[HCCN] fw: Organizations thank Gil Scott-Heron for stance on Israeli apartheid

[Judith Robbins]

Thank You Letter to Gil Scott Heron From Over 50 Organizations
includes comments of Archbishop Desmond Tutu


Dear Gil Scott-Heron,
The undersigned artists and organizations would like to commend your  
principled stance on Israeli apartheid.
By announcing the cancellation of your scheduled performance in  
Israel, you join the growing ranks of artists of conscience in  
solidarity with Palestinian civil society. As you recognized in your  
iconic anti-Apartheid anthem “Johannesburg,” when “brothers over  
there are defyin’ the man…they need to know we’re on their side.”
We understand that there may be some pressure to reverse your stand  
and play Tel Aviv. We would like to emphasize the legal and moral  
reasons why we are urging you to hold fast to your decision.
By performing in Israel you would violate the Palestinian civil  
society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against  
Israel—a call supported by stalwart anti-racist activists around the  
world, from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Alice Walker. As  
Bishop Tutu noted:
I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and  
children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely  
when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or  
attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and  
the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly  
insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.”
Israel subjects Palestinians to a cruel system of dispossession,  
racism, and Apartheid.
Flouting international law, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’  
basic human rights:
1. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal  
military occupation. Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of  
movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and  
education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists  
without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation  
and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks  
strangling the West Bank. All the while, Israel continues to build  
its illegal wall on Palestinian farmland and to support the ever- 
expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the  
West Bank into Bantustans.
2. Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid  
within Israel's borders, with laws and policies that deny Palestinian  
citizens of Israel the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy.  
These laws and policies affect land ownership, housing, employment,  
marriage, and all other aspects of people's daily lives. In many ways  
this system resembles Jim Crow.
3. Since 1948, when Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian  
people in order to form a Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian  
refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their  
homes and their lands. Today, there are more than 7 million  
Palestinian refugees, still struggling for their right to return.
Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.
In 2008, Israeli launched a war against the Palestinian people in the  
Gaza Strip. This three-week assault killed 1400 Palestinians, over a  
third of them children, injured over 5400, and destroyed whole  
neighborhoods and crucial civilian infrastructure such as factories,  
hospitals, wells, and schools. The Israeli destruction of a UN school  
was done with the use of white phosphorous, which violates  
international law, as it indiscriminately incinerates humans. These  
crimes against humanity occurred in the midst of a four-year siege  
that Israel has placed on the 1.5 million people living in Gaza,  
controlling air and marine space and closing all borders in an  
illegal act of collective punishment. Today, Israel refuses to allow  
adequate humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and actively opposes  
recommendations for accountability made by South African Judge  
Richard Goldstone in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.
Israel uses arts and culture to whitewash its violations of  
international law and human rights.
In the wake of the Gaza assault and to salvage its deteriorating  
image, Israel has redoubled its effort to “brand” itself as an  
enlightened liberal democracy. Arts and culture play a unique role in  
this branding campaign, as the presence of internationally acclaimed  
artists from the West affirms Israel’s membership in the West’s  
privileged club of cultured, liberal democracies. But it should not  
be business as usual with a state that routinely violates  
international law and basic human rights.
Palestinian civil society calls for BDS and distinguished artists of  
conscience have joined the call.
The BDS movement is a nonviolent, morally consistent way to hold  
Israel accountable to the same human rights standards as other  
nations. Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against  
Apartheid, Palestinian groups have called on international civil  
society to engage in BDS until Israel ends its three forms of  
oppression against the Palestinian people:
(1) the occupation of all Arab lands, including the West Bank, Gaza  
Strip, and East Jerusalem;
(2) the legalized and institutional discrimination of Palestinian  
citizens of Israel; and
(3) the denial of Palestinian refugees’ right to return.?
In refusing to do business as usual with Israel, you join ranks with  
the growing number of international artists, intellectuals, and  
cultural workers who have rejected Israel’s cynical use of the arts  
to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies. Distinguished  
artists, writers, and peace activists—among them John Berger,  
Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, Archbishop  
Desmond Tutu, and Alice Walker—have declared support for the BDS  
movement. World-renowned artists Sting, Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc  
Godard, and Carlos Santana have cancelled their performances or  
participation in festivals in Israel.
Please maintain your principled stance against Israeli Apartheid.
Consistent with your commitment to anti-racist struggles for social  
justice and freedom in the United States and around the world—a  
commitment so powerfully expressed in your work—you have chosen to  
stand on the right side of history. Your cancellation was warmly  
received in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, as a similar action were  
received by black South Africans in the anti-apartheid era. We urge  
you not to bow to pressure to reverse your principled stance, and not  
play Israel as long as it continues its apartheid policies.
With respect and solidarity,
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel  
(PACBI)
pacbi at pacbi.org
Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel
info at adalahny.org
Al-Nakba Awareness Project
Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Information Society
American Jews for a Just Peace
Anti-War Ireland
Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine
Artists Against Apartheid
Bay Area Coalition to End Israeli Apartheid
Berlin Academic Boycott
Bill Fletcher, Jr., BlackCommentator.com* (for purpose of  
identification only)
Birthright Unplugged
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Israel)
Break the Siege (California)
British Committee for the Universities of Palestine
Canadian Arab Federation
Canada Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet)
Center for Immigrant Families (NYC)
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (Canada)
DAM, Palestinian Hip Hop
Don't Buy Into Apartheid (California)
Educators for Peace and Justice (Toronto)
Global Women's Strike
Hodari Abdul-Ali (Host, Freedom Sounds, WPFW, Washington, DC)
Imperial College London Palestine Society
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Invincible, Detroit based Hip-Hop artist
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
JBIG - Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (UK)
Jews Against the Occupation – NYC
Jews Say No! (NYC)
Reem Kelani, Palestinian musician and singer
King's College London Action Palestine (KCLAP)
King's College London Creative Writing Society (KCLCWS)
Labor for Palestine
London School of Economics Palestine Society
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
The Narcicyst
New York City Labor Against the War
QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism) (California)
The One Democratic State Group
Palestine Solidarity Committee – Seattle
The Palestinian Club of Brooklyn College
Palestinian Queers for BDS (Palestinian)
Palestinian Students' Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel  
(PSCABI)
Queen Mary University London Palestine Society
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Palestine Society
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) (14 Chapters in Canada)
Students Against Israeli Apartheid-Carleton (Ottawa, Canada)
Students Boycott Apartheid (North America)
Students for Justice in Palestine–Columbia University (NYC)
Students for Justice in Palestine–New York University
Students for Justice in Palestine-UC Berkeley
University College London Friends of Palestine Society
University Teachers' Society in Palestine
US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
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