An open letter to the Pixies, who are supposed to perform in Israel in June, from human-rights activists, including many Israelis, urging them to boycott:
What Israel wants the world to overlook – via the way it has constructed its "peace processes" – is the fact that this occupation is part of a larger colonization and oppression project….
Are you prepared to perform in Tel-Aviv while just under your nose millions of human beings are suffocating under a cruel Israeli military regime, denying them elementary human rights?…. By the time you come to perform in Israel, Palestinians will have been under brutal occupation for 43 years – nearly half a century under a military regime that has already imprisoned more than 600,000 of them and that controls every aspect of their lives, including their freedom of movement, freedom of speech, religion, and trade, access to education, access to their lands, and often their right to live!…
22 years ago, in 1988, following the first intifada outbreak, you mentioned Gaza in your new song "River Euphrates": "Stuck here out of gas/Out here on the Gaza Strip/From driving in too fast". Whether you meant to construct a metaphor or referred to previous gas shortages, we can’t help notice the resonance to what is taking place in Gaza today. After the years-long Israeli siege, the Gaza strip is deprived more than ever of fuel and energy – as well as food, medicines and many other necessities. Gaza is out of gas not just for movement by car within its sealed perimeter, driving fast or slow, but for electricity, health services, cooking and any sustainment of normal living conditions. Any normalization attitude towards Israel means also allowing this siege to go on. Whether you cared or didn’t care for Gaza then, how can you not care for it so blatantly NOW?
