Source: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=3039

The Jerusalem Film Festival foreign office has confirmed that legendary basketball star and actor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reversed plans to visit Israel due to concerns arising “after the Nakba Day violence.”

Abdul-Jabbar was slated to present his film, “On the Shoulders Of Giants,” at the festival next month, as a candidate for the “Spirit of Freedom Award ." According to YNet News, his visit was scheduled in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate of New York.

June 28th, 2011

Dear Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,

We are writing to commend you for your principled decision not to attend the Jerusalem Film Festival in response to “concern over the Nakba Day violence,” as indicated by the festival’s foreign office. Indeed, Israel’s brutally violent suppression of peaceful Palestinian youth demonstrations and its shoot-to-kill policy during the Nakba Day protests, in particular, should convince any person of conscience not to lend his or her good name to institutions that divert attention away from Israeli state brutality and human rights violations.

June 21 , 2011
Dear Armin Van Buuren, 

Junio 2011
Bogotá, Colombia
 
Estimada Shakira,
 

Dear Dream Theatre,

I am an Israeli citizen supporting the Palestinian call for boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel.

I'm writing to you because I'm compelled to act in solidarity with my Palestinian friends, who are living under Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Dear Vanessa Mae,

We are a group of Israeli citizens who support the human rights-based Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the BDS movement  ([1] http://www.pacbi.org , http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

Dear Paul Simon,

We are members of BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within.[1] We were dismayed to read that you're planning to Preform in Israel at the end of this year.[2] In 2005, Palestinian civil society initiated a call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) from Israeli institutions, companies and academia, as a response to an over-60-year-old human rights crisis, involving military occupation and the development of a crushing system of apartheid, very similar to that practiced in apartheid South Africa.[3] We are Israeli citizens who have chosen to support the call, and we ask you not to break the cultural boycott; Please don't perform in apartheid Israel, until our government reverses its policies.

May 4, 2011
Dear Ethan and Joel Coen,
 
We are a group of Israeli citizens and residents, Jews and Palestinians; many of us have been fans of your work since the early days of Blood Simple and have found much inspiration in your cinematic inquiries into themes of morality and human relations.
 
We recently learned that you have been awarded the Dan David prize, administered by the University of Tel-Aviv (UTA), for your achievements in film and cultural contribution to society. We hope that you will allow us the opportunity to illuminate the implications inherent in participating in international cultural events facilitated by Israel, and urge you to refuse the Dan David prize as well as your participation in the UTA symposium.