Roger Waters to Robbie Williams: Don’t play in Tel Aviv

One UK superstar to another: If you take children and human rights seriously, please don't play Israel

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:

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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”

ROGER WATERS

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.

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.

2014 deadliest year for Palestinians

The number of Palestinians killed in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip was the highest since 1967, UN report says

With so many hot points currently raging in the Middle East, each day creating more casualties and refugees and requiring ever more generosity from the coffers of the international community for humanitarian needs, what does the future hold for the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories?

According to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) titled “Fragmented Lives,” Palestinian civilians continue to be subject to threats to their life, physical safety and liberty. Last year witnessed the highest civilian death toll since 1967.

Humanitarian needs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are driven by practices related to Israel’s prolonged occupation and recurrent escalations of armed conflict, OCHA says in its 2014 Annual Humanitarian Overview released on March 26.

“2014 was a devastating year for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said James Rawley, Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In Gaza, 1.8 million people experienced an escalation of hostilities, which resulted in over 1,500 Palestinian civilian fatalities, including more than 550 children, and left some 100,000 residents without a home. On the Israeli side, five civilians, including a child, as well as a security guard were killed. Serious concerns were raised over the conduct of hostilities of both Israeli forces and armed Palestinian actors. Reconstruction in Gaza has been slow, hampered by the continued blockade and the lack of funding, although the temporary Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism has enabled the import of construction material.

“In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” he added, “conflict-related casualties increased, a record number of 1,215 Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions by Israeli authorities, while settlement and settler activity continued, in contravention of international law, and contributed to humanitarian vulnerability of affected Palestinian communities.”

According to the OCHA report, movement and access restrictions continued to fragment the occupied territory, undermining Palestinians’ livelihoods and impeding their access to basic services.

“Continued occupation undermines the ability of Palestinians to live normal lives. Were these factors removed and related policies changed, international humanitarian assistance would not be necessary here,” Rawley concluded.

The violence spiked during the second half of 2014, due to the 51-day Israeli offensive on Gaza between July 7 and August 26 -- the deadliest escalation in hostilities since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.

Overall, some 4,000,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remain under an Israeli military occupation that prevents them from exercising many of their basic human rights.

The barrier in Abu Dis (OCHA)

This is the fourth year in which OCHA has detailed the key humanitarian concerns in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The purpose of the report is to provide a comprehensive overview of the underlying causes or drivers of the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in a given year.

The concerns outlined in the Humanitarian Overview reflect the advocacy priorities identified by the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), the main humanitarian coordinating body for UN agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In 2014, these priorities remain: Accountability; Life, Liberty and Security; Forced Displacement; Movement and Access; and Humanitarian Space.

The Overview is structured around these priorities, with the issue of accountability addressed throughout. Each section contains a calendar of the main developments in 2014 and a Way Forward, which details the main steps required to rectify policies and practices inconsistent with international law and reduce humanitarian vulnerability.

As with all OCHA reports, the Humanitarian Overview is based on data collated and cross-checked from multiple sources that include OCHA, other UN agencies, international NGOs, Palestinian and Israeli NGOs and, where relevant, government sources.

The overall situation described in the report is a protection-based crisis, with negative humanitarian ramifications. This crisis stems from the prolonged occupation and recurrent hostilities, alongside a system of policies that undermine the ability of Palestinians to live normal, self-sustaining lives and realize the full spectrum of their rights, including the right to self-determination.

Were these factors removed, Palestinians would be able to develop their government institutions and economy without the need for humanitarian assistance.

To achieve progress in this regard, a range of actions is required by all relevant parties, particularly the following:

-- Israel, the occupying power, must fulfill its primary obligations to protect the Palestinian civilian population, and ensure that people’s basic needs and human rights are met. This would include taking action to secure the physical protection of Palestinian civilians, cease their displacement, ensure accountability for violence and abuse, and lift restrictions on the movement of people and goods, as well as on access to land and resources.

-- All parties to the conflict, including armed groups, must fulfill their legal obligations to conduct hostilities in accordance with international law to ensure the protection of all civilians during hostilities and to ensure accountability for acts committed in contravention of the laws of armed conflict.

-- Third states share responsibility for ensuring respect for international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and for promoting compliance with human rights obligations, and should take all necessary actions stemming from that responsibility.

Israel locks up Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar

Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar

“We don’t know whether Israel’s detention of the Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has anything to do with her passionate advocacy for prisoners’ rights. It could be her membership on a government-appointed committee mandated to follow up Palestine’s recent accession to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Israel is not saying. But one thing is quite clear: her case is rife with due process violations,” writes Bill Van Esveld in Human Rights Watch’s Dispatches on Thursday, Apri 9.

Israeli forces raided Jarrar’s West Bank home in Ramallah around 1 a.m. on April 2 and arrested her. They shuttled her to an Israeli settlement, then to two military bases, interrogating her at the second all morning, before transferring her to a prison inside Israel, her lawyers said. On April 5, the Israeli military commander of the West Bank ordered her administrative detention for six months.

“They attacked our house at about 1 a.m. They broke the door… They isolated me in another room and stayed in my house for about an hour. Finally they kidnapped my wife, Khalida,” her husband Ghassan Jarrar said.

He added that the IDF violated an agreement with the Palestinian Authority under which the Israelis are not supposed to detain elected Palestinian officials.

Under Israeli law, the military can detain any Palestinian without charge or trial if it can convince a military judge that the evidence provides “reasonable grounds to believe” that the person poses a “danger to security,” Van Esveld writes. “The military is under no obligation to share that evidence with the person being detained. The military judge can approve a military order detaining him or her for up to six months; the detention can be indefinitely renewed.

An Israeli military commander later ordered the administrative detention of Jarrar for six months, the maximum term Israeli law allows a person to be held in custody without a charge or a court order.

The MP joins over 450 people currently held in administrative detention in Israel, according to the Addemeer Prisoner Support Association. The number is lower than it was three years ago, before Israel scaled down the detentions following a prolonged hunger strike by detainees.

The Fourth Geneva Convention on military occupations allows for temporary detention of civilians without charge “if necessary, for imperative reasons of security.” That’s an easy claim to make when the 400-plus Palestinian administrative detainees are provided no fair opportunity to contest the evidence against them, Van Esveld notes.

Jarrar -- a 52-year-old member of the Palestinian parliament --  is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a political party that Israel has deemed an “illegal terrorist organization.” The party has an armed wing that has attacked Israeli civilians but the Israeli military hasn’t charged her with any link to such attacks. During her interrogation on April 2, Israeli officials played three videos of her making speeches and questioned her about her political statements, Jarrar later told her lawyer.

Jarrar is no stranger to Israeli harassment. Israel has banned her from traveling abroad since 1998, although it allowed her to receive medical treatment in Jordan in 2010. Last August, the military issued a “supervision order” requiring her to leave her home and stay in Jericho for six months on the basis that she posed a security threat due to her alleged “incitement and involvement in terror.” She ignored the order and set up a protest tent outside the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah; the military later shortened her expulsion to 30 days and took no further action to enforce it.

Her position as a member of the team that oversaw the Palestinian Authority becoming a member of the ICC last week led to suspicion that the arrest may be a punishment. Israel has been fiercely opposed to Palestine joining the ICC.

“This is how Israel seeks to deter every Palestinian public activist -- not to mention one involved with advancing the processes in the ICC – from realizing his or her rights,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in an editorial.

“If Jarrar broke the law, Israel must put her on trial and prove she committed a crime. If, on the other hand, the reason for her detention is revenge, she must be released immediately,” the paper added.

Khalida Kana’an Muhammad Jarrar was elected to Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) in January 2006 as one of the PFLP's three deputies and has continued to serve as an elected representative ever since. She is also the Palestinian representative on the Council of Europe and is currently head of the Prisoners Committee of the PLC

Jarrar has been a human rights activist for many years. She is active in support of Palestinian prisoners and she served as the director of Adameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah from 1993 to 2005 and remains a board member. She has also previously worked with UNRWA  and has been prominently active in working with Palestinian women and advocating for women's rights. In 1989, Jarra was arrested by the IDF for taking part of a protest on International Women’s Day.

Since 1998 Jarrar has been banned from travelling outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She has two children.

In 2005 Israel refused to allow her to leave the country to attend a human rights conference in Ireland.

Jarrar’s arrest brings the number of Palestinian legislators currently held in Israeli prisons to 16.

Roger Waters appeals to Rock 'n' Roll

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, has appealed to his colleagues in Rock and Roll to “join me and all our brothers and sisters in global civil society in proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

The co-founder of my favorite rock band, made the appeal in a letter published on August 18 on his Waters’ Facebook page.

Among Pink Floyd’s international successes are such albums as The Dark side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Final Cut. They have sold more than 250 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States as of 2013.

Waters appeals to his “brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel, to shed light on these problems and also to support all our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel who are struggling to end all forms of Israeli oppression and who wish to live in peace, justice, equality and freedom.”

The letter reads:

A note from Roger Waters -- August 18, 2013, Warsaw

To My Colleagues in Rock and Roll

Nigel Kennedy, the virtuoso British violinist and violist, at The Recent Promenade Concerts at The Albert Hall in London, mentioned that Israel is apartheid. Nothing unusual there you might think. Then one Baroness Deech, (Nee Fraenkel) disputed the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and prevailed upon the BBC to censor Kennedy’s performance by removing his statement. Baroness Deech produced not one shred of evidence to support her claim and yet the BBC -- non-political, supposedly -- acting solely on Baroness Deech’s say so, suddenly went all 1984 on us.

Well!! Time to stick my head above the parapet again -- alongside my brother Nigel Kennedy -- where it belongs.  And by the way, Nigel, great respect man. So here follows a letter last re-drafted in July, 2013

To My Colleagues in Rock and Roll:

In the wake of the tragic shooting to death of unarmed teenager Travon Martin and the acquittal of his killer Zimmerman, yesterday, Stevie Wonder spoke at a gig declaring that he will not perform in the State of Florida until that state repeals its “Stand Your Ground” Law. In effect he has declared a boycott on grounds of conscience. I applaud his position and stand with him.

It has brought back to me a statement I made in a letter I wrote last February 14, to which I have referred but have never published.

The time has come, so here it is.

This letter has been simmering on the back burner of my conscience and consciousness for some time.

It is seven years since I joined BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions), a nonviolent movement to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and violations of international law and Palestinian human rights. The aim of BDS is to bring international attention to these Israeli policies, and hopefully, to help bring them to an end. All the people of the region deserve better than this.

To cut to the chase, Israel has been found guilty, independently, by international human rights organizations, UN officials, and the International Court of Justice, of serious breaches of international law.  These include, and I will name only two:

The Crime of Apartheid:

The systematic oppression of one ethnic group by another. On 9 March 2012, for instance, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Israel to end its racist policies and laws that contravene the prohibition against racial segregation and apartheid.

The Crime of Ethnic Cleansing:

The forcible removable of indigenous peoples from their rightful land in order to settle an occupying population. For example, in East Jerusalem non-Jewish families are routinely physically evicted from their homes to make way for Jewish occupants.

There are others.

Waters performing "Comfortably Numb" in Kansas Ciy in 2010 (GabeMc)

Given the inability or unwillingness of our governments, or the United Nations Security Council to put pressure on Israel to cease these violations and make reparations to the victims, it falls to civil society and conscientious citizens of the world to dust off our consciences, shoulder our responsibilities and act.

I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to ask you to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel, to shed light on these problems and also to support all our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel who are struggling to end all forms of Israeli oppression and who wish to live in peace, justice, equality and freedom.

I am writing to you all now because of two recent events:

1. Stevie Wonder.

Word came to me, the first week of last December that Stevie Wonder had been booked to headline at a gala dinner for the Friends of The Israeli Defense Force in LA on 6 December 2012. An event to raise money for the Israeli armed forces, as if the $4.3,000,000,000 that we, the US tax payers, give them each year were not enough? This came right after The Israeli Defense Force had concluded yet another war on Gaza -- Operation Pillar of Defense -- according to Human Rights Watch, committing war crimes against the besieged 1.6 million Palestinians there.

Anyway, I wrote to Stevie to try to persuade him to cancel. My letter ran along these lines, “Would you have felt OK performing at the Policeman’s Ball in Johannesburg the night after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 or in Birmingham, Alabama, to raise money for the Law Enforcement officers who clubbed, tear-gassed and water-cannoned those children trying to integrate in 1963?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu also wrote an impassioned plea to Stevie and 3,000 others appended their names to a change.org petition. Stevie, to his great credit, cancelled!

2. Earlier that week I delivered a speech at The United Nations. If you are interested you can find this speech on YouTube.

The interesting thing about these two stories is that there was NOT ONE mention of either story in the mainstream media in the United States.

The clear inference would be that the media in the USA is not interested in the predicament of the Palestinian people, or for that matter the predicament of the Israeli people. We can only hope they may become interested as they eventually did in the politics of apartheid South Africa.

Back in the days of Apartheid South Africa, at first it was a trickle of artists that refused to play there, a trickle that exercised a cultural boycott, then it became a stream, then a river, then a torrent and then a flood. (Remember Steve van Zant, Bruce and all the others? “We will not Play in Sun City?”) Why? Because, like the UN and the International Court of Justice they understood that Apartheid is wrong.

The sports community joined the battle -- no one would go and play cricket or rugby in South Africa -- and eventually the political community joined in as well. We all -- as a global, musical, sporting and political community -- raised our voices as one and the apartheid regime in South Africa fell.

Maybe we are at the tipping point now with Israel and Palestine. These are good people both and they deserve a just solution to their predicament. Each and every one of them deserves freedom, justice and equal rights. Just recently, the ANC, the ruling party of South Africa, has endorsed BDS. We are nearly there.

Please join me -- and all our brothers and sisters in global civil society -- in proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

Roger Waters