One UK superstar to
another: If you take children and human rights seriously, please don't play
Israel
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| Waters and Williams (Photo Credit: AP/Evan Agostini/Gero Breloer) |
In a letter last week, Roger Waters explains
to Robbie Williams why his decision to play in Tel Aviv tomorrow, May 2, “gives
succor to [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu and his regime and endorses
their deadly racist policies.”
The following is Waters’ letter published in
Salon on April 28:
* * * *
Roger Waters to Robbie
Williams: “Your decision to play in Tel Aviv gives succor to Netanyahu and his
regime, and endorses their deadly racist policies”
Robbie Williams:
One of the most horrifying incidents during
Israel’s massive assault on Gaza last summer was the killing of four
Palestinian boys playing soccer on a beach. This war crime was
meticulously documented by human rights organizations and by journalists on the
scene at the Al-Deira Hotel. NBC correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin tweeted that
just minutes prior he had joined the children in their soccer game. War-hardened
journalists tweeted their eyewitness distress.
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| Gaza beach last summer (Photo by Tyler Hicks, The New York Times) |
I bring up this gruesome
scene because popular UK entertainer Robbie Williams, soon to play a May
2 concert in Tel Aviv, is known to be a huge soccer fan. He is also
UNICEF’s UK ambassador and a declared supporter of its Children in Danger campaign.
Yet, sadly, when it comes to Palestinian children, like those killed on that
beach in Gaza that day, Williams is showing a chilling indifference to their
well-being.
London Palestine Action
has pointed to his hypocrisy in that he purports to represent UNICEF while
preparing to play a gig in Tel Aviv: “We hope UNICEF will remain steadfast in
defense of children’s rights, including Palestinian children, and ask Robb
UNICEF, as declared in
its mission statement,
insists that “the survival, protection and development of children are
universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress.”
Dear Robbie, playing this
concert on May 2 would be giving your tacit support to the deaths of
over 500 Palestinian children last summer in Gaza, including the four soccer
players on the beach in Gaza, and condoning the arrest and abuse of hundreds of
Palestinian children each year living under Israeli occupation, as has been documented by
UNICEF itself.
To declare my own history, I confess I myself
played a gig in Israel in 2006 before I knew any better. At that time and
afterward, moved as I was, I listened to voices from all sides and made it my
business to learn as much as I could about the situation in Israel and
Palestine. I traveled widely in Israel and the West Bank and now nine years
later having done my research, I have come to the conclusion that BDS (Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions) is the most viable, peaceful way to end the
suffering of, and forge a better future for, all the people of the Holy Land. I
encourage you, Robbie, and all other artists, not to play in Israel until
Israel complies with international law and recognizes the basic human rights of
all the people of the region, including the Palestinian people, which, Robbie,
includes Palestinian children playing soccer.
Since my 2006 gig, the
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has emerged as a dynamic force to
be reckoned with. Covered heavily in mainstream media around
the world, BDS has succeeded in publicizing the Palestinian people’s
predicament, their lack of freedom, equality and access to justice.
Now, in 2015, there is
really no excuse for musicians agreeing to play in Tel Aviv. The jury of world
opinion is in; global civil society supports equal rights for all. We are
approaching the same tipping point as when artists lent their support to the
anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Those innocent
soccer-playing children in Gaza were the victims of a violent indiscriminate
Israeli attack.
That was more than nine
months ago. Since then, one of those kids, 12-year-old Montasser Abu
Bakr, who was playing alongside his brother, and three friends, has attempted
suicide and is regularly subject to uncontrollable fits of screaming and
sobbing. This is one of the children whose “survival, protection and
development” you, Robbie, have promised to uphold. Tragically, it is too late
for Montasser’s dead brother and the other three children needlessly slain that
day. But, Robbie, you can still stand up and send a powerful message as an
individual and as a genuine human rights ambassador, that “business as usual”
with Israel is unacceptable until such time as our Palestinian brothers and sisters
are afforded equal human rights under international law and their children are
not subject to this kind of obscene random slaughter.
As a UNICEF ambassador
and a man of humanity and honor, you have, in my opinion, a duty to respect the
picket line created by Palestinian civil society and a growing number of
engaged musicians, artists and academics around the globe. Not just Ken
Loach and Stephen Hawking and Elvis Costello and Brian Eno and me, but all the
other artists, thousands
and counting, standing up for the oppressed and the occupied, those subjugated
people that Israeli officials describe as needing to be made to “lose weight, but
not to starve to death” or, worse, as grass to be mowed.
To be clear, Robbie,
whether intended or not, your decision to play in Tel Aviv gives succor to
Netanyahu and his regime, and endorses their exceptionalist and deadly racist
policies.
So, I say, please,
Robbie, look inside yourself and find the soccer fan, the man, the father who
can feel another father’s loss.
If you cannot see
yourself in the eyes of a Palestinian father, you should do the decent thing
and resign from UNICEF, or failing that, UNICEF should let you go.
Love.
Roger Waters.
PS: To all of you reading
this who care about children, thank you, we are bound together by the love we
have for children, not just Montasser Abu Bakr, his brother and his friends,
but the other children in Gaza and the West Bank and Israel and all the other
children all over the world who should have the right to live and play in peace
and safety. Our love and goodwill extends to each of them equally as we strive
to encourage the creation of a Holy Land worthy of that name.
