Dear Mark E. Smith, A letter to the Fall
Dear Mark E. Smith,
Dear Mark E. Smith,
Dear participants of the Tel-Aviv Epos International Art Film Festival,
30 September 2010
Dear Scorpions,
We are a group of activists from Israel, writing to you to express our support for the open letter written to you by PACBI.
As people who have for many years been striving to achieve justice and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis we have reached a conclusion that our efforts from within cannot result in the desired change without significant international pressure. The governments of the world have proven unwilling to exert the necessary pressure on Israel for it to abide by international law and end the ongoing occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. It is therefore up to conscientious individuals to send a clear message to Israel, its government and the Israeli public, that controlling millions of people abusing their most basic human rights is no longer acceptable.
September 14, 2010
To the board and member theatres of the European Theatre Convention (ETC),
We, Jews, Palestinians, citizens of Israel, write to you today asking you to cancel the Israeli theatre The Cameri's membership of the ETC, due to The Cameri's implicit and now also explicit role in sustaining the occupation of Palestine and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
As you may already know, on Wednesday, August 25, an Israeli newspaper revealed1 that the major theatres in the country, including The Cameri, are to perform in the newly established cultural centre of Ariel. Ariel is one of the largest settlements in the occupied West Bank, located approximately 16 kilometres east of the internationally recognized “green line”, on expropriated agricultural Palestinian land. As any other settlement for Jews-Only, Ariel's existence is in itself a violation of international law, breaching article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupier from transferring it's own civilian population into occupied territories. Ariel regularly contaminates Palestinian water and agricultural lands2. Moreover, the West Bank separation wall and the roads for Israelis only that surround it form severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement and further expropriate Palestinian lands and resources. In 2004 the international court of Justice in Hague ruled the Israeli-built West Bank separation wall to be entirely illegal as well.
30 August 2010
Dear Pete Seeger,
We are members of an Israeli group called “Boycott! supporting the Palestinian call for boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) from within”. We are appealing to you because of commitment you have demonstrated during many years to social justice. We have recently heard that you plan to participate this November in the event “With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East”, in benefit of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.
You might not have heard initially about the BDS call and movement, a broad coalition of Palestinian organizations that have amongst other things, called on artists not to entertain apartheid Israel. Their call has been joined by Desmond Tutu and Bill Fletcher, Jr. amongst many others. These calls are the direct result of the systematic and ongoing oppression of Palestinians by Israel and Israel's decade’s long refusal to stop violating Palestinians human rights.
September 9, 2010
Dear Pete,
As long-time admirers of your music and your commitment to social justice, and as justice-seeking activists ourselves, we were surprised and troubled to learn that you plan to participate in the event “With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East” this November.
As part of the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), and inspired by the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, Palestinian people have asked international artists to join the BDS movement by refusing to perform in Israel or participate in events that serve to equate the occupier and the occupied and thus promote the continuation of injustice. Participation in “With Earth and Each Other” undermines the call for BDS until Israel meets the basic requirements of human rights and international law by ending its occupation, ensuring equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and respecting the rights of Palestinian refugees.
LCD Soundsystem are a great band. Their song All My Friends was selected as 2007's song of the year on my favorite music show, Hakatze (broadcast on the Israeli military radio station, by the way...)
July 9th, 2010
Dear Jeff Beck,
We are a group of Israeli citizens who respect and promote human rights for all. We call on you to make a conscientious and politically important decision to cancel your performance in Israel, scheduled for October 5th, 2010. We would like you to consider the following:
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are living for the last 43+ years under a cruel Israeli occupation. Their living and basic necessities for water, energy, housing, health and movement are being crushed by a system that either dispossess them or sees them as targets for obliteration by the Israeli army's prevalent violence. West Bank Palestinians' entitlement for equality is systematically denied by martial law, hundreds of checkpoints and blockades and the colonization and annexation of Palestinian lands and resources by the Israeli settlement enterprise, house demolitions and evictions and the separation wall.
"How many lives can they take, till we break?"
"How many homes set alight, till we fight?"
Dear Leftfield,
We, a group of Israeli citizens, are writing to you today, as your words of protest resonate with their relevance in light of the deadly raid on a flotilla attempting to break the illegal siege and packed with humanitarian aid, bound for the suffocating Gaza Strip. That same strip of land, overpopulated and besieged for the past 3 years, is the place which Israel chose to brutally attack during its December 2009 onslaught.
To Ireland's EU commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn,