This letter is issued in response to the announcement in Y-net News that Stevie Wonder is booked to perform at the annual gala of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) organization, Thursday, December 6, Los Angeles. FIDF is an institution complicit in maintaining Israeli apartheid. The performance has been cancelled.
November 28th, 2012
Dear Stevie Wonder,
As you may be aware, Palestinians seeking freedom, justice and equality are engaged in non-violent resistance to over 64 years of Israel’s apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and colonialism. A broad coalition of Palestinian civil society groups are leading the global campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel, joined by Israeli and international activists.
We as artists can act in coordination with this global movement by understanding the call for cultural boycott. To challenge Israel’s robotic use of the arts to smokescreen its human rights violations, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) asks artists everywhere to help deprogram it. Specifically, the campaign asks that:
- International artists boycott Israel as a regular tour destination.
- All artists refrain from participation in events sponsored by the state of Israel or institutions complicit in its apartheid.
- All artists refrain from participation in events which deceptively suggest symmetry between “both sides” of Israeli apartheid.
As was done in the case of South African apartheid, please join us now in the cultural boycott of Israel, and help stop entertaining apartheid. For more information about the cultural boycott as it relates to artists, please visit: http://declaration.artistsagainstapartheid.org
Signed,
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