The Red Hot Chili Peppers are due to give a concert in Tel Aviv tomorrow night, but boycott advocates still hope that the band, last seen in Beirut, will change its mind.
“Israeli govt press office gives the Red Hot Chili Peppers a strong anti-boycott hug,” Ofer Neiman writes, linking an Israeli government press office tweet about the concert: “Boycott calls unlikely to cool Red Hot Chili Peppers’ first concert in Tel Aviv, Israel.”
A boycott supporter on facebook adds:
Red Hot Chili Peppers, the government of occupying military regime of Israel is worried you may change your mind and not entertain the beneficiaries of their [apartheid state]…
The Israeli government linked a piece in the Times of Israel:
The band has made no comments on Facebook, Twitter or in the press regarding the anti-Israel boycott. Their last known statement was on June 28, when they posted a nearly-minute-long video announcing their Tel Aviv concert date:
“I would like to announce our huge joy and pleasure and excitement and the thrill we have to come to Israel for the very first time,” bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary says in the clip, joined by singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer. “The original guitar player of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the great Hillel Slovak, may he rest in peace, was an Israeli.”
Being pro-Israel is considered integral part of being a hip and trendy “progressive” in the US. So no they won’t call off the concert. Palestinians are no politically correct people in the eyes of “progressives.”
Oops, I am not sure how I messed up the grammar on that first comment so badly. I meant “an integral part” and “not politically correct.”
love red hot /c///
but will never give them a dime
Anyway, going up to the Solano Stroll today. Last year we had a ‘Stand with Us’ table, a ‘J Street’ table, and a ‘Friends of Sabeel’ (‘Friends’ being a pro-Palestinian Christian group) table.
We’ll see how it goes this year.
when artists boycott it really only matters after a boycott has already picked up steam and then the mass avoidance by artists has a big impact – the boycott of apartheid israel is still spotty and Red Hot Chili Peppers were always overrated, are not artistically relevant anymore, and are not the sharpest tools in the shed intellectually so it is doubtful any of them have much understanding at all, let alone nuanced understanding of the political issues behind the boycott … if they could be shown just a few videos of the endless atrocities israel visits upon the Palestinians that should be enough to get them to join the boycott – if not, then they are callous or on the wrong side by choice