BDS activists disrupt the Israeli Stage Festival : Don't let apartheid take the stage!

On Saturday September 18th, the Israeli Stage Festival kicked off in the cultural student center Crea in Amsterdam with the slogan: “Israeli culture is back to LIVE in the Netherlands”. A group of activists from BDS Netherlands and Free Palestine Maastricht disrupted the performance to inform the audience that this festival is part of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Brand Israel campaign: deliberately using art and culture to divert attention from Israel's ongoing atrocities: human rights violations, oppression and apartheid. It is not appropriate to give apartheid a stage and to “bring Israeli culture back to life” while denying and depriving Palestinians of a normal life. When you hear the name Israel, you probably think of soldiers, occupation and violence. Especially with the violence in East Jerusalem and Gaza last spring still so fresh in our minds. For the first time, Dutch public opinion clearly tilted. People will not be fooled anymore. The images of police and military violence against peaceful civilians, of settler violence, of the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, of arrests of children and bombing of Gaza are coming straight at us into our living rooms via social media. You probably haven’t missed the recent reports labeling Israel an apartheid state either. In short, not good PR. Time for a charm offensive: the Israel Stage Festival. Under the slogan “Israeli culture is back to LIVE in the Netherlands” it presents five cultural performances in 4 Dutch cities. Coincidence, you might think. Well, think again. The previous edition of this festival took place in 2014, shortly after the devastating bombardments on Gaza, which killed 2100 people and injured over 11.000. One look at the sponsors confirms: this festival is part of the “Brand Israel Campaign”, initiated by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2009, just after the devastating attacks on Gaza as part of Operation Cast Lead. They announced that they would send well-known writers, theater makers and other artists to show "the beautiful face of Israel" and to brush away the horrors of occupation, oppression and apartheid. Artists and institutions receive funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the aim of boosting Israel's image internationally and diverting public attention from Israel's war crimes. To qualify for that financial support, artists sometimes have to sign a statement in which they promise to promote Israel's interests abroad. At the same time, Israel systematically sabotages artistic expressions of Palestinian origin and tries to completely appropriate or even fully erase Palestinian culture from history. Moreover, Palestinian artists are targeted by Israeli violence, arbitrary arrests and deportation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsors this festival through the Israeli embassy and also the Ministry of Aliyah (the exclusive right of return for anyone of Jewish origin, but forbidden for Palestinians) is one of the sponsors. It is painful to see that Maror money is also being spent on this artwash project. The Maror monies are refunded Jewish assets – restitution for Jewish property looted during World War II. The funds are intended for collective goals within the Jewish community in the Netherlands. The promotion of art for and by the jewish community can be part of that, but it becomes painful when art is misused to disguise Israel's crimes against humanity, which are apartheid and oppression under international law. The city of Amsterdam is spending taxpayers’ money on the normaization of apartheid through the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Whoever says A for apartheid must say B for boycott! The cultural boycott of the BDS movement is not directed against individual Israeli artists, but against the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' artwash campaign. We call on theaters not to stage apartheid. We ask art and culture lovers not to get on board the Israeli propaganda train. We want public funds to not spend money on covering up human rights violations. This festival promotes a deceptive “Brand Israel” with the slogan “Israeli culture is back to LIVE in the Netherlands”. What about Palestinian culture and Palestinian LIVES?