Palestine, (Pal Telegraph) - “Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel.”1
- Desmond Tutu, 26 October 2010

Since the great majority of Palestinian civil society issued its call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel in July 2005 to compel it to fulfil its obligations under international law, there has never been a period with as many BDS achievements as that following the Israeli massacre in Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 and the bloodbath on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla in May 2010. People of conscience around the world seem to have crossed a threshold in challenging Israel’s impunity through effective pressure, not appeasement or “constructive engagement.” This has been most pronounced in the cultural field, where support for the 2004 call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)2 has witnessed spectacular growth.

Many of the most prominent Palestinian artists and writers as well as cultural organisations have endorsed the cultural boycott of Israel as an effective form of cultural struggle for freedom, justice, and self determination.3 As in the rest of the BDS movement, the cultural boycott emphasises the three basic rights of the Palestinian people: freedom from occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem); the right to full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and an end to apartheid4; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, in accordance with UN Resolution 194.

Supporting these three basic rights, campaigns for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel have spread across the world, from the United Kingdom to the United States5 to India6 to Norway7 to several other European countries, where the European Platform for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (EPACBI) was announced, with participation of boycott campaigns from across the continent, in full coordination with PACBI.8

In November 2010, in a development that will be recorded as historic, artists in South Africa supporting the BDS call against Israel issued a declaration9 titled South African Artists against Apartheid. This follows a similar declaration in February by 500 artists in Montreal,10 Canada, supporting BDS and, in August, an Irish pledge for cultural boycott,11 the first national cultural boycott campaign against Israel.

In the aftermath of the Flotilla attack, best-selling authors such as Iain Banks, Alice Walker, and Henning Mankell explicitly advocated the boycott against Israel, and so did eminent scholar Ann Laura Stoler.12 Top artists have shunned Israel due to its violation of international law and Palestinian rights, most often silently, without issuing public statements to that effect. News of megastar Meg Ryan’s cancelling a visit to Israel and of concert cancellations by Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Carlos Santana, The Pixies, Faithless, Vanessa Paradis, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Jello Biafra, Thomas Quasthoff, August Burns Red, Marc Almond, among others, has finally put to rest scepticism about the potential of the campaign. World-renowned filmmakers from Jean-Luc Godard13 and the Yes Men14 to Mike Leigh15 have also heeded the boycott call and stayed away from Israeli festivals. John Greyson and Ken Loach have played a distinguished role in promoting the cultural boycott and popularising its criteria and guidelines.

The support for BDS has also come from renowned international authors and cultural figures of the calibre of John Berger, Roger Waters, Naomi Klein, Arundhati Roy, Judith Butler, Aharon Shabtai, Sarah Schulman, Angela Davis, Barbara Hammer, N. Pushpamala, Udi Aloni, and Adrienne Rich.16

In September 2010, in nothing less than a watershed in the cultural boycott, more than 150 mainstream US and British theatre, film, and TV artists issued a statement,17 initiated by Jewish Voice for Peace, supporting the spreading cultural boycott inside Israel of its colonial settlements illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory due to their violation of international law.18 Frank Gehry, of Guggenheim fame, joined the supporters of this targeted boycott.19 While falling short of endorsing a comprehensive cultural boycott of Israel, this initiative broke a long-held taboo in the United States, in particular, against calling for any pressure, let alone boycott, to be brought to bear against Israel in response to its on-going violations of international law and war crimes. Issuing this statement was particularly courageous, given the US context, where dissent from the two-party line that treats Israel as above the law of nations and, often, ahead of US interests,20 may dearly cost an artist, a journalist, an elected official, an academic, or just about anyone else. Condemning Israel’s colonial settlements and “ugly occupation,” expressing “hope for a just and lasting peace” (emphasis added) in the region, and endorsing the logic of boycott as an effective and perfectly legitimate tool to end injustice, the statement is precedent-setting. Finally, famous US artists seem to have grasped Nelson Mandela’s caution against the enticement “to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice.”21

Re-branding Israel
In a desperate attempt to counter the compelling message and effectiveness of the cultural boycott, an official Brand Israel campaign was launched by the government of Israel as early as 2005 and has been intensified ever since. The campaign focused on a new plan to improve Israel’s image abroad “by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians.”22 Its literature explains:

[This] is the latest manifestation of a growing movement - begun in America - to “re-brand” Israel, or to reinvent the country’s image in the eyes of both Jews and non-Jews. The driving concept is that Israel will win supporters only if it is seen as relevant and modern rather than only as a place of fighting and religion.

A former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, explained upon launching the Brand Israel campaign in 2005: “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”23

After the Israeli war of aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel’s image took a further steep dip, prompting the government to throw more money into the Brand Israel campaign. One of the main figures in the campaign, Arye Mekel, the deputy director general for cultural affairs in the Israeli foreign ministry, told the New York Times:

We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits. This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.24

This much is now well known. What is less known or discussed in the media is a hidden secret of the Brand Israel effort - a contract that obliges artists and writers, as “service providers” who receive state funding, to conform to and indeed promote state policies. Basically, the contract buys the artists’ and writers’ consciences, making a mockery of the “freedom of expression” mantra.

This contract, revealed in an article in Haaretz25 and instructively titled “Putting out a contract on art” by the famous Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor, states:

The service provider undertakes to act faithfully, responsibly and tirelessly to provide the Ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.

“No Reason to Celebrate”
One of the largest “branding” efforts was organised in 2008 by the Israeli government for the so-called 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state. Some of the most prominent artists, politicians, academics, and others were invited to celebrate with Israel. In response, PACBI, in cooperation with the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) took out a half-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune titled “No Reason to Celebrate Israel at 60,” after having collected dozens of endorsements from prominent international cultural figures, including the foremost poet in the Arab World, the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, John Berger, Ella Shohat, Ken Loach, Augusto Boal, Roger Waters, Andre Brink, Judith Butler, Vincenzo Consolo, Nigel Kennedy, among many others. It26 stated:

The creation of the state of Israel almost 60 years ago dispossessed and uprooted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and lands. With their peaceful lives ruined, society fragmented, possessions pillaged and hope for freedom and nationhood dashed, Palestinian refugees held on to their dream of return, and Palestinians everywhere nourished their aspiration for freedom, dignified living, and becoming whole again.

There is no reason to celebrate! Israel at 60 is a state that is still denying Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights, simply because they are “non-Jews.” It is still illegally occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. It is still persistently and grossly breaching international law and infringing fundamental human rights with impunity afforded to it through munificent US and European economic, diplomatic, and political support.

It is still treating its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized discrimination.

In short, celebrating “Israel at 60” is tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunting tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted injustice.

There is absolutely no reason to celebrate! But there are myriad reasons to reflect, to engage, to work towards peace and justice.

Well, there are plenty of reasons, as shown above, to celebrate - the cultural boycott of Israel, despite its young age, is already witnessing a healthy growth in the Western mainstream and having a considerable impact on Israel’s impunity and “brand.”

Omar Barghouti is a human rights activist, founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the BDS movement, and author of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS): The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. (Haymarket: 2011).



1    Tutu urges Cape Town Opera to call off Israel tour, Times, 26 October 2010. http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article727749.ece/Tutu-urges-Cape-Town-Opera-to-call-off-Israel-tour.
2    http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869.
3    http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=315.
4    In its most recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that, “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid,” http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa.
5    U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “Endorse Our Call to Boycott,” n.d., http://usacbi.wordpress.com/.
6    “Indian Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel,” July 2010, http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1309.
7    “Call for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of the State of Israel,” http://www.akulbi.net/index_en.php.
8    PACBI, “European Platform for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (EPACBI) Brings Boycott Movement to a Higher Level in Europe,” October 12, 2010, http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1382.
9    http://www.southafricanartistsagainstapartheid.com/2010/11/declaration.html.
10    http://www.tadamon.ca/post/5824.
11    http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1333.
12    http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1361.
13    Matthew B. Zeidman, “Jean-Luc Godard Cancels Trip to Tel Aviv Student Film Festival,” Hollywood Today, June 3, 2008, http://www.hollywoodtoday.net/2008/06/03/jean-luc-godard-cancels-trip-to-tel-aviv-film-festival/.
14    “For Once, the Yes Men Say No,” letter from the Yes Men to the Jerusalem Film Festival, July 3, 2009, http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1031&key=the%20yes%20men.
15    Hannah Brown, “Mike Leigh cancels visit over ‘Israeli policies,’ ” Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?ID=191708&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.
16    See various reports at www.pacbi.org.
17    “Making History: Support for Israeli Artists Who Say NO to Normalizing Settlements,” Jewish Voice for Peace, http://jvp.org/campaigns/making-history-support-israeli-artists-who-say-no-normalizing-settlements-4.
18    Chaim Levinson and Or Kashti, “150 Academics, Artists Back Actors’ Boycott of Settlement Arts Center,” Haaretz, August 31, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/150-academics-artists-back-actors-boycott-of-settlement-arts-center-1.311149.
19    Abe Hayeem, “Architects against Israeli Occupation,” Guardian, October 4, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/04/architects-settlement-freeze-israel.
20    In their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks, 2008), John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt make a compelling and well-documented argument that Israel’s influence over the decision-making apparatus is not necessarily a factor of shared interests with the United States but rather a result of its lobby’s massive power. Without denying the almost unparalleled influence the Israeli lobby has in designing and shaping US policy in the Middle East and beyond, I wish to make a clear distinction here between the interest of the majority of the people in the United States versus that of the military-oil-security complex. The latter has a record of supporting war, including Israeli militarism and expansionism.
21    Desmond Tutu, “Israeli Ties: A Chance to Do the Right Thing,” Times Live, September 26, 2010, http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article675369.ece/Israeli-ties--a-chance-to-do-the-right-thing.
22    http://www.forward.com/articles/2070/
23    http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/about-face-1.170267?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.239%2C
24    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/world/middleeast/19israel.html
25    Yitzhak Laor, Putting out a contract on art, Haaretz, July 25, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005287.html.
26    http://www.pngo.net/data/files/english_statements/08/PNGO-THT-HP5208(2).pdf.