Ambassador calls for rejection of boycott
The Israeli ambassador to New Zealand has responded to a call to boycott the visit to NZ of the Israel Bat Sheva Dance Company.
In a prepared statement Ambassador Yosef Livne said:
The recent call for the government of New Zealand to deny or indeed revoke the visas for the Bat Sheva Dance Company, scheduled to take part in the
Ambassador Yosef Livne
New Zealand Art Festival should be rejected outright
The so called spokespeople for the Palestinian cause simply bring home to New Zealand a sample of the incitement which has been an integral part of Palestinian propaganda. The call for boycott of an Israeli cultural group is another facet of the comprehensive warfare that is being launched against Israel. If one entertained the notion that even between adversaries there are some mutually accepted limitations, this abhorrent call for boycott only reminds us that reality is different. Only a couple of days ago, the world stopped to remember the victims of the Shoah, whose suffering started with similar calls for Boycott
There is no need to identify with Israel in order to denounce this obscene initiative. One would expect that Patrons of the Art and Culture to raise their voices against this violation of their rights to enjoy an artistic event. In fact this is not only their concern. All those who uphold decency should unite around send a clear and unambiguous message to the proponents of this initiative: You crossed a red line!
The dance troupe is due to perform in Wellington at next month’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s a travesty of everything behind creating and producing an artform of any kind that members of society seek to stopper it with their political aims in mind. All kinds of people viewing all kinds of artforms, able for a time to transcend other different realities, offers some slight hope of a kind of unity, or at the very least different understanding.