Facebook share Share on TwitterRSS feed

Innovative Minds © 2014. All Rights Reserved. www.inminds.co.uk

[Boycott - Cultural]

Santana canceled concert because of anti-Israel pressure


Raz Shechnik, Ynetnews (Yedioth)
2 February 2010

Guitarist Carlos Santana reportedly received messages that "it's better" that he not perform in Israel, according to what a senior official in the Israeli music production market involved in producing Santana's show told Yedioth Ahronoth on Saturday.



Carlos Santana

Over the weekend, the legendary guitarist's team announced the cancellation of his show scheduled for early June at Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.

Santana was to be brought to Israel by producer, Shuki Weiss. A few thousand tickets had already been sold to the show. Production agents have promised the tickets would be refunded immediately.

In light of the healthy rate of ticket sales, the Israeli production company was considering adding another show, but was surprised to receive news over the weekend from Santana's team that the show would be delayed to an unknown date. According to the artist's official site, he will give a concert in Lisbon, Portugal on May 25, a week before the show planned in Israel.

Sources in Israel's music industry hope that Santana's cancellation does not create a chain reaction.. Elton John, Rod Stewart, Rihanna, and The Pixies are all slated to perform in Israel over the summer.


"Our clarifications revealed that he received messages from anti-Israel figures who pressured him to cancel the performance. Of course, no one there claimed that any connection between these pressures and the show's cancellation, but we are certain there is a very close connection," said the production figure.

Pressures placed on artists from abroad performing in Israel by anti-Israeli groups and individuals are nothing new. Paul McCartney, for instance, was exposed to similar pressures leading up to his concert in September 2008, as was Leonard Cohen before his show this past summer. Ultimately, however, both of them decided to perform in Israel.

Sources in Israel's music industry hope that Santana's cancellation does not create a chain reaction. As published in Yedioth Ahronoth, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Rihanna, and The Pixies are all slated to perform in Israel over the summer.

Producer Shuki Weiss responded: "We have been aware for a few days of the difficulties that arose in everything surrounding the production of Santana's concert in Israel. We apologize to the thousands of ticket holders and hope that they will continue to attend and enjoy the other cultural shows slated to arrive in Israel throughout 2010."

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Santana Management Michael Vrionis said in an official statement: "We are sorry that our schedule has forced the postponement of certain dates previously scheduled."

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3841916,00.html


Open Letter to Santana: Don’t Entertain Israeli Apartheid!


Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
19 January 2010

Occupied Ramallah, 19 January 2010

Dear Santana,

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was deeply disturbed to learn that that you are scheduled to perform in Israel this coming summer. We call upon you, as a prominent and influential artist, and, more importantly, as a well-known activist on issues of social justice and equality, not to perform in Israel, a state that maintains a cruel system of occupation, colonization and apartheid against the Palestinian people and has been widely accused by UN experts and leading human rights organizations of committing war crimes and grave violations of human rights. Your gig in Israel will be a clear contribution to Israel’s well-oiled campaign to whitewash its persistent violations of international law and basic Palestinian rights through "re-branding" itself as an enlightened and cultured country.

We draw your attention to the fact that performing in Israel would violate the almost unanimously endorsed Palestinian civil society Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.[1] This Call is directed particularly towards international activists, academics, and artists of conscience, such as yourself. We also urge you to heed the call of Latino human rights activists in the United States who have issued an appeal urging you to cancel your “concert of shame.”[2]

As a public figure, you have used your influence to work towards promoting civil rights and social causes. In this light, your planned performance in Israel flies in the face of all the admirable work you have done. Your fans worldwide not only appreciate you as a distinguished virtuoso in the music world; they also deeply admire your commitment to social agendas, such as your role in 1998 in establishing the Milagro Foundation, an organization that “benefits underserved and vulnerable children around the world.” [3] It is this particular angle in your luminous biography that makes us wonder how you can ignore the plight of millions of Palestinian children living in exile and prevented from returning to their homes from which their grandparents were ethnically cleansed in 1948. How is it possible for you to reconcile your moral principles with Israel’s 43-year-old occupation, including its illegal Wall and colonies, which have deprived Palestinians in general and children in particular of their basic rights to unimpeded access to education, proper health care, freedom of movement and, often, the right to life itself?

In a recent report, Defense for Children International documents “the widespread ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli army and police force.” The report documents how child prisoners are “painfully shackled for hours on end, kicked, beaten and threatened, some with death, until they provide confessions, some written in Hebrew, a language they do not speak or understand... [T]hese illegally obtained confessions are routinely used as evidence in the military courts to convict around 700 Palestinian children every year.” [4] We are confident that you will not willingly lend your support, through performing in Israel, to a state that violates the most basic rights of Palestinians, whether they are children or adults.

Your planned summer performance in Israel would come a year and a half after Israel’s bloody military assault against the occupied Gaza Strip which left over 1,440 Palestinians dead, of whom 431 were children, and 5380 injured.[5] The 1.5 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, the overwhelming majority of whom are refugees, were subjected to three weeks of relentless Israeli state terror, whereby Israeli warplanes systematically targeted civilian areas, reducing whole neighborhoods and vital civilian infrastructure to rubble and partially destroying Gaza’s leading university and scores of schools, including several run by the UN, where civilians, including children, were taking shelter. This criminal assault came after months of a crippling and ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza which has shattered all spheres of life, prompting the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Richard Falk, to describe it as “a prelude to genocide.”

The UN Fact-Finding Mission into allegations of war crimes, headed by the highly respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone, found Israel guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, as did respected international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Goldstone concluded that Israel’s war on Gaza was “designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”[6]

The harm done to children has been documented in many reports; the Goldstone Report found that “the three weeks of intense bombardment and military ground action added new, serious psychological traumas, especially noticeable in children”[7] The Guardian reported that “Some children no longer look on their homes as a place of safety, security and comfort. Others don’t even have a home to go to. The Israeli bombardment damaged or destroyed more than 20,000 houses, forcing some families into tents and others into crowding in with relatives.”[8] In an exhaustive study by Amnesty International on Israel’s control of Palestinian water, it was found that the pollution and contamination of water in the Gaza Strip will very likely result in a blood disease in children known as methemoglobinaemia, or “blue babies,” that results in “signs of blueness around the mouth, hands and feet,” as a result of “higher than normal levels of methemoglobin, a form of haemoglobin that does not bind oxygen,” and which may lead to “convulsions and death” when methemoglobin levels are high.[9]

South African Nobel Laureate and celebrated anti-apartheid activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, remarked that “the end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure-- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s…a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation.” He concluded that “if apartheid ended, so can this occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined.”[10]

We urge you to heed the words of Archbishop Tutu, and to honor the Palestinian Call, which has been endorsed by a majority of Palestinian civil society. Your performance in Israel would be tantamount to having performed in Sun City during South Africa’s Apartheid era, in violation of the international boycott unanimously endorsed by the oppressed South Africans.

We call upon you, as an advocate of basic human rights and the rights of children, not to entertain Israeli Apartheid!

[1] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=66

[2] http://www.aztlan.net/santana_concert_of_shame.htm

[3] http://www.milagrofoundation.org/default.asp

[4] http://www.dci-pal.org/english/publ/display.cfm?DocId=1166&CategoryId=8

[5] http://www.ochaopt.org/gazacrisis/index.php?section=3

[6] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf

[7] Ibid.

[8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/gaza-israel-invasion-children-traumatised

[9] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/027/2009/en/e9892ce4-7fba-469b-96b9-c1e1084c620c/mde150272009en.pdf

[10] http://www.counterpunch.org/tutu1017.html
Source: http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1157


Related Articles


Also Of Interest

Page URL: http://inminds.com/article.php?id=10317
Support Us
If you agree with our work then please support us.

Give one time donation:
£

Setup monthly donation:
£
INMINDS Facebook Live Feed
Latest Video's
Latest News..
[all-by date]
[all-by category]
[all-by modify date]
INMINDS Twitter Feed
Boycott Israel Campaign
Featured Video's
You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video.
Why boycott Israel on Campus[1:50:05]
12 London universities discuss need for BDS on campuses. Speakers include Rafeef Ziadeh, Ilan Pappe, Karma Nabulsi & Mike Cushman
Love Letters to Gaza[31:08]
A unique theatrical event using personal messages of love, support and hope from people of all ages and all walks of life to the people of Gaza.
John Pilger[7:55]
journalist and documentary maker
Antiwar Mass Assembly 8 Oct 2011
Julian Assange[7:07]
founder of WikiLeaks
Antiwar Mass Assembly 8 Oct 2011
Lauren Booth, Sami Ramadani & Yvonne Ridley[6:28]
Reading the names of the dead
Antiwar Mass Assembly 8 Oct 2011
George Galloway[6:39]
Antiwar Mass Assembly 8 Oct 2011
Jemima Khan[8:42]
Antiwar Mass Assembly 8 Oct 2011
Why Boycott Marks & Spencer 2011?[23:29]
Demo outside M&S Oxford Street(24 Sept 2011)
Sean Clinton[4:59]
Israeli Blood Diamonds Campaign
Al Quds Day rally, Trafalgar Square (31 Aug 2011)
Lauren Booth[5:24]
Al Quds Day rally, Trafalgar Square (31 Aug 2011)
Lauren Booth - Prayer for Gaza[2:46]
Al Quds Day rally, Trafalgar Square (31 Aug 2011)
Benny Morris - Historian or Racist?[34:07]
Activists oppose visit of racist Israeli historian Benny Morris who justifies ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Is Israel applying apartheid?[2:12:56]
Speakers: Yael Kahn, Jody McIntyre and Ghada Karmi (5 May 2011)
Karen Mitchell[48:27]
Partner at Thompsons Solicitors
Life changing visit to Palestine in 2008 (21 Feb 2011)
Ramzy Baroud[1:59:32]
Editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle
"My Father Was A Freedom Fighter - Gaza's Untold Story" (25 Mar 2011)
Women United in the Intifada[2:31:36]
Speakers: Lizzie Cocker, Ewa Jasiewcz, Alaa Kassim, Yvonney Ridley, Isis Amlak, Sukant Chandan, Ramzy Baroud (14 Mar 2011)
George Galloway[1:01:48]
Solidarity with the Middle-East Revolution, support the people - oppose US/UK intervention (SOAS, 11 Mar 2011)
Omar Barghouti[55:08]
BDS Movement co-founder
"Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions" book launch (7 Mar 2011)
Shir Hever[1:49:09]
Alternative Information Centre
The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation, Kings College London (17 Feb 2011)
Why academic boycott of Israel[1:29:37]
Speakers: Mohammed Abuabdou(PSCABI), Mike Cushman(BRICUP), Jodey McIntyre(activist) (8 Feb 2011)
Dashed Hopes - Gaza Blockade[1:23:08]
Mohammed-Ali Abu Najela (Oxfam), Andrea Becker (MAP), Ewa Jasiewicz (Free Gaza Movement) (1 Feb 2011)
Jordan Valley: Apartheid[1:17:12]
Sarah Cobham(Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity), Chris Osmond (Corporate Watch) (House of Commons, 1 Feb 2011)
Dump Veolia Demo[7:00]
Protesting at settlement supporter Veolia's sponsership of exhibit at the Natural History Museum (23 Oct 2010)
Boycott Israeli Dates [1/2][9:11]
Are you financing Israels brutal occupation this Ramadan?
Boycott Israeli Dates [2/2][9:05]
Are you financing Israels brutal occupation this Ramadan?
Lee Jasper [1/2][10:13]
[4 of 8] Genocide Memorial Day 2010 Session One, 17-1-2010
Lee Jasper [2/2][9:51]
[5 of 8] Genocide Memorial Day 2010 Session One, 17-1-2010
One Oppressor One Bullet[8:11]
Imam Achmad Cassiem, veteran of the armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa, speaks at the StW rally (London, 19 Feb 2005)
Salwa Alenat [1/2][9:56]
KavLaOved (Workers Rights hotline)
[1 of 8] Israel's Occupation - Abuse of Palestinian Workers (LSE 19 Nov 2009)
Salwa Alenat [2/2][8:57]
KavLaOved (Workers Rights hotline)
[2 of 8] Israel's Occupation - Abuse of Palestinian Workers (LSE 19 Nov 2009)
For Anwar [1of2][10:01]
Carmel Agrexco Valentines Action 7 Feb 2009
For Anwar [2of2][9:56]
Carmel Agrexco Valentines Action 7 Feb 2009
big
[all videos (over 200)..]
Featured MP3 Podcast

"1763 in the Ohio river valley you got Lord Jeffrey Amherst committing to written order an instruction to his subordinate Henry Bouquet, having been defeated by Pontiac Ottawa confederacy in the field. The order essentially says that they have been defeated militarily and is therefore necessary for Amherst forces to request a peace, to sue for peace from Pontiacs people. He instructs Bouquet to convene a parlay with the Indian leadership for that purpose. And as is the custom, as is common courtesy among native populations as was known to the Brits at that time, it would be necessary for those who requested the council to give gifts to those requested to attend. Make those gifts, Amherst says, items taken from a smallpox infirmary in order, I'm going to quote directly now, this isn't a paraphrase: 'in order that we may extirpate this execrable race'. Now key is on this last word, had he said that we might eradicate the opposing combatants, their military capacity, their warriors.. what ever term he wanted to use, it would have been biological warefare. But he didn't say anything about that, he said the 'race'. His intent was to use biological means, to use disease, quite explicitly so, to eradicate an entire population group. And Bouquet was also kind enough to commit to writing in his response the next day, I have done as instructed, dispersing three blankets, two handkerchiefs and sundry other items, hopefully, he says, they will have the desired result. They did.. the lowest estimate of the number of people who died of smallpox as a result of that little gesture of friendship and goodwill is a 100,000!"
American Indian scholar, activist in the struggle for liberation of Indigenous Peoples in America
On the publication of the book 'A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present', 1997 [29min / 10Mb]
[need flash]

[all podcasts..]
Newsletter
To subscribe
enter your email:

COPY VERIFICATION CODEcopy this code —>
Feedback
If you wish to comment on this page:

(all fields optional)



COPY VERIFICATION CODEcopy this code —>
The opinions expressed on this site, unless otherwise stated, are those of the authors.
All logos & trademarks are the property of their respective owners and their use is covered under 'fair use' policy.
Copyright © 1998-2012 Innovative Minds www.inminds.com All Rights Reserved.
The opinions expressed on this site, unless otherwise stated, are those of the authors.
All logos & trademarks are the property of their respective owners and their use is covered under 'fair use' policy.
Copyright © 1998-2012 Innovative Minds www.inminds.com All Rights Reserved.