New Zealand group requests ban on Israeli dance troupe
New Zealand activists have called on the NZ Government not to issue visas to members of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company which is booked as a featured act in next month’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
A media release reads:
We wrote to Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse last November making this request and received a non-committal response. We followed up with a letter to Foreign Minister Murray McCully on 15 January this year but have yet to receive a reply. (The letter to Mr McCully is available below.)
We pointed out the Batsheva Dance Company is part of the Israeli propaganda effort to deflect criticism of its appalling policies towards Palestinians.
The Batsheva troupe is largely funded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture & Sport, the City of Tel Aviv and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs who praise the troupe as “ambassadors of Israeli culture”. The troupe’s participation in the NZ Arts Festival is also partially sponsored by the Israeli Embassy in Wellington.
Israel is subject to an international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because of its unashamedly racist treatment of its Arab-Israeli citizens; the construction of illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land; its brutal military occupation of the West Bank Palestinian territory and its inhuman blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The BDS campaign was called for launched in 2005 by some 260 Palestinian civil society organisations as the best way for the international community to support the Palestinian struggle for justice and human rights and the organisations writing to you here are working in support of this campaign.
For the same reasons New Zealanders called for the end to rugby links with apartheid South Africa we are calling for the cutting of ties with apartheid Israel.
We hope the government will respond because last year, by overwhelming popular vote, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed “2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”. If the government wants to gain the respect of other countries in its bid for a seat on the UN Security Council then cancelling visas for this troupe as a way of providing practical solidarity to the Palestinian struggle would be a big help.
The National government of the 1980s was on the wrong side of history in the struggle against apartheid South Africa. This issue is an opportunity get on the right side of history with the Palestinian struggle.
We have also written to the festival organisers called for Batsheva’s participation in the New Zealand Festival of the Arts to be cancelled and have requested a meeting to discuss the issue.
John Minto on behalf of the New Zealand Palestine Solidarity Network , Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Global Peace and Justice Auckland , Kia Ora Gaza BDS Wellington, Canterbury for Justice in Palestine, Auckland University Students for Justice in Palestine
LETTER TO FOREIGN MINISTER MURRAY MCCULLY SENT ON 15 JANUARY
From: New Zealand Palestine Solidarity Network New Zealand Palestine Human Rights Campaign Global Peace and Justice Auckland Kia Ora Gaza BDS Wellington Canterbury for Justice in Palestine Auckland University Students for Justice in Palestine
To: Murray McCully Minister of Foreign Affairs, Parliament buildings, Wellington
15 January 2014
Email: [email protected]
Kia ora Mr McCully,
Proposed visit by Batsheva Dance Company
We are very concerned to read that the Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to visit New Zealand in February this year to take part in the 2014 New Zealand Festival programme in Wellington.
This group is largely funded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture & Sport, the City of Tel Aviv and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs who praise the troupe as “ambassadors of Israeli culture”. The troupe’s participation in the NZ Arts Festival is also partially sponsored by the Israeli Embassy. You will know that Israel is subject to an international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because of its unashamedly racist treatment of its Arab-Israeli citizens; the construction of illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land; its brutal military occupation of the West Bank Palestinian territory and its vicious blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The BDS campaign was launched in 2005 by some 260 Palestinian civil society organisations as the best way for the international community to support the Palestinian struggle for justice and human rights and the organisations writing to you here are working in support of this campaign.
You will also be aware that last year, by overwhelming popular vote, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed “2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”.
You would no doubt be well aware of New Zealand’s commitment under statute as a state party to ensure Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, and in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Court of Justice has made it quite clear that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are illegal.
Only last Friday the government of Israel announced the construction on 1400 more illegal housing units in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
We suggest New Zealand could make some response as a step towards fulfilling its obligations.
As part of providing practical solidarity to the Palestinian struggle we request the government refuse visas to this dance group to enter New Zealand. Such a decision would be welcomed by Palestinians as part of the international pressure to bring change to the policies of the Israeli apartheid state as well as by those countries thinking of supporting New Zealand’s bid for a UN Security Council seat.
It’s appropriate here to quote the late Nelson Mandela who said “we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” and important to acknowledge South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu who is on record as saying the situation for the Palestinians today is much worse than it was for black South Africans under apartheid.
We look forward to your reply.
Regards, John Minto on behalf of the above groups
J-Wire asked the New Zealand Council for comment but none has been forthcoming.
Spot on, Harry Rich. Let’s make it happen.
And, Alan Dror, it’s really important that we’re confronted with what Jew haters are saying, and respond to it.
To comment on this particular outburst from New Zealand I can only re-iterate that what Israel ( and the jews worldwide )need urgently is some means to propagate and disseminate Israel’s side of the story . We need an international
voice which can counteract mainstream and social media. We need a television station such as Al Jazeera which is able to deliver publicity for Israel. We need a voice which keeps on asking: which law makes Israeli settlements illegal,
how can we have peace with people who state again and again that Israel has no right to exist, what benefits did Isreal achive by giving up Gaza, handing back murderers,allowing the enemy to sit in Israel’s parliament. If we don’t have
our own extensive propaganda machine we will remain the jews who have been lied about, subjected to pogroms and the holocaust and now to the BDS. Lets start yelling loud and clear internationnly. We can find the funds and the right people.
Here is the answer to your question:
States may not deport or transfer parts of their own civilian population into a territory they occupy. In 1981, the 24th International Conference of the Red Cross reaffirmed that “settlements in occupied territory are incompatible with articles 27 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention
What absolute garbage this is. How can human beings grow to any kind of maturity and indulge in this blinkered idiocy, no matter their beliefs?! They obviously have no idea that one of the ways in which peoples of all cultures and political tendencies can provide an opening is through art, whether that be dance, music, fine arts or literature.
Take the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish – I abhor his politics and spoken rhetoric, and yet his poetry cannot be denied in any way due to its successful artform and its sincerity of heart. He and Yehuda Amichai, the antithesis of one another in their situations, still admired each other’s poetry. Therein lies a sliver of hope, that sliver stamped on before it can even surface by the likes of these New Zealand protesters. How zealous, self-righteous and downright stupid they are. New Zealand activists indeed: let them experience the real world for one minute and they might sober up.
JWell Jwire. Giving the Jew haters a voice?