Dear Sander van Doorn,

We are citizens of Israel who are critical of, and active against, our government’s policies of colonialism, occupation and apartheid towards the Palestinian people. In particular, many of us are veteran activists in the campaign against Israel’s illegal colonization and settlement and apartheid policies in the occupied West Bank.

We write to you in support of the Palestinian call for BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – against Israeli institutions, and specifically the call for artists to refrain from playing in Israel at this time [1]. We would like to make sure that you are aware of all the moral implications of performing in Israel at this time, all the more so in collaboration with the Israeli government at the Minus 424 Festival. We ask that you postpone your gig in Israel, to the time when Israel ends its military occupation and apartheid policies.

The State of Israel was founded in 1948 on the basis of the ethnic cleansing of nearly one million Palestinians from their homes [2]. The state practices severe ethnic-religious discrimination against its non Jewish citizens [3]. Furthermore, The Israeli government is committing an ongoing massacre in the besieged Gaza strip [4], and a colonial apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank, which even conservative politicians in Europe have come to recognize [5]. This also means that Israeli war crimes are being committed under the nose of anyone traveling by car from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem to the Minus 424 Festival in Masada.

For example. along the road leading to the Dead Sea, the Israeli government is carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinian Bedouins, whom Israel wishes to expel from their run-down dwellings, to make way for expanding its illegal settlements in the Edumim area [6]. Read more at Boycott from Within