozens of former Eurovision contestants in calling on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to ban Israel’s public broadcaster KAN from the popular song contest.

Over 70 previous participants, who include songwriters, lyricists and other creatives from across Europe, accuse KAN of being “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.

In a letter published below ahead of the Eurovision finals on May 17, the artists say “by continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalising and whitewashing its crimes”.

Continue reading →

Turner Prize winner’s inspirational acceptance speech

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Artist Jasleen Kaur’s acceptance speech was delivered at the Turner Prize award ceremony at Tate Britain and broadcast live on BBC News Channel, on 3rd December 2024.

‘To the artists, the poets, the parents,
the students who show me the slow and meticulous
work of organising and world building

the folk who orient their lives towards
freedom in practice

not theory

who advocate for life, not death.

Continue reading →

Tate, Cut Your Ties With Genocidal Israel

As the atrocities mount up, the silence of UK cultural institutions grows more deafening, the double standards ever more glaring.

In March 2022, a fortnight after Russia invaded Ukraine, Tate cut ties with billionaire donors and Tate International Council members, Viktor Vekselberg and Petr Aven. ‘We will not work with or maintain relationships with anyone associated with the Russian government,’ said Tate.

On Palestine, Tate has made no such statement. On the contrary, it has kept up its relationships with donors and organisations associated with the Israeli government. It has remained silent on Israel’s total destruction of Gaza. 

Now, in the lead up to this year’s Turner Prize awards ceremony, more than 60 artists closely associated with Tate (including three out of four of this year’s Turner Prize nominees, two of its judges, and many former prize winners and nominees) have signed an open letter. Supported by a thousand further signatories in the arts, it calls on Tate’s leadership to cut ties with organisations that are deeply complicit with the Israeli state. 

Continue reading →

Hundreds of Artists Condemn the Royal Academy of Arts’ Anti-Palestinian Censorship

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Royal Academicians Jock McFadyen, Rana Begum, Vanessa Jackson, Tim Shaw, David Nash, Helen Sear, David Mach and Goshka Macuga are among hundreds of arts professionals condemning the Royal Academy of Arts’ anti-Palestinian censorship after it removed two artworks from its Young Artists’ Summer Show.

In an open letter published today by Artists for Palestine UK, the signatories, including more than 100 Jewish creatives, decry as “shameful” the Royal Academy’s removal of a photograph of a protestor holding a placard that reads, “Jews Say Stop Genocide on Palestinians. Not In Our Name”. 

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Leading Artists to Keir Starmer: Commit to Stopping Arms Sales to Israel

1 Comment

Over 100 leading cultural figures in Britain, including Oscar and
BAFTA-winners, have called on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to commit to stop
arming Israel if elected Prime Minister on 4 July.

Signatories to the letter include Oscar-winning actor Riz Ahmed and director
Asif Kapadia, singer Paloma Faith, actors including BAFTA-winning Steve
Coogan, Miriam Margolyes OBE, Paapa Essiedu, Dame Harriet Walter, Joe
Alwyn and Lena Heady.

The call comes amid an escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which
recently saw Israeli strikes on a designated ‘safe area’ in Rafah kill over 50
civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing
arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and
crimes against humanity. Continue reading →

UK cinemas must refuse Israel-sponsored film festival

Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas have already refused to host the festival. The festival has also been refused at the Cines Girona, Barcelona. We believe there is no moral or ethical justification for a British cultural venue to do ‘business as usual’ with any organisation that is sponsored by the Israeli regime while it intensifies its genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.

To the Trustees of the Phoenix Cinema, Everyman Cinemas Hampstead and Barnet, and JW3

We write as filmmakers, arts workers, London and Brighton residents and audiences who are ardent supporters of independent cinema.

We are disturbed and horrified to find that Seret, the UK-Israeli Film Festival is being held at several cinemas, co-sponsored by the Israeli government.

Amnesty International has designated Israel as a regime of apartheid against the Palestinian people. In February 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that accusations of genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza were “plausible”. 

Continue reading →

Boycott called off as Bristol’s Arnolfini apologises for anti-Palestinian censorship

  • Bristol’s iconic Arnolfini gallery apologises “without reservation” for cancelling Palestinian events amid “ongoing devastation and loss of life in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel”

  • Arnolfini: “We believe that freedom of expression and intellectual freedom are vital and must be fully reflected in our policies and practices.” 
  • Bristol Artists for Palestine welcomes the statement, calls off the artist-led boycott of the venue.

The boycott of an iconic British arts venue has ended after it apologised for its anti-Palestinian censorship. The Arnolfini in Bristol said it was “truly sorry” for cancelling film and poetry events curated by Bristol Palestine Film Festival in November last year, and committed to platforming Palestinian voices.  

In response to the cancellations, more than 1,400 artists – including prominent Bristol artists such as Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja, writers Alice Oswald, Nikesh Shukla, Shon Faye, Travis Alabanza and Rachel Holmes – had announced they would refuse to work with the venue in protest at “the censorship of Palestinian culture”. The artists demanded the gallery “commit to freedom of expression, without exception for Palestine” and “genuinely engage with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused”.

Today, in a statement, Arnolfini acknowledged the detrimental impact the cancellations had had, and addressed artists, audiences, and Bristol Palestine Film Festival, saying it was “truly sorry”. The organisation also affirmed its commitment to freedom of expression, saying:

“During this overwhelming humanitarian crisis, the voices of the victims need to be heard. (…) We believe that freedom of expression and intellectual freedom are vital and must be fully reflected in our policies and practices. We are sorry that we did not provide a platform for Palestinian voices at such a crucial time.”

The organisation said it will be publishing new policies and reviewing internal governance processes in light of what had happened.

Bristol Artists for Palestine welcomed Arnolfini’s apology. They said the statement provided a resolution to the artists’ demands, and the group announced an end to the artist-led boycott of the venue.

They went on to say:

“We call for all arts institutions, galleries, venues, festivals, universities and funders to uphold the same consistent freedom of expression with no exception for Palestine that Arnolfini has committed to support, and to formally recognise the devastation being wrought by Israel as plausibly amounting to genocide, as the Arnolfini has done.”

Artists for Palestine UK said:

“We welcome Arnolfini’s statement and applaud the hard work of those involved in the mediation process. 

We hope this sends a clear message to other cultural institutions.  Amid a repressive political and media climate, cultural institutions are too often failing in their duty to uphold freedom of expression and to protect against discrimination.  

At a time of unprecedented dehumanisation of Palestinian people, artists and audiences expect cultural spaces to amplify voices that articulate the realities of Palestinian experiences and aspirations, as vital contributions to cultural understanding and to our shared humanity.”

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, said:

“We salute the artists, culture workers and human rights defenders in Bristol and beyond who took strategic, principled and persistent action in boycotting Arnolfini until their goals were met.

All British arts organisations and venues should take note that targeted, grassroots mobilisations are a potential consequence of racist anti-Palestinian censorship.”

Last month HOME Manchester announced it would reinstate the event “Voices of  Resilience” that it had cancelled in response to pressure from a pro-Israel pressure group, after artists withdrew their work en mass from the gallery. 

London’s Barbican Centre has been subject to a mass sit-in, and artists and collectors have withdrawn six art works from the current exhibition, ‘Unravel’, in protest at the cancellation of the London Review of Books lecture series that included a talk by Pankaj Mishra, “The Shoah after Gaza”. 

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Olivia Colman among 1000+ artists accusing art institutions of censorship on Palestine

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More than 1,300 artists, including Academy Award winning Olivia Colman, Olivier Award winners Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson, BAFTA winners Aimee Lou Wood and Siobhán McSweeney, Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Susanne Wokoma (Enola Holmes), Youseff Kerkour (Napoleon), Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls, Bridgerton), Amir El-Masry (The Crown) and Lolly Adefope (Ghosts), have launched a letter addressed to the arts and culture sector, that accuses cultural institutions across Western countries of:

 “repressing, silencing and stigmatising Palestinian voices and perspectives”. 

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Tilda Swinton among 2000+ artists calling for Gaza ceasefire

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  • They accuse governments of “aiding and abetting” Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza
  • Palestinians face “collective punishment on an unimaginable scale”
  • Governments should “end their military and political support for Israel’s actions”

Renowned actors Tilda Swinton, Charles Dance, Steve Coogan, Miriam Margolyes, Peter Mullan, Maxine Peake and Khalid Abdalla are among more than two thousand  people from across the arts who have signed a letter saying that: “Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them.”

The artists, including Robert del Naja and playwrights Tanika Gupta and Abbie Spallen, condemn “every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them”.

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Reflections on violence, oppression and a just peace

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‘We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence.’ Jewish Voice for Peace 

‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.’ Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defence 

Artists for Palestine UK responds with horror and sadness to the violent loss of life across Palestine/Israel, that continues as we write. We mourn every death. And we redouble our commitment to fighting for justice, respect and dignity for all people. In what follows, we share statements by international organisations that remind us of the context of the events which we are all now witnessing. We hope this will help to illuminate the root cause of the violence so that we may  formulate responses that are grounded in the ethics of genuine care.

Al Haq, Palestine’s largest Human Rights organisation,  said, in coordination with  Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: 

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Leading figures urge Imagine Dragons to cancel Baku and Tel Aviv shows

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US pop group Imagine Dragons have been urged to drop Baku and Tel Aviv from their tour dates this month, over serious violations of human rights by the Azerbaijani and Israeli governments respectively.

Now prominent figures are calling on the band to act on their stated commitment to inclusion and human rights by cancelling the concerts.

Here is their letter in full:

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Leading artists oppose Barbican’s partnership with apartheid Israeli embassy

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More than fifty artists, including poet and writer Benjamin Zephaniah, actor Miriam Margolyes, DJ The Blessed Madonna and Turner Prize co-winning artist Tai Shani have called on London arts venue the Barbican Centre to end its partnership with the embassy of Israel.

The Barbican is due to host the Jerusalem Orchestra East & West this Sunday 5th February, in an event organised “in collaboration with the Embassy of Israel in the UK”. 

Writers China Miéville, Rachel Holmes and Pauline Melville are among those saying they “doubt the Barbican would have partnered with the South African embassy during its apartheid era”, citing reports by leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, that designate Israel an apartheid regime.

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Israeli filmmakers call on Locarno Festival to drop ‘complicit’ Israeli film

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Israeli filmmakers and artists including Oscar-nominated director Guy Davidi and Turner Prize co-winner Tai Shani have urged Locarno International Film Festival to cancel its Thursday screening of an Israeli film due to concerns over its funding. 

My Neighbor Adolf was funded by the Rabinovich Foundation’s Israel Cinema Project, Israel’s largest film fund. Last week, Artists for Palestine UK revealed that the foundation contractually obligates filmmakers to undertake “that there is not and will not be in the film any presentation, statement or message that calls for … denial of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state [or] marking Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning”.

The group of Israeli filmmakers and artists cited leading human rights organisations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem who have all reported that Israel, far from being a “democracy”, is an apartheid regime.

The filmmakers and artists added: “this regime of oppression was founded through the violent displacement and dispossession of most of the Indigenous Palestinian population. That the Israeli state, its complicit institutions and influential lobby groups would want us as Jewish Israelis to remain silent on this systematic ethnic cleansing is not surprising. But storytellers accepting such censorial and unethical conditions for their film projects is an undeniable form of complicity in covering up this ongoing Nakba that Palestinians face.”

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Leading artists demand accountability for Israel’s killing of Palestinian journalist

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Pedro Almodovar, Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, Mark Ruffalo, Eric Cantona, Miriam Margolyes, Jim Jarmusch, Naomi Klein and Peter Gabriel call for “meaningful measures to ensure accountability for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and all other Palestinian civilians.”

*photo of Shireen Abu Akleh by AFP

More than a hundred artists, including Hollywood stars, acclaimed authors and prominent musicians, have condemned Israel’s killing of esteemed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Actors Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, Mark Ruffalo, Kathryn Hahn and Steve Coogan are among the signatories to an open letter calling for “full accountability for the perpetrators of this crime and everyone involved in authorizing it”. 

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Dear Black Eyed Peas: Where’s the Love for Palestinians?

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Dear Black Eyed Peas,

We are a network of artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers and cultural producers who support Palestinian human rights. We are shocked to hear that you are scheduled to perform in occupied Jerusalem on November 29th.

In the city where you are scheduled to play, indigenous Palestinians are subject to constant state violence. The forced expulsion of Palestinian Jerusalemites from their homes is a war crime. In May this year, the Israeli army’s unprovoked incursion into the Al-Aqsa mosque injured over 300 Palestinian worshippers. Together these crimes ignited protests all over Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, only to be swiftly followed by Israeli F16s bombing the Gaza Strip – killing 260 Palestinians, 129 of them civilians including 66 children and 40 women. 

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Leading writers support Sally Rooney decision to refuse publication in Israel

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Photo: David Levenson

Seventy prominent writers, poets and playwrights from several continents, have signed a letter endorsing Sally Rooney’s decision to turn down an offer with an Israel publishing house, describing it as

“an exemplary response to the mounting injustices inflicted on Palestinians”. 

Among the signatories are award-winning Irish authors Niamh Campbell and Kevin Barry; Rachel Kushner, Eileen Myles and Eliot Weinburger from the US; Monica Ali, Caryl Churchill, China Miéville and Kamila Shamsie from the UK. 

The writers say that in May this year Rooney was one of more than 16,000 artists who

“… condemned Israel’s crimes in ‘A Letter Against Apartheid’. Israeli apartheid, they said, is ‘sustained by international complicity; it is our collective responsibility to redress this harm’. ”

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Susan Sarandon, Claire Foy, Mark Ruffalo, Eric Cantona call for an immediate end to Israeli attacks on Palestinian human rights groups

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More than 100 public figures urge the international community to protect Palestinian human rights defenders.

Musicians Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Jarvis Cocker and Massive Attack, film directors Laura Poitras, Jim Jarmusch, Costa Gravas and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, actors Mark Rylance, Tilda Swinton, Simon Pegg, Richard Gere, authors Philip Pullman, Naomi Klein, Irvine Welsh, Colm Tóibín and Monica Ali — are among dozens of high profile figures who have signed a statement [1] criticising the Israeli government for launching what they say is:

“An unprecedented and blanket attack on Palestinian human rights defenders beginning with the designation […] of six leading Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist” groups.” 

The statement goes on to warn that the Israeli military order that outlaws six “most eminent” Palestinian organizations in the occupied West Bank:

“…puts at risk not just the organizations themselves, but the entire Palestinian civil society and the tens of thousands of Palestinians they serve everyday.”

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