You may have heard about the growing movement of people who stand in solidarity with Palestinians and their struggle for human rights. You may have heard of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions against Israel (BDS). This is a people’s movement, and a growing number of musicians are choosing to be a part of BDS.
In 2006, the majority of Palestinian civil society united to ask artists like you to respect their call for a cultural boycott of Israel. [1] We are confident that, seeing the facts of Israel’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and colonialism, you will decide to refrain from playing in Israel until justice is delivered to the oppressed Palestinian people.
This grassroots global people’s movement is the only foreseeable way to end Israel’s crimes. The United Nations, despite numerous resolutions against Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, has not ensured that Israel is forced to comply with international law.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said
“International Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against the Apartheid regime, combined with the mass struggle inside South Africa, led to our victory … Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong … to perform in Israel.”
Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, emphasised
“Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel. This is [however] a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott. Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel.”
Playing in Israel today, in violation of the boycott call, sends two messages:
The artist has chosen to ignore the Palestinian people’s call for solidarity through BDS.
The musician is aware of and accepts that the Israeli Ministry of Culture will endeavor to use an artist’s name to legitimize and promote the current oppressive, racist, apartheid government through social media like Twitter[2], through press releases, and via the CCFP. [3]
Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, stated “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.” [4]
We hope you will refrain from playing in Israel, playing Tel Aviv has been compared to playing in Sun City during South African apartheid. A musician does not need to play in Israel in order to “see” the human rights violations that are going on there.
Cat Power, this is your opportunity to be a part of a people’s movement and to choose to stand NOT with Israeli crimes against humanity, but with a movement that Belgium filmmaker Chris den Hond calls one of the “most prominent international grassroots movements against the Israeli policy of occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.” [5]
Over 11 million people are oppressed by Israel’s violations of human rights against non-Jews. Howard Zinn referred to both American “western expansion” and Israel’s occupation of land as “ethnic cleansing.” [6] People were and still are forced from their homes, and made into refugees. Gaza was made into a crowded, Israeli-controlled open-air jail. The West Bank is surrounded by an apartheid wall and sprinkled with over 500 roadblocks and checkpoints. [7]
While Israel presents itself as a democracy, in fact it is a democracy only for Jews, whilst indigenous Palestinians, most particularly in the Occupied Territories, are treated as less than human. Palestinians, lesser citizens within Israel itself, are discriminated against by 43 laws privileging Jews at their expense.[8]
Please cancel your concert, do it for Shabrawi and Ezz ad-Deen, the two Palestinian children whose story was recently featured in The Guardian [9]. These two boys lived through solitary confinement, interrogation, shackling of hands and feet, verbal abuse (“You’re a dog, a son of a whore” – is common), sleep deprivation, and threats against their families.
We hope you’ll choose not to play in Israel while so many children are suffering just miles away from Tel Aviv.
We are a group, of over 830 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & 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.
Jazi Abu Kaf talks about the crime of persecution in regards to Israel’s actions towards the Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev) desert during the 3rd International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Cape Town, November 2011.
2011 Summary of the Cultural Boycott of Israel for Musicians
The year 2011 was a year full of many successes in the campaign for the cultural boycott of Israel. This summary will focus on the cultural boycott with emphasis on musical artists and groups.
The fall of South African apartheid was preceded by many musical artists who joined to create a movement. That movement became known popularly as “I’m not gonna play Sun City.” Israel has not yet seen its Sun City moment fully, but as you’ll see, significant rumblings are beginning.
January, 2011:Jon Bon Jovi was asked not play in Israel. Thus far, boycott efforts have been successful. The singer had announced on Larry King Live he would perform in Israel. After boycott efforts to ask him to refrain, no concert ever happened. [1]
French pop star Vanessa Paradis refuses to perform in Israel.[2] Her partner, American film icon Johnny Depp also cancels his visit to Israel.
February, 2011:Roger Waters (founder of Pink Floyd) comes out in strong support of the cultural boycott when he writes “Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and whites and blacks enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes — and it surely will come — when The Wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all deserve.” [3]
German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, scheduled to sing five classical concerts in Israel, withdraws shortly beforehand. He’d been asked to cancel his concerts by BRICUP, Boycott from Within and others. He said his withdrawal was on grounds of illness.
Pete Seeger unequivocally supports the cultural boycott, stating “I misunderstood the leaders of the Arava Institute because I didn’t realize to what degree the Jewish National Fund was supporting Arava. Now that I know more, I support the BDS movement as much as I can.” [4]
May, 2011:August Burns Red refrained from playing at Tel Aviv’s Barby. Just over one week prior to their gig sources said “they have no plans to reschedule, they cancelled because they do not want to play in Israel.” A three month long effort had been launched to ask the band to refrain. [5]
Marc Almond’s cancellation was welcomed by the BDS Movement. [6] Letters, as well as a Facebook page were created to let the “Tainted Love” singer know about the real Israel. His fans passed out leaflets before a UK concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London. His welcome response came four days later when he refused to play in Israel.
June, 2011: Although Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not a musician, the cancellation of his film promotion at the Jerusalem Film Festival brought a whirlwind of attention to the cultural boycott of Israel. 101 organizations signed a letter praising the basketball legend. [7]
Also, in late June, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine announced that they would refuse to perform in Tel Aviv. [8] The voice of the Palestinian people was ultimately respected by the vintage punk rocker Jello Biafra.
Punk rock fans unite with punk bands and artists to launch Punks Against Apartheid.
July, 2011: Musicians Dave Randall, Maxi Jazz, and Jamie Catto release the single “Freedom For Palestine” with the Durban Gospel Choir. As the video went viral it gained momentum from endorsements by Coldplay, LUSH Cosmetics, Lowkey, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Massive Attack, Roger Waters, and many more. [9]
August, 2011:Tuba Skinny, while in Rome en-route to Israel , received information about the cultural boycott. Tuba Skinny refused to perform at the Israel Government-sponsored Red Sea Jazz Festival, cancelling their concert only a few days prior to their scheduled gig. [10] Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri of Puerto Rico [11]and jazz musician Jason Moran of Houston [12] followed Tuba Skinny, and also cancelled their appearances at the Red Sea Jazz Festival.
September, 2011:Natacha Atlas stuns her Israeli booking agents when she refuses to play her scheduled concert in Israel. She bravely states on her facebook page:
“…after much deliberation I now see that it would be more effective a statement to not go to Israel until this systemised apartheid is abolished once and for all. Therefore I publicly retract my well-intentioned decision to go and perform in Israel and so sincerely hope that this decision represents an effective statement against this regime.”[13]
The cultural boycott came closer to home as the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra went on tour. Creative protests were seen in many cities in the USA and Europe. A protest in London during the BBC’s Prom Live Broadcast of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra resulted in worldwide press coverage when the BBC decided to halt its live broadcast of the concert.
Denise Jannah was written to just prior to her tour in Israel. She did perform in Israel, but her experience in Israel caused her to regret her choice, and she came out in support of the cultural boycott. She stated: “Please let me start by telling you this: of a cultural BDS boycott Ramon and I had NO knowledge, none at all. This is where the problem started, for had I known I would have done things differently: the reasons for this boycott are valid.” [14]
Riverdance set designer Robert Ballagh, in bold support for BDS, called for the cancellation of Riverdance’s tour in Israel, but he was unable to stop it because he does not possess the copyright. However he donated all his royalties from the performance of Riverdance in Israel to the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign.[15]
October, 2011: The Yardbirds were scheduled to play in Israel, and a letter [16] signed by professors in the UK was written to them from BRICUP. They subsequently cancelled their performance. Humanitarians are asking them not to reschedule in 2012.
Greek singer Martha Frintzila bows out of her performance at the Israel Government-sponsored Jerusalem Oud Festival with a the statement that she: “…will not participate in Oud Festival in Jerusalem for conscientious and political reasons.” [17]
Hosam Hayak, a regular performer at the Jerusalem Oud Festival, chose this year to cancel, making a press release in Arabic on his facebook notes.[18]
In another boost to the cultural boycott, John Michael McDonagh, director of Golden Globe nominated (director and main actor) film The Guard, announces that, “due to the conflict, [he] declined to attend the Haifa Film Festival 2011.”
November, 2011: The Jerusalem String Quartet was met with creative protests in both the UK and North America. Parody programs were received by concert attendees in at least four North American cities.[19]
Macy Gray tweets regarding her February Tel Aviv gig @MacyGraysLife “i had a reality check and I stated that I definitely would not have played there if I had known even the little that I know now.”
Punkers Zdob si Zdub of Moldavia were also asked to refrain playing in Israel. They cancelled their 5 November concert, and the BDS movement is asking them to refrain from playing in 2012, as they are being pressured to “reschedule.”[20]
Mireille Mathieu was asked by BDS France [21] to cancel her concert in Tel Aviv. The French singer was also the recipient of a letter [22] signed by seventy people in the artistic community in Gaza asking her to respect the boycott. Mireille Mathieu’s courageous announcement [23] on her website that she has postponed playing in Tel Aviv is a welcome one. The BDS movement encourages her to stand strong against pressure from both French and Israeli booking agents to “reschedule” her concert in the apartheid state.
Rapper MF Doom was called on by numerous groups and individuals not to “rap in the apartheid state.” Press reports indicated he cancelled his 26 Nov concert due to illness. As of this publication, Doom has not rescheduled his concert in Tel Aviv.
In Switzerland, over 150 artists pledge to boycott apartheid Israel.[24]
December, 2011:Oumou Sangaré becomes the third French artist in 2011 to cancel her planned performance with the Israeli Opera, as BDS makes inroads into the classical music world. An informative letter from BDS France was followed by letters from DPAI and BDS Italy. [25]
Joe Lynn Turner’s 16 December concert in Tel Aviv is cancelled.[26]
Joker (UK) refuses to bring his dubstep-bass sounds to Tel Aviv. It appears that his decision might have been influenced by other musicians in the London music scene who asked him to reconsider.
Looking Ahead to 2012:
UK and Irish musicians are taking the lead under the “Freedom for Palestine” banner. In the USA, expect Lupe Fiasco to continue to vocalize his support for Palestinians.
Current campaigns for cultural boycott are underway for Bruce Springsteen, Arch Enemy and Red Hot Chili Peppers to alert them about the reasons to join fellow musicians in refusing to play in the apartheid state. Cultural BDS is growing and volunteers remain busy working in countless creative ways.
The metal band Arch Enemy is scheduled to play apartheid Israel on 24th January, following their Khaos Over Europe Tour in conjunction with Amnesty International’s freedom of expression campaign.
The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) group Don’t Play Apartheid Israel (DPAI) created a Facebook page to support the Palestinian call for BDS and to try to persuade Arch Enemy to cancel the gig in support of the oppressed Palestinian people.
PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) issued a very strong plea for Arch Enemy not to play apartheid Israel.
“Today, Palestinian civil society groups are calling on artists to shun Tel Aviv in the same way that South African activists called on artists to boycott Sun City. All we are asking is for you to refrain from crossing a picket line called by Palestinian society, endorsed by international organizations, and increasingly supported by progressive-Israelis [17]. Palestinian civil society is asking this of you as the most essential contribution to their struggle to achieve peace and justice. They are calling for nothing short of revolution, rebellion, and freedom, as echoed in the slogan of the BDS movement for Freedom, Equality and Justice.”
While espousing freedom of speech, Arch Enemy engaged in censorship and deleted all posts which asked them to refrain from playing in Israel and urged them to listen to and really hear the Palestinian people from their official FB page.
Arch Angela: if the constant threat, bullying and slander of arch enemy via email and online does not stop immediately, we will publish some of the threats we have recceived from your supporters, where they claim they will come to some of our shows and threaten to attack us, both verbally and physically.
i am making amnesty international aware of your criminal methods and your breach of freedom of choice, freedom of expression and freedom of art. it is up to us (and only us!) to chose in which countries we perform and bring our message to. it is NOT yours to tell us what to do and to force your will upon us. you are hurting our rights of freedom and you make us fear for our safety. SHAME ON YOU! Music should transcend all races, political issues and borders – we will not be instrumentalised, neither by you or any other organization or government. who are you to tell us what to do?! Yesterday at 17:23
There were absolutely no threats made against Arch Enemy by BDS campaigners, rather attempts to highlight the terrible injustices that Israel subjects the Palestinians to and efforts to get the band to live up to its talk of freedom and equality and not to endorse a state which occupies, dispossesses and imprisons a people.
Today, further posts were removed from the Arch Enemy page, giving the lie to their claims of: “End repression. Allow expression!”
So, if Arch Enemy believes in freedom of expression, why do they engage in censorship? If they think there is nothing wrong in ignoring the Palestinians and playing in apartheid Israel, why not engage in discussion?
The detention of Palestinians by the IOF is carried out on the basis of article
78 (a-d) of Military Order No. 378 of 1970 on “Security regulations” (Judea
and Samaria), as well as subsequent military orders amending that order.
Based on these orders, any Palestinian can be held for eight days without
being informed of the reason for his or her arrest and without being
brought before a judge on the basis of secret information that neither
the detainees nor their lawyers have access to. The detainee can also be
prevented from meeting with his or her lawyer for two days and the IOF is
not required to notify the family of the detainee of the reasons for, or the
location of, his or her detention. Thus, it can be concluded that the IOF
violate the right of Palestinian detainees to be informed of the reasons for
their detention, as provided for in international humanitarian and human
rights law.
Israel’s policies of large-scale and arbitrary arrest and detention of Palestinians are made possible by a discriminatory regime of law and institutions working in three main concurrent ways to maintain domination over Palestinians: first by applying a more advantageous legal regime to Jewish Israelis, whether residing in the oPt or in Israel; second by effectively criminalizing any opposition to the occupation; and finally by applying differing legal systems to different parts of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), thereby fragmenting and segregating the Palestinian territory and people.
In the West Bank, Israeli authorities carry out arrests and detentions of Palestinians by virtue of a system of military regulations in place since the beginning of the occupation. According to international humanitarian law, any new legislation enacted by the Occupying Power should be limited to regulations protecting the rights of protected persons or the security of the Occupying Power. The military orders issued by Israel, however, extend much beyond these limits and further criminalize any form of opposition to the occupation, legally cementing the oppression of the Palestinian people. Despite living in the same territory, Jewish settlers residing in the West Bank are not subjected to this legislation, but rather to Israeli civil law, applied extra-territorially. Under this separate and unequal legal regime, Palestinians are subjected to more severe detention and sentencing provisions than Jewish settlers, with little or no effective judicial oversight, most notably with regard to administrative detention. In addition, the military courts, through which these military orders are enforced, do not conform to international fair trial and due process standards, further contributing to the arbitrary nature of this regime.
Before Israel’s unilateral “withdrawal” from Gaza in 2005, a similar system of military orders governed the arrest of Palestinians in the Strip. Since then, however, Gazans have been subjected to a different legal regime than Palestinians in the West Bank and are instead mainly arrested on the basis of Israeli criminal law, under which they are automatically classified as “security” prisoners and suffer from harsher standards of detention and sentencing than their “criminal” counterparts.
In East Jerusalem, although Israel imposed Israeli civil law upon its illegal annexation of the city in 1967, Palestinian residents continue to be subjected to a dual system of law: Israeli civil law and Israeli military regulations. In that framework, Israeli authorities often detain and interrogate Palestinians from East Jerusalem under military orders, a system that permits longer periods of detention, before transferring them to the Israeli civil system for trial, where prosecutors can seek higher sentences based on the principle that security offenses are less common than in the military system in the oPt. The arrest and detention of Jewish settlers residing in East Jerusalem, however, is governed solely by Israeli civil law, which affords them greater protection and due process rights.
Finally, within the domestic criminal justice system itself, Israeli authorities discriminate between incarcerated Jewish and Palestinian citizens by defining them either as “security” or as criminal prisoners, with the overwhelming majority of the former being Palestinians. Classification as a security prisoner carries with it fewer legal guarantees and rights, with privileges such as receiving family visits without a glass divider, access to books or other items, and occasional visits outside the prison available only to criminal prisoners.
Furthermore, security prisoners are interrogated by the Israeli Security Agency, which often uses methods that amount to ill-treatment and torture. Criminal prisoners, on the other hand, are interrogated by the Israeli police, whose methods of operation are governed by a different set of rules. This has created two distinct regimes of interrogation, with the one affording less protection and rife with abuse used almost exclusively against Palestinians, whether from theoPt or Israel.
It therefore appears that Israel’s arrest and detention of Palestinians in the oPt and within Israel proper is governed by a regime of laws and institutions almost completely separate from the one administering the arrest of Jewish Israelis. Because this system enables the large-scale arbitrary arrest of Palestinians while generally affording them lower protections and guarantees than Jewish Israelis, it should be understood as a discriminatory institutional tool of domination and oppression against them.
Freedom Carols for Palestine, November 29, 2011 outside Dezire Cosmetics store at Broadway Shopping Centre. Dezire sells Ahava products and Ahava is targeted by the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israeli Apartheid because its products are made from stolen Palestinian natural resources. Organised by Coalition For Palestine to mark UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
After visiting Palestine in 1897, two rabbis from Vienna reported that “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man”, and so Northern European zionists realised they would have to conjure up ‘plausible’ reasons to justify genociding and expelling indigenous Palestinians, acquiring their land to establish the racist ethnosupremacy of Israel. For Herzl and other early zionists, the ‘Jewish question’ could be solved with Jewish nationalism, as they held the essentialist antisemitic belief that Jews carried antisemitism wherever they went. Racism and bigotry however must be countered and nullified wherever they exist. In order to assert its legitimacy, Zionist ideology has incorporated many cognitively dissonant memes and myths, including the direct denial, in keeping with other settler colonial land-thieving projects in Australia (“terra nullius”) and the US (“the Promised Land”), that there ever was a place called Palestine, or a Palestinian people.
Political zionism is manifestly expansionist and militarist – belligerent expansionism is the zionist elite’s strategy, tactic and aim. To obscure its crimes however, Israel projects the lie in its marketing endeavours that it is pursuing ‘peace negotiations’ earnestly, whilst simultaneously sabotaging peace and precluding the formation of a viable Palestinian state by stealing as much Palestinian land and building as many illegal zionist jews-only settlements on Palestinian land as possible, using the contradictory pretext of ‘defence and security’.
As it began, someone shouted Vive La Palestine (long live Palestine); when the delegates began to vote on the resolution to admit Palestine, the hall rang with loud and sustained cheers, as representatives of Austria, Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa and France indicated their country’s affirmative vote. The resolution was carried with 107 for, 14 against and 52 abstentions.
Reasonable people would think this is a wonderful triumph for the Palestinian quest for peace, the object of which is, after all, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The two-state solution is supported not only by the Quartet (US, Russia, the EU, and the UN) — the sponsors of the peace process — but also by the parties themselves — Israel and Palestine.
Yet, the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Palestinian membership in UN agencies undermines the peace process. They, therefore, announced punitive retaliatory measures: Washington will punish Unesco by withholding its financial contributions to it. Israel will go further by withholding its financial contribution to Unesco; and by punishing the Palestinians. Netanyahu announced that his government will accelerate the construction of new colonies in occupied East Jerusalem — a policy that has been condemned by the UN, the EU, and even by Washington itself as lacking legitimacy and undermining the peace process.
There is something wrong here. Either the Palestinians, supported by the international community, are misguided and their quest for membership in UN agencies does undermine the peace process. Or the peace process is intellectually corrupt claiming to serve the cause of peace when in fact it is perpetuating conflict.
There have been many instances in which it is possible to say that the Palestinians have pursued misguided policies. In a recent interview on Israeli television Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas mentioned two such instances — the Palestinian refusal to accept the 1947 UN Resolution recommending the partition of Palestine and the 2000 second Palestinian intifada. The editors of Wall Street Journal, a leading supporter of the American-Israeli position on the Palestinian quest for UN membership, recently explained that the Palestinian move undermined the peace process because it alienated Israel.
This logic reverses the roles: The occupier is absolved of its obligations under international law, and the victim is burdened with the obligation not to alienate the occupier even in the face of oppression, dispossession and collective punishment. If alienating your interlocutor undermines the quest for peace, then the Palestinians — who experience daily alienation under Israeli occupation — can legitimately argue that the Israelis have destroyed the peace process.
Israel treats Palestinians and other non-Jews as second class citizens in Israel and denies any rights at all to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Despite the UN in 1948 requiring that its admission of Israel as a state was dependent upon Israel recognising Palestinian refugees’ right to return, Israel has still failed to fulfill its promise. Instead, this legal recognition is cast by pernicious zionist hasbara as tantamount to destroying Israel, and so, too, is the one state solution vilified.
As Martin Woollacott correctly observes in his review of Ghada Karmi’s book “Married to Another Man”, ‘The single-state argument is not the essence of the problem. The essence is a change in the nature of Zionism’. Deconstruction and dismantlement of the white supremacist ideology of zionism is essential if peace is to be achieved in the region. Until then, Israel will remain the useful tool of exploitative imperialists which British Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman envisaged in 1907. Thus does empire employ racism as a divide and rule tactic to achieve its rapacious ends to monopolise the vast resources of the Middle East.
Supported by other settler colonial and imperial entities and regardless of the negative consequences on Israel’s legitimacy in the Middle East, Israel’s crimes against humanity and war crimes are minimised and shrugged off – for Israel, land and resource theft are of singularly paramount import and is even portrayed as of ‘benefit’ to the dispossessed. In settler colonial Australia too, the suspension of human rights under the Anti-Discrimination Act for Aboriginals in the Northern Territory for the horrific Intervention was justified on the grounds of ‘need’ and sold to the public as essential for the ‘good’ of Aboriginals, despite protest from Aboriginal groups and communities.
The zionist regime similarly fails to acknowledge the racist nature of its laws which deliver privilege to 80% of the population and discriminate deliberately through birth or religion against 20% of the population. The racist Knesset proceeds instead to pass even more such laws. Yet it can hardly be expected for racists to recognise racist laws – the disease of racism occludes perceptions which threaten its eradication. Israel obscures its apartheid ziocolonial practices through a prism of overweaning need. In fact, Israel has no intention of permitting a Palestinian state or relinquishing one metre of land it has already stolen, yet to bolster the perfidious legitimacy of its theft, pretends it is seeking to negotiate for a Palestinian state for which Palestinians must deliver ever more concessions to achieve. By this strategy, Israel and its cruel western sponsors cast the onus onto Palestinians to pursue ‘peace’ while Israel continues its oppression and illegal appropriation of more Palestinian land and resources.
The boot on the neck of the oppressed can hardly expect the oppressed to remain silent while the boot attempts to crush them. Boycott, divestment and sanctions have been called by Palestinian civil society to counter Israel’s rejection of Palestinians rights – and increasingly, people of conscience throughout the world are answering the call.
‘The Arab Spring has pushed Israel into a strategic trap from which it can extricate itself only through accommodation with the Palestinians. In the current political climate, Arab leaders, whether conservative or revolutionary, can no longer afford to be seen as complicit with Israel and the United States in the region. The Palestinian cause will now resonate louder than ever in the central squares of Cairo, Amman and Ankara.’
On the 20th September, Australian ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent broadcast a programme titled “Follow the Money”, mainly focussing on the impact of BDS on Daniel Birnbaum, the Israeli US immigrant business owner of Soda Stream, an Israeli factory illegally located in one of the neoliberal industrial zones in the Occupied West Bank. The show offered a token ‘balance’ with a Palestinian US immigrant family who supported boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israeli apartheid and occupation. The mother, Cairo Arafat, emphasised her support for two states, whilst her daughter Semma, was less enthusiastic, opining that “Two states will not work. Two states would just be a phase into Palestine being wiped off the map, into creating a one state that is an Israeli state”. The programme lacked considerable depth and sensitivity on the BDS issue within Palestine and Israel, and made some glaring factual errors – such as failing to note that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law, that instead of “Thirteen per cent of it [the apartheid wall] … being constructed inside the West Bank”, the apartheid barrier is built mainly in the West Bank and only partly along the 1949 Armistice line, or “Green Line” between Israel and Palestinian West Bank, with 12% of the entire West Bank area illegally annexed across into the Israel side of the barrier. Further, despite the new anti-boycott law passed by Israel’s far right extremist Knesset, which has been condemned by Amnesty International as “an attack on freedom of expression”, there are a growing number of Israelis who are in solidarity with the call of Palestinian people for BDS.
Foreign Correspondent programmes are re-broadcast regularly “by more than 20 international networks, including CNN International, Al Jazeera, NHK Japan and TV NZ”. Al Jazeera English re-broadcasted “Follow the Money” retitled as “About a boycott” on its “People & Power” show on October 6, 2011. So who inserted the ubiquitous fake Max Brenner this time – for this is not the first occasion that Max Brenner has been anthropomorphised.
The “Max Brenner Shop Owner” title pops up in the screenshot opposite at about 10.07 minutes into Al Jazeera English’s slightly truncated re-broadcast version. This individual is named in the Foreign Correspondent transcript as “GRAHAM WEINBERG (IN CROWD)”. Now we know which balding lookalike Max Brenner is this month. The Max Brenner site states “ALL AUSTRALIAN MAX BRENNER CHOCOLATE BARS ARE COMPANY OWNED & WE DO NOT CURRENTLY FRANCHISE”.
Foreign Correspondent Eric Campbell captures some correct information from a protester at a recent rally against the Israeli occupation-supporting Max Brenner business in Newtown.
CAMPBELL: “And what’s Max Brenner doing?”
PROTESTOR: “Max Brenner is financially and morally supporting the Israeli defence forces, particularly two brigades – the Golani and the Givati”.
Like Max Brenner, Sodastream is bound to the illegal, brutal Israeli military occupation, and is a legitimate boycott target.
“Al Jazeera is a vital component to the USG’s strategy in communicating with the Arab world.” — Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, November 6, 2008
“Al Jazeera Board Chairman Hamed bin Thamer Al Thani has proven open to creative uses of Al Jazeera’s airwaves by the USG beyond straightforward interviews.” — Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, February 10, 2009
Might the omnipresent bald man be such an example of ‘creative uses’ of Al Jazeera’s airwaves by the US or was the inserted caption a plausibly deniable slipup?
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
Palestine / Israel Links
The hand of a thief: Taking a page from Nixon (“If the president does it, that means it’s not illegal!”) Netanyahu instructed Justice Minister Ya’acov Ne’eman, a religious ultra-nationalist, to come up with a legal way for Israel to keep even the radical hilltop settlement outposts built on land that Israel itself recognizes as being owned by Palestinians.
After visiting Palestine in 1897, 
