The Confederation of the Friends of Israel Scotland has announced a provocative all-day event during the world’s biggest arts event, the Edinburgh Festival & Fringe; on Wed 17 August at Central Hall at Tollcross, Embassy-funded Friends of Israel and StandWithUs are organising a ‘Shalom Festival’ to promote Israeli ‚democracy and tolerance of minorities‘. #No2BrandIsrael

The primary Israeli aim is to reverse the achievements of BDS campaigners over many years in Scotland that has seen defeat for efforts by the Israeli Embassy to insert Israeli State-promoted groups into Scottish cultural events. Will you help us to defend this record and, from August 13th to 17th, send a loud message to beleaguered Palestine (and around the world) that Israeli State-sponsored pseudo-cultural events cannot be held, or can only go ahead in the face of popular outrage?

The dispossession of the Palestinian people continues, with its attendant brutality – killings punctuated by periodic massacre, mass kidnapping, torture and the destruction of Palestinian homes and farms, the denial of water and the barbaric siege of Gaza. Israel’s war on Palestinian culture is not the least of its crimes; the promotion at this time of ‘Brand Israel’ as a part of the Edinburgh Fringe is an outrage and we ask you to join us in our opposition. PACBI (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) has issued an international call to support this initiative.

Der Beitrag Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid at the Edinburgh Festival erschien zuerst auf BDS Berlin.

Pushing out the Palestinian Call for BDS at the Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Die “Confederation of the Friends of Israel Scotland” hat eine provokante ganztägige Veranstaltung auf dem weltweit größten Kulturfestival, dem „Edingburgh Festival & Fringe“, bekanntgegeben: Mittwoch, 17. August in der Central Hall in Tollcross (Edinburgh). Die von der israelischen Botschaft finanzierten  „Friends of Israel“  und „StandwithUS“ organisieren ein sogenanntes „Shalom Festival“ und werben für  israelische Demokratie und Toleranz gegen Minderheiten und dafür, dass Israel gezwungen ist, in regelmäßigen Abständen Palästinenser*innen zu enteignen und zu töten.

Der Beitrag Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid at the Edinburgh Festival 2016 erschien zuerst auf BDS Berlin.