A Palestinian group launched an online petition calling on the popular American Bon Jovi rock band to boycott Israel and cancel a Tel Aviv concert this fall.
A Palestinian organization has launched an online petition urging the celebrated Bon Jovi rock band to cancel a scheduled October concert in Israel.
The Ramallah- based Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), in the petition, encourages the musicians to “reconsider their concert in apartheid Israel, until Israel complies with international law and respects the rights of the indigenous Palestinian people.”
At the end of a long letter accusing Israel of numerous crimes, the anti-Israel organization presses band members Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan and Tico Torres to “do the right thing, and boycott apartheid Israel, just like artists boycotted apartheid South Africa several decades ago. The band’s concert is already being used to divert attention from Israel’s human rights abuses and war crimes.”
The Israeli producers of the Bon Jovi concert, Guy Besser and Shay Mor Yosef, told Ynet that such pressure was to be expected, but that there “wasn’t the slightest fear” that the iconic band would give in to the pressure and cancel the show.
The petition, which was launched on Thursday and set its goal at 2,500 signatures, has shored up some 1,700 supporters so far.
When commenting on why they signed the petition, many of the responses had anti-Semitic overtones.
“I believe, if you play in Israël, who killed and torture child, ignoring human rigths ans international laws by following their colonisation, I stop buying all your LPS and seying you at performance [sic],“ wrote Fernando Gameiro from France.
“Surely a well travelled well paid wealthy group like this don’t need the financial incentive to showcase their songs in a place run by deaf, dumb & blind sad excuses for humans!” commented Saeed Ahmed of Manchester, UK.
Roger Waters. (JStone/Shutterstock)
Bon Jovi has not responded to the petition nor canceled the concert.
Anti-Israel organizations, led in many instances by famous musician Roger Waters, habitually call on artists set to perform in Israel to boycott the Jewish State. In some cases they have been successful; in others, they have failed.
Relating to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) trend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in June that the impetus of Israel boycotters is to challenge Israel’s “right to exist here as a free people, our right to defend ourselves, our right to determine our own future.”
“Israel is the most embattled democracy on earth,” and even so is “a democracy that rigorously protects the equal rights of all its citizens without exception. This democracy, Israel, seeks a genuine peace with our Palestinian neighbors just as we are fending off the barbaric forces of terrorism and extremism that surround us,” Netanyahu continued.
“In the battle against delegitimization, our most potent weapon is the truth. We must speak the truth – loudly, clearly, proudly,” he declared. “That’s what we must all do.”
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel