Update (June 9, 2022): Big Thief changed direction and cancelled their upcoming shows in Israel saying in a statement, “Our intent in wanting to play the shows in Tel Aviv, where Max was born, raised, and currently lives stemmed from a simple belief that music can heal. We now recognize that the shows we had booked do not honor that sentiment.”
On Saturday, June 4, indie rock band Big Thief announced their decision to play a show in occupied Jaffa, or “Tel Aviv, Israel,” the hometown of one of their band members (the band is based in Brooklyn, New York). Knowing the announcement would be unpopular with much of their progressive fan base, Big Thief whitewashed their support for the Israeli occupation under the guise of open-mindedness and “the spirit of learning,” a classic expression of liberal Zionism.
They were careful to not explicitly endorse the occupation’s crimes of genocide and apartheid, but of course, betraying the boycott to perform in the occupying state is a tacit endorsement of its existence and its crimes. Big Thief tried to clear their consciousness by saying they would donate the show’s profits to “NGOs that provide medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children, including joint efforts between Palestinians and Israelis working together for a better future.”
But donating money to politically neutral organizations and encouraging Palestinians to “work together” with their colonizers cannot buy back the band’s morality. As some pointed out in the comments to their Instagram post announcing the decision, maybe “Big Thief” is an appropriate name for a band that supports Israel, a settler colony built upon massive thefts — of land, property, and life — from the Palestinian people.
As a fan of Big Thief’s music and an organizer in the Palestine solidarity movement, I was outraged. The day before Big Thief’s liberal Zionist apologia, I had helped organize Boston’s first-ever Palestine Solidarity Concert with Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) Boston. Our outdoor show raised over $7,000 for the Gaza Mutual Aid Collective to give material aid to Palestinians under siege in Gaza. Hundreds of attendees learned about BDS and connected with organizations, projects, and campaigns for Palestinian liberation including the Boycott PUMA campaign, the Mapping Project, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Students for Justice in Palestine.
While Big Thief colludes with the Israeli occupation, the performers at the Boston Palestine Solidarity Concert — The C.O.M.P., Dino Gala, senseless optimism, Puppy Problems, bedbug, and the Boston Dabke Troupe — set forth a real example of how artists can support the calls from Palestinian civil society for BDS. They donated their talent to the cause, uplifted the boycott of the occupation, and helped turn out hundreds of community members to the concert.
Artists like these who organize with the BDS movement have been some of the most vocal in their disappointment and outrage at Big Thief. Sami Martasian, the front person of Puppy Problems, rejects the notion that artists could abdicate their political and moral responsibilities. “While it is true that artists often perform within governments that they disagree with,” they explained, “the BDS movement is a clear ask of Palestinian activists and it is paramount that we act in respect to their leadership.”
Martasian views Big Thief’s normalization with Israel as reflective of a bigger problem. They noted that, “while an artist’s image can portray them as socially conscious and thoughtful,” too often these artists fail to live up to their progressive image when it comes to Palestine. In Big Thief’s case, their wording only “acknowledges a vague understanding of conflict without a clear stance against the occupation,” and they “even re-used [the same] statement from two years ago,” when they last performed in occupied Jaffa.
When Alden McWayne, a Boston musician and TikTok star known as “Gucci Pineapple,” helped BDS Boston promote the Palestine Solidarity Concert in April, we talked about our shared enjoyment of Big Thief’s music. But after the recent post, McWayne was less enthusiastic. He told me, “It’s extremely disappointing to see Big Thief, a band I love, take a neoliberal, Zionist stance in the face of the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
McWayne, Martasian, and thousands of fans in the comments of Big Thief’s post pushed back against the band’s characterization of the occupation as too “complicated” to take a stance on. As someone who has used his own platform to uplift the Palestinian liberation movement, McWayne believes that Big Thief’s “being silent and ‘learning’ is taking the side of the oppressor.” Martasian adds that, “even if there is much to still learn, solidarity with the BDS movement is a place to start.”
Solidarity with the BDS movement is indeed a great place to start, as shown by the success of our concert, which brought in hundreds of people new to the struggle. Some longer-time activists who attended told us that they kept tearing up during the event, because of how moved they were to be surrounded by a crowd who had shown up for Palestine.
Shadia A., a Palestinian organizer with BDS Boston who volunteered at the concert, believes that, unlike Big Thief, the artists who performed fulfilled their duty as people in the West to challenge our governments’ imperialist policies. “In stark contrast to artists who normalize the crimes of the settler-colonial Zionist entity,” he said that our performers “made it clear that they stand firmly with the righteous cause of the Palestinian people until liberation and return.”
We cannot underestimate the role that art and music play in raising mass consciousness to understand the reality in Palestine. Shadia makes clear the two stances artists can take in response to this reality — complicity with the occupation, through silence or direct normalization with the occupying state, or solidarity with the people resisting the occupation. While Big Thief exemplifies violent complicity, whitewashed with liberal Zionism, our Boston Palestine Solidarity Concert sets forth a bold new standard for musical solidarity with Palestine. We hope there will be many more Palestine Solidarity Concerts to come.
Apparently, Big Thief is not familiar with the old adage, “lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas.”