Tony Greenstein's Blog
Socialist, anti-Zionist, anti-racist
Sunday, 6 March 2011
'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven'<http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/03/1to-every-thing-there-is-season-and.html>
<http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sjp-h9WAzIM/TXQG8wlSNLI/AAAAAAAAF-E/QB0k3J8EPkY/s1600/Waters%2B-%2BPink%2BFloyd.jpeg><http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OTYFGZzNxuk/TXQG85CVSYI/AAAAAAAAF98/5GtjlIk-Yt8/s1600/the%2Bessential%2Bpete%2Bseeger.jpeg><http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovJO8Egv5bo/TXQG8sCACyI/AAAAAAAAF90/Y6iOtUwg9jU/s1600/seeger.jpeg><http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kYmy_TqjUhY/TXQG8t8JdGI/AAAAAAAAF9s/znMqWdt_HxI/s1600/Roger%2BWaters%2B18%2BMay%2B2008%2BLondon%2BO2%2BArena.jpeg>Pete
Seeger & Roger Waters Declare Support for the Cultural Boycott
There is no doubt that cultural boycott is achieving greater and greater
significance and impact, as it did with the boycott of South Africa. Unlike
an economic boycott, which can often be circumvented or resisted for years,
a cultural boycott can have a very immediate impact on the psyche and
self-image of the settlers.
The decision of Pete Seeger and Roger Waters to join the Boycott are very
important achievements. Pete Seeger almost personifies the folk music
revival in the United States and its association with the civil rights
movement. He it was who introduced the anthem we shall overcome.
Seeger and his group, The Weavers, who suffered under McCarthyism from being
blacklisted testified with a guitar at a 1955 session of the House of
UnAmerican Activities and unlike the others who appeared, refused to take
the First Amendment or divulge information on who he knew or who he had
contacts with.
Seeger, who had previously been swayed into dialogue with the apologists
for Israels continuing dispossession of its Arab citizens, has now added
his voice to the growing clamour to boycott the Israeli Apartheid State.
Roger Waters was an original founder of the seminal 60s group Pink Floyd
and after the departure of the zany Syd Barrett became its principal song
writer as well as a vocalist and bass guitarist. Despite appearing in Israel
in 2005, before the current call for boycott, he has now signed up to BDS
after seeing for himself the new ghetto wall Israels Apartheid Wall which
confiscates 12% of the West Bank and symbolises, in all its glory, the
hideousness of the Zionist state.
Tony Greenstein
Folk Music Legend Pete Seeger Endorses Boycott of
Israel<http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occupation/3355-folk-music-legend-pete-seeger-endorses-boycott-of-israel->
Monday,
28 February 2011 17:00 Adalah-NY, ICAHD
Folk music legend Pete Seeger has come out in support of the growing
Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against
Israel as a program for justice for Palestinians and a route to peace in the
Middle East .
Seeger, 92, participated in last Novembers online virtual rally With Earth
and Each Other, sponsored by the Arava Institute, an Israeli environmental
organization, and by the Friends of the Arava Institute. The Arava Institute
counts among its close partners and major funders the Jewish National Fund,
responsible since 1901 for securing land in Palestine for the use of Jews
only while dispossessing Palestinians. Although groups in the worldwide BDS
movement had requested he quit the event, Seeger felt that he could make a
strong statement for peace and justice during the event.
During a January meeting at his Beacon, NY home with representatives from
the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Adalah-NY, Pete
Seeger explained, I appeared on that virtual rally because for many years
Ive felt that people should talk with people they disagree with. But it
ended up looking like I supported the Jewish National Fund. 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.
Jeff Halper, the Coordinator of ICAHD, added, Pete did extensive research
on this. He read historical and current material and spoke to neighbors,
friends, and three rabbis before making his decision to support the boycott
movement against Israel . Seeger has for some time given some of the
royalties from his famous Bible-based song from the 1960s, Turn, Turn,
Turn, to ICAHD for their work in rebuilding demolished homes and exposing
Israel s practice of pushing Palestinians in Israel off their land in favor
of development of Jewish villages and cities.
The November virtual rally With Earth and Each Other was billed as an
apolitical effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to work for
the environment. Dave Lippman from Adalah-NY noted, Aravas online event
obfuscated basic facts about Israels occupation and systematic seizure of
land and water from Palestinians. Aravas partner and funder, the JNF, is
notorious for planting forests to hide Palestinian villages demolished by
Israel in order to seize their land. Arava was revealed as a sterling
practitioner of Israeli government efforts to 'Rebrand Israel ' through
greenwashing and the arts.
Currently, the JNF is supporting an Israeli government effort to demolish
the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib in order to plant trees from the JNF that
were paid for by the international evangelical group GOD-TV. The Friends of
the Arava Institutes new board chair has recently published an op-ed in the
Jerusalem Post that only cautiously questions some activities of the JNF, an
organization whose very raison-d'etre is to take over land for Jews at the
expense of the Palestinian Arab population.
Pete Seegers long-time colleague Theodore Bikel, an Israeli-American known
for his life-long involvement with Israeli culture, recently supported the
Israeli artists who have refused to perform in a new concert hall in Ariel,
a large illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
Seeger joins a growing roster of international performers who have declined
to whitewash, greenwash, or in any way enable Israels colonial project,
including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, Devendra Banhart,
and the Pixies.
Roger Waters voices support for Israel
boycott<http://www.haaretz.com/culture/roger-waters-voices-support-for-israel-boycott-1.347411>
Former Pink Floyd frontman urges fellow artists to join ban until Israel to
ends the occupation, grants full equality to Israeli Arabs, and allows all
Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
Roger Waters, founding member, vocalist and bassist of the iconic rock band
'Pink Floyd' has voiced his support for a cultural boycott of Israel.
The British musician performed in Israel in 2005, ignoring calls from
Palestinian rights advocates to cancel. While in Israel, Waters visited
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He was taken to the controversial separation fence
in the West Bank, which he called "an appalling edifice to behold."
Waters said he was extremely affected by his tour of the West Bank,
scrawling "We dont need no thought control", lyrics from one of Pink
Floyd's most popular songs, on the wall, and cancelling his performance in
Tel Aviv. Instead, the British star held the concert in Neve Shalom, a
cooperative village founded by Jews and Arabs.
In the letter Waters wrote announcing his support of a cultural boycott of
Israel, he said that in his "view, the abhorrent and draconian control that
Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians
in the occupied West Bank, coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees
to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around
the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance."
He concluded the letter, saying that he is joining the campaign of Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three
basic human rights he claims are demanded by international law.
He called on Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and dismantle the
separation fence, recognize the rights of Arab citizens of Israel and
granting them full equality and allow all Palestinian refugees to return to
their homes.
Waters stressed in his letter that he is not anti-Semitic, and his
solidarity with the Palestinians stems from his belief that all people
deserve basic human rights.
Last week, American folk music legend Pete Seeger officially joined the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign - an international movement to
pressure and sanction Israel through economic means.
Seeger, 92, one of the fathers of American folk music, is a veteran
political and peace activist. In the 1950s he was interrogated by the
McCarthyist House Unamerican Activities Committee and two years ago
performed for U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration concert.
Artists, academics and celebrities throughout the world have supported and
participated in the cultural boycotting of Israel.
Earlier this year, French pop star Vanessa Paradis cancelled her concert in
Israel only a month before she was supposed to arrive in the country with
her partner, Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, leaving fans and pundits
speculating as to the reasons for the cancellation.
Although Paradis' agent David Stern claimed that the cancellation was due to
professional reasons, insiders who organized the concert claim that the
singer acceded to calls to cancel the show made by Palestinian solidarity
groups.
According to the same sources, it was apparently the planned visit of
Paradis' partner Johnny Depp that drew the attention of the groups that
advocate BDS.
>From BRICUP [British Committee for the Universities of Palestine] Newsletter
38
March 2011
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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