Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Also Gets at Alicia Keys.. Stand United-Boycott Israel

Yesterday writer Alice Walker got at Alicia Keys in an Open Letter asking her not to do a concert in Israel as a way to protest their Apartheid-like policies toward Palestinians… Well Alicia Keys is being stepped to again.. This time by Pink Floyd‘s Roger Waters.. In his letter he notes that he along with Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote to Stevie Wonder about playing for Israel’s army and that he complied.. He says she hopes she’ll join  others to stand united against oppression.. Here’s the letter below which appeared at PACBI.

Roger Waters

Dear Alicia Keys

I read today Alice Walker’s eloquent and moving entreaty to you in her open letter.

It is hard to add anything except to implore you to follow all the links she has directed you to.

To introduce myself to you, I am a fellow musician, my name is Roger Waters, I used to be in a band called Pink Floyd, and, believe it or not, I still work.

I had reason last December to write a letter to Stevie Wonder to encourage him to withdraw from an engagement in LA. It was a Gala to raise funds for the Israeli Defense Force. I wasn’t the only one to write, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the great advocate of peace and reconciliation, was among many, many others who wrote as well. To Stevie’s great credit he withdrew.

We are all part of the same old story, nothing has changed since the bad old days of apartheid South Africa and Segregated America. We must stand united with all our brothers and sisters against racism, colonialism, segregation and apartheid.

Please, Alicia, do not lend your name to give legitimacy to the Israeli government policies of illegal, apartheid, occupation of the homelands of the indigenous people of Palestine.

Others may try to persuade you that by playing in Israel you may magically effect some change; we know that this is not true, appeasement didn’t work with South Africa and it has not worked in Israel. I know I tried it ten years ago, things have only got worse.

I appeal to you to join the rising tide of resistance. Join the many millions of us in global civil society who stand together on the side of justice and peace for all humanity. “We shall overcome one day.”

With love and respect,

Roger Waters

 

An Open Letter to Alicia Keys from Alice Walker

This is powerful letter from writer Alice Walker to singer Alicia Keys asking her to boycott Israel..Over the past few years several prominent artists including Stevie Wonder and the late Gil Scott-Heron had to be asked to reconsider their position in playing for Israel and entities representing it.. Both complied and joined the thousands of artists globally who have already agreed..We’ll see if Keys joins the Movement.

Dear Alicia Keys,

I have learned today that you are due to perform in Israel very soon. We have never met, though I believe we are mutually respectful of each other’s path and work. It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists. You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the US South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel’s against the Palestinian people. Google Montgomery Bus Boycott, if you don’t know about this civil rights history already. We changed our country fundamentally and the various boycotts of Israeli institutions and products will do the same there. It is our only nonviolent option and, as we learned from our own struggle in America, nonviolence is the only path to a peaceful future.

If you go to my website and blog alicewalkersgarden.com you can quickly find many articles I have written over the years that explain why a cultural boycott of Israel and Israeli institutions (not individuals) is the only option left to artists who cannot bear the unconscionable harm Israel inflicts every day on the people of Palestine, whose major “crime” is that they exist in their own land, land that Israel wants to control as its own. Under a campaign named ‘Brand Israel’, Israeli officials have stated specifically their intent to downplay the Palestinian conflict by using culture and arts to showcase Israel as a modern, welcoming place.

This is actually a wonderful opportunity for you to learn about something sorrowful, and amazing: that our government (Obama in particular) supports a system that is cruel, unjust, and unbelievably evil. You can spend months, and years, as I have, pondering this situation. Layer upon layer of lies, misinformation, fear, cowardice and complicity. Greed. It is a vast eye-opener into the causes of much of the affliction in our suffering world.

I have kept you in my awareness as someone of conscience and caring, especially about the children of the world. Please, if you can manage it, go to visit the children in Gaza, and sing to them of our mutual love of all children, and of their right not to be harmed simply because they exist.

With love, younger sister, beloved daughter and friend,

Alice Walker

 

 

Legendary Singer Stevie Wonder Set to Pull Out of Fund-Raising Gig for Israeli Army

For the past week there was a lot of buzz about how disappointed folks were with legendary singer Stevie Wonder when it was announced that he would be doing a special fundraising show for the Israeli military IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) in Los Angeles on December 6th. Many had come to view Wonder as a champion of Human Rights and felt him performing to raise money for Israel’s military of all organizations, was the height of hypocrisy.

For starters there has been a cultural campaign encouraging  artists not to perform in Israel because of the ongoing conflict with Palestine. You can read about that boycott HERE.  Granted Wonder wasn’t performing in Israel, but considering the gist of the cultural boycott is around the use of Israel’s military to oppress Palestinians, many felt Wonder had crossed the line and being insensitive. Word of him performing for IDF really caused upset given the recent bombings that have gone on in Gaza under Operation Pillar where dozens of children were killed.

If that wasn’t enough, recently the social media director of the Israeli Army, Sacha Dratwa took a photograph of himself in blackface, mocking President Obama.. You can read about that HERE

On social media, many raised the questions if Wonder actually knew about the IDF organization and what they stood for or if he was under some sort of pressure to perform. Whatever the case, it didn’t look good as folks from all over the world started to raise a stink and send out petitions. Here’s what the Change.org Petition said:

We call on Stevie Wonder, as a conscientious American advocate for human rights and dignity not to support the Israeli Defense Force by performing at their gala fundraiser. In the face of over 60 years of Israeli colonization of Palestinian land and the disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people and in the wake of Israel’s latest violent aggression against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip– we ask you NOT to support the IDF. The IDF is an institution which promotes, enables, and protects Israel’s Apartheid regime. You were arrested in 1985 protesting South African Apartheid, now we ask you: please remember that apartheid is apartheid, whether it comes from White Afrikaaner settlers of South Africa or from Jewish Israelis in Israel. Desmond Tutu has recognized that Israel’s Apartheid is worse than South Africa’s– will you stand with us against apartheid and cancel your performance at the IDF fundraiser?

Another petition put out by  the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, called on Wonder to  “Please be a ‘full-time lover’ of justice by standing on the right side of history and canceling your performance for the Israeli army.”

Late yesterday, there were news stories running in Jewish based publications like HAARETZ noting that Stevie Wonder is set to pull out of his performance. They note that Wonder’s representatives claim that he did not know the nature of the group, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and that he believes such a performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN “Messenger of Peace,”You can read about that HERE

Some may say that Wonder was using his UN position as a weak excuse and that he should’ve taken a firmer stand condemning Israel military and the policies that govern it. Others are happy that he’s pulling out and hopefully will not back track or commit himself to do future fundraisers for IDF.  It’s still a mystery to many of us as to why the IDF feel a need to host a  a fund-raiser for the Israeli Army considering the billions we give to them each  year via our tax dollars in military aid. Israel has the 4th largest army in the world and gets on average 3 billions dollars a year from the US. You can read about that HERE.

With Wonder pulling out, former Green Party VP candidate and activist Rosa Clemente raised a more challenging question. She released this statement via social media last night; “….all of you complaining about Stevie (Wonder) and asking about signing petitions, are you still rolling with the Obama Democratic administration that actually funds and supports Israel? I mean it’s not like he (Wonder) is making or implementing policy.”

Holding our public officials and the policies they support is where the real battle ground is..Stevie Wonder pulling out hasn’t changed our policies yet.. More pressure is needed.. In the meantime, here’s a song that was done in protest of Stevie Wonder’s initial decision to perform for the IDF. It’s done by a Palestinian singer known as Doc Jazz..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kR99M75T6A