We ask you to act in the name of justice and cancel your concert in Ra´anana, Israel, on June 30th, 2015. We ask you this because for decades, the state of Israel has violated international law and the rights of the Palestinian people. In 2005, Palestinian civil society took action to confront this oppression and called for a Boycott against the state of Israeli, inspired by the South African struggle against apartheid.
We strongly encourage you to respect the call from Palestinian civil society to boycott Israel until there is justice, and the illegal occupation and the oppression of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel ends.
Israel, ignoring numerous resolutions of the United Nations and violating the principle agreements of International Law, has maintained for 7 decades, a regime of military occupation, colonization with settlements, and legal apartheid. For this reason, playing a concert in this country means making this reality invisible and hiding it under the banner of culture and multiculturalism. There cannot be multiculturalism in a territory where the existing culture is denied, made invisible, and attacked: in 2002 the Israeli army flattened the Khalil Sakakini cultural center in Ramallah and in this operation destroyed the manuscript of the great poet Mahmoud Darwish, which was a irreparable loss to the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people. They also demolished the well-recognized Stone Theater of Jenin, illegalized theater and cultural groups such as the traditional dance group Al-Founoun. In 2012 they destroyed and vandalized two Palestinian television stations and artists and students are persistently repressed and detained, like the folk dancer Lina Khattab or the artist Mohammed Sabaaneh (amongst others).
Important artists and personalities have supported and respected the cultural boycott from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Carlos Santana, Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, The Pixies, and many others. These artists have committed to not playing in Israeli until the occupation and the oppression to the Palestinian people is ended. We hope that you understand that playing in Israel is the same as having played in South Africa during apartheid. For these reasons, as BDS Colombia and the below signatories, we invite you to show your solidarity with the Palestinian people and cancel the concert that you have planned for June 30th. Finally, we invite you to reject the illegal Israeli occupation and join the boycott against Israel.