[News] Palestinians call for the boycott of music festival - Israel plans to ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of Bedouins

Wed Oct 16 11:50:20 EDT 2019

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/partying-ethnically-cleansed-land 

  Partying on ethnically cleansed land

Tamara Nassar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar> - 16 
October 2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Palestinians are calling <https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-indnegev> for 
the boycott of a music festival taking place where Israel plans to 
ethnically cleanse 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-moves-corral-bedouins-camps> 
tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins.

The InDnegev music festival is scheduled to take place in the Naqab 
desert in southern Israel from 24 to 26 October.

The area is where Israel is taking the first steps to forcibly displace 
tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins and put them in refugee camps.

Adalah <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/adalah>, a legal advocacy 
group, is challenging <https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9826> a 
mass displacement that seems imminent.

An Israeli government department discussed displacement plans earlier 
this month that, if approved, will see Israeli forces evict the Bedouins 
from their homes and place them in “desert refugee or displacement 
camps” where they may stay for up to six years.

The Naqab Bedouins hold Israeli citizenship. But like all Palestinians 
with Israeli citizenship, they lack basic rights and suffer some 65 
Israeli laws <https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index> that directly and 
indirectly discriminate against them.

Israeli authorities are not offering just or permanent housing 
solutions, says Adalah.

    Judaizing the Naqab

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel 
(PACBI) is urging <https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-indnegev> artists to 
withdraw from the festival just as they would from one in apartheid 
South Africa.

The InDnegev festival is sponsored by the Negev Development Authority, 
the government agency responsible for the “displacement,” or ethnic 
cleansing, of the Bedouins.

“This takes the ‘Brand Israel’ program of art-washing apartheid through 
culture to its logical conclusion,” PACBI stated.

With little hint of irony, the festival’s website instructs 
festival-goers “to respect your neighbors in the camping area” and not 
to bring “armed weapons, knives… and gas canisters” to the site.

But the action to remove the Bedouins from their homes is only part of a 
larger plan to Judaize the southern region.

The Israeli government has been intent on expelling villagers from 
Naqab’s Umm al-Hiran <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/umm-al-hiran> 
Bedouin village in order to build a Jewish-only settlement in its place. 
They are even trying to force the Palestinians to agree to their own 
expulsion 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-forces-umm-al-hiran-villagers-agree-expulsion>.

Israel has demolished another village in the Naqab, al-Araqib 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-araqib>, more than 130 times 
<https://972mag.com/demolitions-al-araqib-prison-land/139119/> since 2010.

Just a few kilometers away in the Gaza Strip, Israel routinely shoots 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return> at Palestinians 
with live ammunition and tear gas canisters for demanding their right to 
return to lands they were expelled from in 1948.

“We urge all international artists to withdraw from the festival, to 
avoid participating in the blatant attempts of Israel’s regime of 
apartheid, occupation and settler-colonialism to whitewash its war 
crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians,” PACBI stated.

    Dancing on looted land

But ethnic cleansing provides the beat to other events.

The DGTL Tel Aviv 2019 festival is taking place this week in Yarkon 
Park, built atop the ruins of Jarisha, a small Palestinian village near 
Jaffa that was depopulated during the 1948 ethnic cleansing of some 
800,000 Palestinians that cleared the way for the establishment of the 
State of Israel.

Festival promoters claim to be “always mindful of our environmental and 
social impact,” though such concern does not seem to extend to the 
Palestinians who were never allowed to return to the lands and homes 
from which they were forcibly displaced.

Palestinian civil society is therefore asking artists to withdraw from 
this festival.

It is crimes such as “ethnic cleansing, apartheid and occupation, that 
Israel seeks to art-wash through its association with otherwise 
progressive festivals and artists,” PACBI said 
<https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-DGTL>.

Similarly, Palestinians are urging 
<https://bdsmovement.net/bollywoodstandagainstapartheid> artists to 
withdraw from the Indo Fest TLV festival taking place this week.

The festival was indefinitely postponed last year after a boycott 
campaign and this year may see a repeat.

Bollywood star and TV personality Sophie Choudry said 
<https://twitter.com/Sophie_Choudry/status/1182515470890438656> the 
“show is not happening” on Twitter, but no official cancellation 
announcements have been made on the festival’s website.

Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy Michael Oren 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/michael-oren> urged Bollywood 
artists to visit Israel during a trip to the Indian city of Mumbai in 
recent years.

Oren clearly stated the purpose of his trip.

“In Mumbai inviting Bollywood to Israel. Meeting producers from India’s 
massive film industry. The goal: create Israeli jobs and fight BDS,” he 
said on Twitter.

    In Mumbai inviting Ballywood to Israel. Meeting producers from
    India's massive film industry. The goal: create Israeli jobs and
    fight BDS pic.twitter.com/LTYKuDGYkG <https://t.co/LTYKuDGYkG>

    — Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) October 8, 2017
    <https://twitter.com/DrMichaelOren/status/917009157705711616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

India has in recent years been the largest customer 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-s-largest-arms-clients-india-azerbaijan-and-vietnam-1.5909811> 
in the world for Israeli weapons.

      Tags

  * BDS <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds>
  * InDnegev music festival
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/indnegev-music-festival>
  * bedouins <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bedouins>
  * Palestinian Bedouins
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-bedouins>
  * Adalah <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/adalah>
  * PACBI <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/pacbi>
  * Negev Development Authority
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/negev-development-authority>
  * Naqab (Negev) <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/naqab-negev>
  * Al-Araqib <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-araqib>
  * DGTL Tel Aviv 2019
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dgtl-tel-aviv-2019>
  * Yarkon Park <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yarkon-park>
  * Jarisha <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jarisha>
  * Sophie Choudry <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sophie-choudry>
  * Michael Oren <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/michael-oren>

  * Tamara Nassar's blog <https://electronicintifada.net/blog/104821>

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