Music and art should build bridges. But for Israel, art and culture are propaganda. Israel funds, promotes, and sends artists abroad so that you associate Israel with music and art rather than with war crimes, military occupation, apartheid, oppression, colonization, and now even: genocide.
The Jerusalem Quartet is proud to hold the title of cultural ambassador for that country and is happy to have its music used for the Brand Israel Campaign. As “distinguished IDF musicians,” they have always maintained close ties with the military.
By providing a platform for this propaganda, the String Quartet Biennale normalizes the violent, far-right Israeli regime and legitimizes the genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in occupied and blockaded Gaza.
Musicians, artists, and performers in Gaza are being killed by Israeli bombs and are starving due to the sadistic blockade. Israel has destroyed nearly all music schools, theaters, and cultural centers in Gaza and deliberately demolished more than 100 historic sites. Palestinian artists cannot travel freely to promote their centuries-old, sophisticated culture abroad.
The Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale endorses the Cultural Governance Code, the Cultural Diversity Code, and the Fair Practice Code, but it is an unsafe place for Palestinian musicians and music lovers.
We therefore call on the organization to learn from this and to refrain from inviting ambassadors of oppressive apartheid regimes onto the stage in the future.