‘Tibi showed the Forward a clip from his speech at this year’s Palestinian Martyrs Day rally, on January 7, where he named people he considers “martyrs,” all of whom were civilians killed by Israel and none of whom perpetrated attacks. By editing last year’s clip to give a different message, Palestinian Media Watch “tried to violate and mislead,” he said.’
Tibi’s satirical poem about MK Anastasia Michaeli’s throwing a cup of water over him during a Knesset sitting also annoys the linguistically challenged Knesset Ethics Committee which bans him from the Knesset for a week for his literary prowess. Who says poems don’t bite and sting in all the right places?
‘The issue in this case was his reading of an allegedly offensive poem from the Knesset podium aimed at Anastasia Michaeli, a lawmaker from Yisrael Beteinu. On January 9, Michaeli, herself a sometime practitioner of politics by provocation, threw a cupful of water into the face of Arab lawmaker Ghaleb Majadle, of the Labor party, after Majadle called her a “fascist” during a Knesset debate. Michaeli was banished from all parliamentary proceedings for one month as punishment for her misconduct.
In his poem responding to Michaeli, Tibi said the Yisrael Beiteinu member had “a problem with her plumbing” and used the Hebrew term “cos amok,” or “cup of frenzy” to describe her act.
The Knesset’s Ethics Committee took this phrase as an innuendo, as it sounds like an Arabic curse that refers to female genitalia, and imposed its ban. Tibi denies any innuendo. “Worse than its stupidity is it not knowing Hebrew,” he said of the committee. ‘
“Anastasia, / Who has a problem with her plumbing, / Grew in the dung beds of our home Israel — or shall I say, Russia? / From there it was a short way to the Law of the Muezzin, / Which meanwhile has been / Turned into a joint Bibi [pronounced by Tibi bibey]-Anastasia project, / A thoughtless use of water in time of drought / When every drop counts. / Israel is drying out / But is not ashamed. / Anastasia ran amok and poured / Water on a colleague. / And so I’ll call a spade a spade, / That is, a cup of frenzy.”
That may not make a whole lot of sense to you, much less seem a literary gem — but that’s only because you don’t have the original before you. How many delicate little touches you would notice if you did! The rhyme of “Anastasia” and instalatsia (“plumbing”), for example; or the play on arugot ha-bosem, “spice beds,” from the Song of Songs (“My beloved has gone down into his garden, unto the beds of spices”) and arugot ha-zevel, “dung beds”; or the pun on “Bibi” and bivey, “sewers”; or the inversion of mityabeshet, “is drying out,” and mitbayeshet, “is ashamed.”
Israeli fascist organisation Im Tirtzu attempts to have Palestinian actor banned from performing in a Lorca play. Fascists are frightened of intellectuals, classically their prime targets. The intellect might restrain the fascist drive for power.
According to the Israeli promoters, Merrill Garbus said the cancellation of the tUnE-yArDs gig at the Barby in Tel Aviv was for personal reasons, but they believe it was political.
Merrill Garbus is a signatory of the 500 Artists Against Israeli Apartheid letter published in February 2010, so it’s fair to think the cancellation indeed was political.
Montreal artists are now joining this international campaign to concretely protest the Israeli state’s ongoing denial of the inalienable rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in and protected by international law, as well as Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza, which also constitutes a violation of international law and multiple United Nations resolutions.
Palestinian citizens face an entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation, resembling the defeated apartheid system in South Africa. A matrix of Israeli-only roads, electrified fences, and over 500 military checkpoints and roadblocks erase freedom of movement for Palestinians. Israel’s apartheid wall, which was condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004, cuts through Palestinian lands, further annexing Palestinian territory and surrounding Palestinian communities with electrified barbed wire fences and a concrete barrier soaring eight meters high.
Gaza remains under siege. Israel continues to impose collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who still face chronic shortages of electricity, fuel, food and basic necessities as the campaign of military violence executed by the apartheid state of Israel endures. UN officials recently observed that the “situation has deteriorated into a full-fledged emergency because of the cut-off of vital supplies for Palestinians.” As a result of Israeli actions, Gaza has become a giant prison.
The global movement against Israeli apartheid, supported by a large majority of Palestinian civil society, is not targeted at individual Israelis but at Israeli institutions that are complicit in maintaining the multi-tiered Israeli system of oppression against the Palestinian people.
In fact, the Palestinian civil society BDS call, launched by over 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005, explicitly appeals to conscientious Israelis, urging them to support international efforts to bring about Israel’s compliance with international law and fundamental human rights, essential elements for a justice-based peace in the region. The present appeal is also rooted in an active engagement with many progressive Israeli artists and activists who are working on a daily basis for peace and justice while supporting the growing global movement in opposition to Israeli apartheid.
Israel uses all culture as propaganda to obscure and solidify its oppression – its use of music and musicians is no exception. A ubiquitous catchcry of Israel’s hasbara diplomats, many of whom are now paid for their efforts, is “Music should cross borders, not create them”. Yet in breaking the boycott, musicians undermine the peaceful tactic which Palestinian people have chosen to struggle for their rights. Musicians who respect the boycott conscientiously choose to support non-violent resistance to terrible injustice.
Israeli apartheid creates borders which no music can cross.
Rapper Talib Kweli rubs shoulders with British saxophonist Evan Parker, and the bassheads at Glitch Mob stand next to the Flaming Lips’ Kliph Scurlock. Alongside septuagenarians such as Roy Harper and Frederic Rzewski, there is Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus.
Islam Dar Ayyoub was arrested in the early hours of 23 January, when the Israeli forces entered his house at 2 a.m., asking for him. He had already been arrested earlier that month and held for several hours at Halamish settlement before being released. The family’s house had also been targeted twice that month for ‘mapping’ by the Israeli forces: an operation in which soldiers enter the house in the middle of the night, wake up its inhabitants and take photographs and ID numbers of all the men and children living there.
…
Whilst under interrogation at the police station Islam was threatened with electric shock treatment or attacks by dogs. His lawyer appeared at the police station but the Head of Interrogation of Judea and Samaria gave the order not to give him access as, according to him, Islam was beginning to admit to accusations and incriminate others, and the lawyer’s presence may ‘compromise the interrogation’. During his interrogation Islam was not informed of his right to remain silent nor of his right to seek legal counsel. It was only after approximately five hours of interrogation that he was allowed to see his lawyer who was waiting outside. By this time, he had already signed a statement in Hebrew on the understanding that if he did so his family would come and collect him and take him home. The statement, which he did not understand, incriminated Bassem and Naji Tamimi, two of the key protest organizers from Nabi Saleh. After signing the statement iron handcuffs were applied to him and he was taken by military car to Ofer detention center. After spending 3 days at Ofer, Islam was brought before a Military Judge
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.
OPEN LETTER to Youn Sun Nah: It’s Not Smooth to Jazz and Dine in Eilat while Gaza Suffers
Dear Youn Sun Nah,
The Red Sea Jazz Festival is a festival that is sponsored and promoted by the government of Israel. The festival is a part of the effort to normalize apartheid and talented Jazz musicians are being used to cover up Israel’s crimes. Your presence at such a festival sends the message that there is nothing wrong with the injustices that Israel commits daily against the Palestinian people. It undermines their non-violent call to boycott, which is their last resort for justice and freedom after 64 years of oppression and dispossession.
Your recent effort to raise awareness for the children of Africa through UNICEF was very commendable and would lead us to believe you would be interested to hear more about the plight of the Palestinian people. Being a musician of conscience, would you consider staying home? Would you refrain from playing in Israel?
Imagine if the children of Africa that you raised funds for were under military rule, and because of their ethnicity they were placed behind tall cement walls, and made to wait for hours to go through checkpoints. Suppose they were forced into an open air prison in which musical instruments and chocolate were not allowed in, and drones littered their skies daily, their memories grey with sadness from 22 days of bombing where over 1400 people were left dead, white phosphorus burning hands that would have liked to play music. If they asked you not to play for the government that was harming them, would you ignore their request and play anyway? Would you wine and dine with the elite in a resort, letting them hear your lovely voice and smooth jazz music all the while ignoring the suffering just miles away? Three artists based in France decided to cancel their Israel gigs in 2011 – will you join Vanessa Paradis, Mireille Mathieu, and Oumou Sangare?
Students in Seoul, Korea participated in Israel Apartheid Week in 2011. Please watch their very creative efforts:
If you are still not sure why over 170 civil society organizations in occupied Palestine have come together since 2005 to ask artists like yourself to boycott Israel, we’ve included some valuable background information below, written by the Palestinian BDS movement.
We are a group, of over 820 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 through the world.
Israel subjects Palestinians to a cruel system of dispossession and racial discrimination
Perhaps you are not familiar enough with Israel’s practices, widely acknowledged as violations of international law. If this is the case, then we hope you will reconsider your planned concert after thinking through some of Israel’s trespasses. Your performance would function as a whitewash of these practices, making it appear as though business with Israel should go on as usual. Concretely, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’ basic human rights in some of the following ways:
1. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal and unlawful military occupation. Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks strangling the West Bank. All the while, Israel continues to build its illegal wall on Palestinian land and to support the ever-expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the West Bank into Bantustans.
2. Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid within Israel’s borders, with laws and policies that deny them the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy. These laws and policies affect education, land ownership, housing, employment, marriage, and all other aspects of people’s daily lives. In many ways this system strikingly resembles Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa.
3. Since 1948, when Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian people in order to form an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and their lands. Israel also continues to expel people from their homes in Jerusalem and the Naqab (Negev). Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees still struggling for their right to return to their homes, like all refugees around the world.
4. In Gaza, Palestinians have been subjected to a criminal and immoral siege since 2006. As part of this siege, Israel has prevented not only various types of medicines, candles, books, crayons, clothing, shoes, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee and chocolate, but also musical instruments from reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the world’s largest open-air prison [9].
Israel uses arts and culture to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights.
In December 2008 and January 2009, Israel waged a war of aggression against Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians, predominantly civilians, dead [10], and led the UN Goldstone Report to declare that Israel had committed war crimes [11]. In the wake of this assault and to salvage its deteriorating image, Israel has redoubled its effort to “brand” itself as an enlightened liberal democracy [12]. Arts and culture play a unique role in this branding campaign [13], as the presence of internationally acclaimed artists from the West is meant to affirm Israel’s membership in the West’s privileged club of “cultured,” liberal democracies. But it should not be business as usual with a state that routinely violates international law and basic human rights.
Your performance would serve this Israeli campaign to rebrand itself and will be used as a publicity tool by the Israeli government.
Numerous distinguished cultural figures and public intellectuals have joined the call for BDS.
After the Gaza assault and even more so after the flotilla massacre in May 2010, many international artists, intellectuals, and cultural workers have been rejecting Israel’s cynical use of the arts to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies. Among those who have supported the BDS movement are distinguished artists, writers, and anti-racist activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu [14], John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, and Alice Walker [15].
World-renowned artists, among them Vanessa Paradis, Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Faithless and the Pixies have also cancelled their performances in Israel over its human rights record. Maxi Jazz (Faithless front-man) had this to say as he maintained his principled position not to entertain apartheid,
While human beings are being willfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that [performing in Israel] is either ‘normal’ or ‘ok’. It’s neither and I cannot support it. It grieves me that it has come to this and I pray everyday for human beings to begin caring for each other, firm in the wisdom that we are all we have. [16]
Please say no to performing in Israel.
If you remain unconvinced because of claims that a cultural boycott of Israel may infringe on freedom of expression and cultural exchange, may we recall for you the judicious words of Enuga S. Reddy, director of the United Nations Center against Apartheid, who in 1984 responded to a similar criticism voiced against the cultural boycott of South Africa by saying:
It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms… to the African majority… should become a defender of the freedom of artists and sportsmen of the world. We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime. [17]
The members of Boycott Within! who risk legal action by making their demands below support the Palestinian call to boycott, divest from and sanction apartheid from within Israel.
Amnesty International, One Struggle for Freedom Must Not Undermine Another
“To Amnesty International,
We are a group of citizens of Israel who support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. Some of us are members of Amnesty International and we’re deeply troubled by your endorsement of the Swedish Metal band, Arch Enemy, which is scheduled to give a gig in Israel, despite its record of violating international law and human rights.
We applaud your tireless documentation of abuses of human rights world-wide and the actions you take to bring them to an end. As you very well know, freedom of expression has never been granted to Palestinians by the Israeli military regime. This is evident from the most recent example of the brutal repression of demonstrations against the apartheid wall and settlements in the West Bank, where Mustafa Tamimi was shot to death in the head with a high velocity gas projectile from zero range (http://youtu.be/69GCTj6_BZs).
So many Palestinian activists, many of whom are still in Israeli prisons, are held under “administrative” arrest for weeks and months, in violation of international law and their human rights. We would like to remind you in particular of two arrests that occurred in late 2009:
1. Abdallah Abu Rahma, whom the army tried to convict for “possession of arms”, when in fact an art exhibition was held in his home: A peace-sign constructed from used gas canisters that the army uses every week against the villagers of Bil’in
2. Mohammad Othman, who was arrested for the crime of talking. At the time, this is what Amnesty International had to say:
Amnesty international has also been very supportive of our own group, as we are gradually being targeted by the policies of the Israeli government as well. There is no need to explain to you that we knowingly commit a civil offense in writing this letter. Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa stated this very clearly:
We have absolutely no doubt that the Palestinian people were also on your mind, when you launched your “End Repression-Protect Freedom of Expression” campaign. We have absolutely no doubt of the importance of raising awareness about the political prisoners of Yodok in North Korea or the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. However, we must stress that one struggle for freedom must not undermine another.
Your sponsorship of Arch Enemy, who are scheduled to perform in Israel in January, will directly violate the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Hundreds of Palestinian unions, associations, NGOs, institutes, political parties, and groups are asking international artists not to perform in Israel (certainly not in commercial venues), until Israel ends its violations of human rights. Therefore, your sponsorship undermines the Palestinian civil society struggle for equality. liberation and self determination.
In view of this, we ask that you either
1. Withdraw your endorsement of Arch Enemy’s concert in Israel (as you have done before with Leonard Cohen – http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1080) and publicly distance Amnesty International from Arch Enemy’s decision to perform in Israel and express serious reservation about their undermining of Palestinian struggle.
or
2. Assist the band to convey their important message in a way that will not violate the Palestinian civil society BDS call, and will not serve to whitewash Israel’s violations of human rights through a false image of “cultural diversity” and “freedom of expression”.
We would be interested in your comments.
Sincerely,
BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within”
The JNF was created in 1901 to acquire land and property rights in Palestine and beyond for exclusive Jewish settlement. While indigenous Palestinians are barred from leasing, building on, managing or working their own land, the JNF holds the land in trust for “those of Jewish race or descendency” living anywhere in the world to “promote the interests of Jews in the prescribed region.”
To ensure such racist control over the majority of confiscated Palestinian lands, Israel adopted the JNF model of discriminatory land management as official state policy. In 1953, the Israeli Knesset legislated special status for JNF, enabling it to carry out governmental functions as a Zionist institution (“for Jews only”). The JNF continues to operate as a state-chartered organization[6] under Israeli law with direct control over some thirteen percent of the land in pre-1967 Israel.
Further, the JNF appoints six out of thirteen members of the governing board of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), which manages the JNF’s thirteen percent, in addition to another eighty percent of all land in Israel. It is through this relationship with the JNF that Israel, while portraying itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, in fact, outsources the land-management
functions of the state to this discriminatory state-chartered organization.
The Palestinian Freedom Riders recently highlighted Israel's unjust apartheid policy of separate but unequal.
Will Amnesty International decide to ignore the Palestinian call for justice but to instead obey Arch Enemy’s call? Arch Enemy is making strong claims that Amnesty International accompany them to Israel, as they break through the Palestinian picket line known as BDS.[1]
The cultural boycott is Palestine’s non-violent form of resistance to the continued oppression and apartheid inflicted on them by Israel. Amnesty making a “show” with Arch Enemy would only serve to normalize apartheid and deflect from the need to hold Israel accountable to International Law.
Electronica musician Moby recently broke the boycott call and played for Israel’s Pic.Nic for apartheid. Moby did not have the audacity to demand that Amnesty International be present at his concert. Art For Amnesty lists Moby as one of their prominent supporters.[2] That Moby broke the boycott call is appalling, but it would have been worse had he removed all references to Palestine on his facebook (he never did), and insisted on Art For Amnesty to join him in Israel, all the while, thanking Israel lobby group “Stand With Us,” and recording vocals with a pro-settler band in Israel.
Can Amnesty International maintain credibility and appear in Tel Aviv with Arch Enemy?
Arch Enemy has repressed all mention of the Palestinian call on their facebook, aggressively banning human rights volunteers and deleting posts.[3]
In a disturbing disregard for the Palestinian plight today, Arch Enemy has not responded nor acknowledged the PACBI’s letter written directly to Arch Enemy.
Arch Enemy’s lead singer has publicly thanked “Stand With Us.” The “Stand With Us” twitter profile clearly shows exactly who they are. Until pressured to remove it, the lead singer kept her tweet of thanks to SWU visible.[4]
Arch Enemy’s lead singer did collaborate with the pro-Zionist band Amaseffer. She did the vocals for the band’s track “Midian” in 2008.
Amnesty set a precedent in 2009. They chose to withdraw from Leonard Cohen’s concert in Israel.[5] Depending on which way the pendulum swings, Amnesty will either choose to maintain the precendent they set in 2009, or they will choose to ignore the Palestinian call for boycott, creating a setback in the fight for human rights. Hopes are high that Amnesty will simply refrain.
