Out of tune: Madonna urged to cancel Eurovision performance in Tel Aviv
Activists, celebrities and cultural figures from around the world are calling on Madonna to cancel her performance at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The 60-year-old is scheduled to perform at the annual competition, to be held next month in Tel Aviv.
The European Broadcasting Union said the pop star’s performance would cost about $1 million (Dh3.7m) and would be financed by billionaire businessman Sylvan Adams. It’s the latest controversy for the singing contest, which has been under pressure since it was announced it would be staged in Israel this year. Tel Aviv gained the right to host the event after Israeli singer Netta won the competition last year.
In the hours after it was announced Madonna would appear, the singer’s social media accounts were flooded with messages urging her to cancel, while opinion pieces and open letters in publications across the world also appealed to the singer not to perform in Israel. Madonna has previously posted messages of support for Palestinians on social media, but she has also long been a vocal follower of Kabbalah, a discipline and school of thought of Judaism.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – a division of the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign – is leading a public campaign calling on Madonna not to attend the event. “Palestinians hope you will not undermine our struggle for freedom, justice and equality by performing at Eurovision in apartheid Tel Aviv, on the ruins of the ethnically cleaned village of AlShaykh Muwannis,” the PACBI said. “Israel’s fanatical, farright government is cynically exploiting your performance and those of the contestants, to mask its deepening oppression of Palestinians.”
The PACBI went on to say that more than 100,000 people have signed petitions to boycott Eurovision, as have more than 20 Israeli artists and hundreds of “prominent international artists, including the 1994 Eurovision winner”. Ireland’s Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan won that year.
Palestine’s Speed Sisters – an all-female streetcar racing group, described as the Middle East’s first all-women racing team – have also written an open letter to Madonna, expressing their “deep disappointment” in her decision to perform in Tel Aviv. It’s an especially pointed comment, considering Madonna made her support for Palestinians clear in 2014, urging her followers on Instagram and Twitter to donate to the Sisters as they were “fighting for freedom in Palestine”.
“We urge you to respect the nonviolent picket line set by Palestinian civil society and cancel this concert,” the Speed Sisters wrote. “This is personal to us. Lending your name to Eurovision in Tel Aviv, while the absolute majority of Palestinian artists are calling for a boycott, art-washes Israel’s crimes against us and normalises its oppression. This prolongs our suffering and makes our dream of a dignified life in peace and justice that much more remote.
“As Palestinian women living under Israel’s decades-old military occupation, and struggling for freedom, justice and equal rights, as you once recognised, we are wondering, would you still perform in Israel if you knew that Palestinians’ daily lives are a mixture of walls, checkpoints, murders, arrests, home demolitions, land confiscations and increasingly limited opportunities towards a better future? Or if you knew that along the coast of Tel Aviv, our Palestinian sisters and brothers besieged in the Gaza Strip are being bombed and killed by Israeli tanks, planes and snipers, simply for insisting on their rights as stipulated under international law?”
In January, 50 British cultural figures and celebrities, including designer Vivienne Westwood, filmmaker Mike Leigh and singer Peter Gabriel, each signed a letter calling on the BBC to cancel its Eurovision coverage. The letter, published in The Guardian, criticised Israel over its occupation of Palestine.
“Eurovision may be light entertainment, but it is not exempt from human rights considerations – and we cannot ignore Israel’s systematic violation of Palestinian human rights,” the letter says. “The BBC is bound by its charter to ‘champion freedom of expression’. It should act on its principles and press for Eurovision to be relocated to a country where crimes against that freedom are not being committed.”
The BBC responded by confirming its commitment to the competition. “The Eurovision Song Contest is not a political event and does not endorse any political message or campaign. The competition has always supported the values of friendship, inclusion, tolerance and diversity and we do not believe it would be appropriate to use the BBC’s participation for political reasons. Because of this we will be taking part in this year’s event. The host country is determined by the rules of the competition, not the BBC.”
Leigh, who wrote and directed the Oscar-nominated 2014 film Mr Turner, has for many years been a regular and prominent supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, called for by Palestinian civil society against Israel.
Last month, he told The
National it was outrageous the world was not doing more to help the Palestinian cause, saying people continue to believe the lies they were told about Israel. “Israel is evolving into an apartheid state – and the world stands by and lets it happen,” he said. “We were brought up on things that we later realised were lies. We were told quite seriously that the Arabs, as they were erroneously called, never cultivated the land, and the Israelis did, so that made it legitimate.”
Palestinians hope you will not undermine our struggle for freedom, justice and equality Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel