Source: Mondoweiss

The Israeli army prosecutes and jails hundreds of Palestinian children like Ahed Tamimi in juvenile military courts every year.

Last summer Radiohead played Tel Aviv, and when fans at a Glasgow gig waved Palestinian flags to protest the event, the band’s frontman, Thom Yorke, lashed out, muttering on stage, “Some fucking people”. Months later, Nick Cave accused Palestinian human rights supporters of bullying and silencing artists like himself for crossing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line. Frank Barat wonders if the imprisonment of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi for five weeks now for slapping an Israeli soldier occupying her village might cause the artists to reflect.

Some fucking people! You try to engage them but they won’t listen. And who would – who could? – with the deafening chi-ching ringing in their ears. Are they aware of Ahed Tamimi’s brave actions and the cost of them to this 16-year-old, her family, and the 349 or so other Palestinian children locked up in Israeli prisons who’ve stood up to their occupiers? A few days ago, 13-year old Razan Abu Sal got four months for allegedly throwing stones at her occupiers. These artists have earned enough from their Israel gigs to cover the legal fees for every single Palestinian child held by Israel – and their bail, for the few who are released on bail. Though these families would probably tell them: ‘It is your solidarity we need, not your charity’.

And there was Nick Cave saying that he was fed up of being bullied and silenced by BDS bullies like Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Ken Loach and dozens of other artists, so much so that he felt it a duty to play Israel. Well, Nick, your hosts have silenced a 16 year old who has shown more moral courage and conviction in her 16 years than you ever have. They’re preparing to throw the book at her, a book so mendacious that it has a near-100% conviction rate. It’s to teach her a lesson and any Palestinians like her who dares respond to daily injustice, violence and humiliation with anything other than total subordination. Hell hath no fury like an occupier humiliated. Israel’s education minister says Ahed, her cousin and mother should spend the rest of their lives in prison.

The experience will break most of the kids it’s imposed on – around 800-1,000 this year – imposed on them for daring to challenge, with slaps, kicks, nonviolent protests and rocks (or just allegations of such), the brutal oppression that they witness, and are shaped by, day in, night out. It will leave them with an indelible, life-long ‘security’ stain in their file that will allow Israel to refuse them permits to travel to pray in Jerusalem, to attend specialist medical appointments in occupied East Jerusalem, to travel freely.

Let me get a UNICEF report quote for you guys: “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing. It is understood that in no other country are children systematically tried by juvenile military courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights.”

Amnesty International says: “The Israeli army prosecutes hundreds of Palestinian children in juvenile military courts every year, often after arresting them in night raids and systematically subjecting them to ill-treatment, including blindfolding, threats, harsh interrogations without the presence of their lawyers or families, solitary confinement and in some cases physical violence.“

That’s the kind of silencing you should perhaps sing about, Nick. Some fucking people, eh, Thom, Jonny, Colin, Philip and Ed?

It’s not just the bands, of course. Their management companies have profited from this silencing too – Brian Message and co. at ATC Management for Nick and chums, and Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge at Courtyard Management (Brian Message is part-owner too) for Thom-some-fucking-people-Yorke and the rest of the band.

And let’s talk about some fucking people who shoot kids in the face at point-blank range with rubber-coated steel bullets, like the Israeli soldiers who shot Mohammed Tamimi, 15, Ahed’s cousin, an hour before her Facebook Live outrage. His life tragically, irredeemably transformed like that.

Perhaps that soldier or the soldiers who had no right to be at Ahed’s home and were kid-handled by Ahed and her cousin, Nour – perhaps they were at your gigs, singing with you, Nick, Thom? Because an awful lot of people who did pay to see you would have served in the occupied territories and lorded over the kids and adults there in a similarly brutal manner.

Nick, you may not be able to read this at present because you said that after your Tel Aviv gigs you were looking forward to heading home, tuning out offline from the political-moral brouhaha, and kissing your wife. Some self-imposed silence. Nice. A luxury.

Some fucking people will insist on being gad-fucking-flies. For good reason. Not because they’re natural pricks, but because they believe we’re all in this together, and that people of conscience should stand up for those who are oppressed, for those who have asked us explicitly as their only hope to help them in their struggle for justice and freedom.

If any of you read this, please reflect. Take whatever time it takes. And if at the end you have any change of heart, then speak out for those denied their voice. For those denied their childhood innocence. Say something as simple as: ‘We played there but we oppose what is being done to Ahed Tamimi and all Palestinian kids facing similar injustice.’ Say it.

Because the crowds who adored you just months ago in Tel Aviv, most believe that Ahed Tamimi and kids accused of throwing stones at their oppressors, and being tried in what internationally respected legal experts consider military kangaroo courts (Radiohead, have a chat with your Oxford neighbour, Sir Stephen Seldey, who helped pen this 2012 report), deserve to be locked up. The brave Israeli journalist Gideon Levy asked of his fellow Israelis when Ahed was detained:

“And what would you have felt if soldiers from a foreign army had invaded your home at night, kidnapped your daughter from her bed before your very eyes, handcuffed and arrested her for a lengthy period, simply because she slapped the soldier who invaded her home, and slapped the occupation, which deserves far more than slaps?

“These questions don’t bother anyone. Tamimi is a Palestinian, that is to say, a terrorist, and therefore, she doesn’t deserve any feelings of sympathy. Nothing will crack the defensive shield that protects Israelis from feelings of guilt, or at least discomfort, over her outrageous arrest, over the discrimination by the justice system, which would never have paid any attention to her had she been a Jewish settler.”

OK, you don’t endorse the regime, this light unto the nations, but it definitely embraces and salutes you, whether you like it or not. They call you principled. They, who do this.

Thom, Nick and the rest of you: you can take a moral stand. You played Tel Aviv. That’s history. The next chapter is more important. Most of your fans who objected to you playing Tel Aviv will show openness and love because justice is all about courage and understanding, and that’s a journey, and taking the right steps forward is something noble. It’s something bigger than us all. Justice grows stronger the more people who support it, and the louder and more sonorous its voice becomes. And your voices – they could be so sonorous. So magnificently sonorous.

Sing out with these brave, young caged birds. Please.

You’ve not been silenced as these kids have. Lend them your voice. Extend to them chords of your humanity.

Bully? Censor? Silence? Really, Nick, open your eyes. For your own sake if not for the sake of the millions whose picket line you’ve just stomped on.

Source: Middle East Eye

In a press conference on the eve of his two Tel Aviv gigs last weekend, Nick said he felt censored, bullied and silenced.

The last thing a rock star needs on flying into a country imposing the longest military occupation in modern history is to have to deal with moral compunction as well as jet lag, surely.

Israeli apartheid

Like Radiohead, who were similarly “harassed” by a bunch of do-gooders to cancel their Tel Aviv date months ago, Nick Cave made no mention whatsoever of the millions of Palestinians subjected to Israeli apartheid who have asked international artists to boycott Israel to support their non-violent struggle for self-determination.

I mean, why bother? When in Rome, right? So when in Israel, you ignore the occupation and the occupied, who are routinely treated as sub-human by their colonial rulers.

Nick is Australian, after all, so he’ll be familiar with that game.

What it boils down to, he insinuated, is this: What’s more important than a sensitive artist’s ability to make his millions wherever he likes without being made to feel ashamed for turning a blind eye to the brutal and systematic repression of the voiceless – and nameless – people who have asked him to stay away until justice is served?

And as for those artists who have tried to give a voice to those dispossessed of their voice by Israel and its allies, like Roger Waters and Brian Eno, whom he named during his press conference?

How dare they? How dare they engage in a public humiliation to try to “silence” Nick and others in the name of justice. (Eno, Waters and other artists and pro-Palestinian groups responded in a statement. “We regret that in a land of injustice Nick Cave is giving comfort to the unjust,” said the statement.)

No one appreciates nor needs that public humiliation, Cave noted.

Except for millions of Palestinians who face daily public humiliation at the hands of their Israeli oppressors, of course – but Cave wasn’t in Israel to perform to them even if they could somehow get beyond scores of checkpoints and over Israel’s illegal separation wall to the gigs.

What it boils down to, he insinuated, is this: What’s more important than a sensitive artist’s ability to make his millions wherever he likes without being made to feel ashamed for turning a blind eye to the brutal and systematic repression of the voiceless – and nameless – people who have asked him to stay away until justice is served?

And as for those artists who have tried to give a voice to those dispossessed of their voice by Israel and its allies, like Roger Waters and Brian Eno, whom he named during his press conference?

How dare they? How dare they engage in a public humiliation to try to “silence” Nick and others in the name of justice. (Eno, Waters and other artists and pro-Palestinian groups responded in a statement. “We regret that in a land of injustice Nick Cave is giving comfort to the unjust,” said the statement.)

No one appreciates nor needs that public humiliation, Cave noted.

Except for millions of Palestinians who face daily public humiliation at the hands of their Israeli oppressors, of course – but Cave wasn’t in Israel to perform to them even if they could somehow get beyond scores of checkpoints and over Israel’s illegal separation wall to the gigs.

Who is censored, bullied and silenced?

He loves Israel and Israelis, Nick said. “Palestinians? What? Who? Get lost! Don’t spoil my f***ing party!”

No, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were in Israel to make a point: “It suddenly became very important to make a stand, to me,” said Nick, “against those people who are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians and to silence musicians.”

Bully? Censor? Silence? Really, Nick, open your eyes. For your own sake if not for the sake of the millions whose picket line you’ve just stomped on.

When asked what plans he had after this tour, Nick reportedly replied: “I’m just going to turn the internet off and just read and write, think about my work and stuff like that, stop thinking about whether I should be playing Israel or not playing Israel.”

Creative isolation – in Gaza

If Nick fancies that kind of creative isolation, he could hang out in Gaza for a few months – sun, beach, and acute power cuts – the perfect for some guaranteed isolation.

But being on the road, free to move about across borders, can be stressful and has taken its toll, so Nick plans to head home: “It’s just nice to be able to go back into your home and not have to worry about all those sorts of things. I would say I want to make a new record and write words and stuff like that, that’s the plan. And kiss my wife.”

Ahh. To have the luxury to (a) just go back to your home, (b) tune out from the issues that trouble you and (c) to kiss your wife – why, these are three things so many silenced Palestinians can’t do, courtesy of your hosts.

Nick: Rampant levels of house demolitions, an occupation dictating every aspect of their lives; arrest and detention levels affecting 40 percent of the male Palestinian population – its all so complicated, Nick.

For thousands of disappointed fans, this was Nick Cave’s “ball of collusion”. And, of course, the band played on, to the rapture of ‘Brand Israel’ and all of its advocates whose free and comfortable lives depend on silencing the Palestinians they oppress and their critics.

Silence is golden, Nick.

– Frank Barat is coordinator of the War and Pacification programme at the Transnational Institute. He has edited a few books, the latest being Freedom is a Constant Struggle with Angela Davis.

Source: Al Jazeera

Radiohead stubbornly ignored the voice of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians appealing to it not to undermine our rights and our Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as an indispensable, nonviolent means of achieving them. All that we have asked is for Radiohead to do no harm, if they can do no good, to our struggle for freedom, justice and equal human rights.

Dozens of principled artists and world figures, including South African anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, theatre stars Eve Ensler and Miriam Margolyes, award-winning filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, and world-renowned musicians Roger Waters, Thurston Moore and Dave Randall, joined us in appealing to Radiohead to refrain from entertaining Israeli apartheid. So did progressive Jewish Israeli musicians.

At concerts throughout Europe, Radiohead fans raised Palestinian flags and amplified our call for no-business-as-usual until Israel complies with its obligations under international law.

Yet Radiohead went on with their show in Tel Aviv, allowing Israel to use their brand for whitewashing, or art-washing, its siege of Gaza, forced displacement of Palestinian communities in Jerusalem, the Negev and the Jordan Valley, and incessant construction of illegal settlements and walls in the occupied Palestinian – and Syrian – territory.

To add insult to injury, Radiohead professed to know better than Palestinians how we should resist our oppression, in a classic colonial attitude. In doing so, they became the propaganda darlings of the Israeli government and its lobby groups.

Dozens of tweets from Israeli government officials, ambassadors and Israel lobby groups gloated over Radiohead’s decision to violate the cultural boycott. Israel, after all, sees “culture as a hasbara [propaganda]tool of the first rank,” as a ranking Israeli official once admitted.

Radiohead was also celebrated by US conservative pundit Glenn Beck, Fox News, and a cofounder of the far-right Tea Party Patriots. This new fanbase should be cause for concern for a band known for its progressive politics.

Two days after the election of Donald Trump as US president, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke tweeted, “In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event.” Yet Radiohead have done just that for the Israeli government, with leading right-wing Israeli media describing the band’s public opposition to BDS as the best gift of “hasbara Israel has received lately”.

It is hard to understand what motivates such a prominent band like Radiohead to step over Palestinian rights this way, but the legacy of the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa may provide some insight. In 1984, Enuga S Reddy, director of the UN Centre Against Apartheid, said:

“We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime.”

On the bright side, months of campaigning to convince Radiohead to cancel their Tel Aviv gig has reached mainstream audiences worldwide, raising awareness about the struggle for Palestinian rights among millions who may not have been engaged in it before.

Even before this campaign, BDS had already started to have a palpable impact in the cultural mainstream, including in the United States. Of the 26 Oscar nominees in 2016, for instance, none went on an all-expense-paid Israeli propaganda trip, and out of eleven National Football League players in the US, six turned down a similar offer by the Israeli government.

Days ago, however, former R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe suggested on Instagram “dialogue”, not boycotts, to “bring [Israel’s] occupation to an end and lead to a peaceful solution”.

But dialogue that has been going on literally for decades has failed to bring us any closer to attaining justice and our human rights. On the contrary, it has served Israel’s agenda superbly, by providing it with a perfect fig leaf.

For dialogue to be ethical and effective, it must recognise that all humans deserve equal rights under international law. Otherwise, it would privilege the oppressor and entrench the notion of coexistence under oppression rather than co-resistance to oppression – a key condition to ethical coexistence.

Reconciliation and dialogue in South Africa came only after the end of apartheid, not before, as Desmond Tutu never gets tired of repeating.

In one of their songs, Radiohead say, “Some things cost you more than you realize.” By insisting on siding with the oppressor and ignoring the appeals of the oppressed Radiohead became part of Israel’s show, eroding their progressive credentials.

But there is always time to do the right thing and choose the right side of history.

Omar Barghouti is a cofounder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian human rights and corecipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award.