UMAW supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism.
“To frame this as a war between two equal sides is false and misleading. Israel is the colonizing power. Palestine is colonized. This is not a conflict: this is apartheid.” - from “A letter against apartheid,” signed by Palestinian artists, writers & listed allies on May 26, 2021.
As musicians and allied workers who aim to join other laborers in the fight for a more just music industry and society, we support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in support of Palestinian freedom. BDS is a non-violent, decentralized tactic in a movement that rejects colonial imperialism. As cultural workers, collectively withholding our labor is the most powerful tool we have for standing in solidarity with Palestinians. As the brutality and racism of Israel’s settler-colonial project are again burning their way into international headlines, it is urgent that U.S. union members and allies unequivocally stand with Palestinians on the side of justice.
UMAW calls on all its members and all music workers to honor the BDS cultural boycott until Israel ends its violations of international law.
WHAT IS BDS?
BDS began with the creation of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004, and the Palestinian civil society-initiated BDS Call in 2005, both of which called for a cultural boycott of Israel until it complies with international law. BDS continues to be a Palestinian-led movement, and has grown into a global effort made up of unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots organizations across the world. BDS makes the following demands of Israel:
End Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall. International law recognizes the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as illegally occupied by Israel.
Grant Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel their right to full equality.
Respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
HOW DO MUSIC WORKERS SUPPORT THE BDS MOVEMENT?
Thousands of music workers have already declared their support for BDS. UMAW calls on all music workers to join BDS and boycott:
Performances and exhibitions in Israel
Israeli cultural institutions that do not comply with BDS demands
Events and activities that are sponsored by an official Israeli body or a complicit institution
Israeli cultural institutions are not targeted by the boycott if they meet the three demands of the BDS call and end all forms of support for Israeli violations of international law. You can read the full BDS cultural boycott guidelines here.
BDS IS AN INSTITUTIONAL BOYCOTT, NOT AN INDIVIDUAL BOYCOTT
As BDS states, the boycott is meant to target Israeli institutions and is not focused on individual cultural workers. Some BDS supporters have called for boycotting individuals due to their individual complicity in, responsibility for, or advocacy of violations of international law or other human rights violations, but such campaigns are outside of the BDS guidelines, and outside of UMAW’s endorsement.
When musician Lauryn Hill refused to play in occupied Palestine just three days before her concert, she shared that she would “need to seek a different strategy to bring [her] music to all of [her] fans in the region.” A cultural boycott does not suppress our work; rather, it gives it power by recognizing that withholding our labor from a market is recognizing the labor of our brothers and sisters. We must look to a different strategy, and not cross the BDS picket line.
WHAT DOES ISRAELI APARTHEID AND COLONIZATION MEAN FOR PALESTINIAN MUSIC WORKERS?
As union members who are musicians, we know that everything we create has political implications. Institutions that present Israel as an international market for music and culture, and go against the Palestinian-led call to boycott, hide the reality that Israel is actively engaged in the destruction and repression of every aspect of Palestinian life.¹
Israel and its alliance with the United States persistently suppress Palestinian media, art and culture. We know firsthand the impact of borders, travel restrictions, monetary restrictions and censorship on our labor; Palestinian artists experience such barriers to their work at the hands of Israel. Palestinian institutions similar to our own workplaces have faced evictions, forced closures, raids, and destruction. Palestinian artists are often criminally charged and detained indefinitely in an Israeli carceral system that has a 99% conviction rate.
The 2021 rise of Palestinian activists and supporters of Palestine is a reminder of how entrenched artistic institutions are with the Israeli military and occupation. For example, over 300 hundred activists have protested the New York Museum of Modern Art, a museum and venue where musicians play, because two board members contribute to Israeli apartheid companies and an Israeli bomb-making company. The connection between cultural labor and apartheid is tangible and must be confronted. For all people and therefore for all musicians, apartheid must be dismantled. No one is free until we are all free.²
BDS STEMS FROM THE SAME LABOR TACTICS SUCCESSFULLY USED TO END APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA
BDS draws inspiration from decades of Palestinian popular resistance, from the South African anti-apartheid struggle to the U.S. Civil Rights movement and beyond. It inspires Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to speak truth to power, to challenge hegemonic, racist power structures, and to assert that Palestinian rights must be respected and restored.
Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. It is maintaining a regime of occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid over the Palestinian people.
World governments fail to hold Israel to account. Companies and institutions help Israel to oppress Palestinians. In response, Palestinians are calling for nonviolent grassroots boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigning against Israel.
As a result of BDS pressure, major companies, such as Veolia, Orange, and CRH are withdrawing from the Israeli market following campaigns linking their involvement in Israeli projects to violations of international law. The UN and the World Bank say that BDS is starting to have a significant economic impact. Thousands of artists including major celebrities like Roger Waters and Lauryn Hill now refuse to play in Israel.
Israel is increasingly worried that the BDS movement is making it a pariah state in the way that South Africa once was.³
WE ARE PART OF A LABOR MOVEMENT AGAINST BRUTE IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM
In denouncing the violence of Israeli settlers’ evictions of Palestinian families, and the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, we are joining over 300 national trade union centers that comprise the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), including the United Electric, Radio, and Machine Workers (UW), the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and the International Longshort and Warehouse Union.
BDS IS AN IMPACTFUL TACTIC AGAINST OCCUPATION
BDS stems from decades of Palestinian nonviolent popular resistance, which has included boycotts since the 1920s as a means of resisting British occupation and Zionist colonization.
In 1936, Palestinians held a six-month strike and campaign of non-cooperation in opposition to the colonial British Mandate for Palestine’s support for Zionist colonization, effectively bringing the mandate to a halt. This strike is still credited by many as the longest strike in history.
During the first intifada (1987-1992), Palestinian resistance factions built a mass popular boycott of Israeli goods as one of the ways in which Palestinians could take part in the mass uprising, leading to a significant drop in Israeli exports to the occupied Palestinian territories.
The concept of opposing any form of normalization with Israel remains a vitally important one within Palestinian politics. There cannot be business as usual with Israel while it continues to oppress Palestinians.
Efforts to combat normalization activities have become a key form of BDS activism in Palestine and the Arab world. Protests and campaigns against normalization activities often win widespread support and succeed in forcing normalization events to be cancelled.
¹ See: For the People Artists Collective endorses Cultural Boycott of Israel
² e-flux: A letter Against Apartheid
More reading:
The Guardian: People of conscience: Palestinians ask you to boycott Israel.