Dear Leif Ove Andsnes,

 

We, Jewish Israeli artists, musicians, filmmakers and authors – committed to a just society in Palestine/Israel – urge you to cancel your planned concerts in Israel.  

 

We yearn for justice and freedom for all here. This cannot be achieved until our government ends its oppression against millions of Palestinians, including those in the besieged Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank. 

 

Last year, Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, and one of the world’s leading human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, each reported in detail what Palestinians, South Africans and legal scholars have long been saying: Israel implements a brutal apartheid regime against Palestinians. 

 

Last May alone, Israeli forces killed more than 240 Palestinians, including more than 60 children, in Gaza, an hour's drive from Tel Aviv. In recent weeks weeks, Israeli authorities have continued to demolish Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem, as the world watches.

 

Performing in Tel Aviv, an apartheid city built partly on the ruins of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages and neighborhoods, is a political statement of, at the very least, indifference.

 

 

Respectfully

 

Dror Dayan, filmmaker

Guy Elhanan, theater director

Anat even, filmmaker

Dror Feiler, composer, musician, artist

Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, performance artist/musician

Jonathan Ofir, violinist and conductor

David Oppenheim, artist, musician Sigal Primor, artist

Michal Sapir, musician, writer

Ita Segev, performance artist

Itamar Shapira, musician, tour guide, anthropologist

Yonatan Shapira, musician

Eyal Sivan, filmmaker

Nirit Sommerfeld, singer, actress, author

Lia Tarachansky, multimedis journalist and documentary filmmaker