<\/p>\n
LONDON<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the music, film to publishing industries, growing numbers of Western artists are calling for a cultural boycott of Israel over the Gaza war, hoping to emulate the success of the apartheid-era blockade of South Africa.<\/p>\n
With most Western governments resistant to major economic sanctions, musicians, celebrities and writers are hoping to build public pressure for more action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, globally, we\u2019re at a tipping point,\u201d British actor Khalid Abdalla (\u201cThe Kite Runner\u201d, \u201cThe Crown\u201d) said after signing a petition calling for a boycott of some Israeli cinema bodies.<\/p>\n
The open letter from Film Workers for Palestine has gathered thousands of signatories, including Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix, who have pledged to cut ties with any Israeli institutions \u201cimplicated in genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe avalanche is happening now, and it\u2019s across spheres. It\u2019s not just in the film worker sphere,\u201d Abdalla added during an interview .<\/p>\n
At this week\u2019s Emmy Awards, winner after winner, from Javier Bardem to \u201cHacks\u201d actor Hannah Einbinder, spoke about Gaza, echoing similar statements at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, British trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack announced they were joining a music collective called \u201cNo Music for Genocide\u201d that will see artists try to block the streaming of their songs in Israel.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Israel faces being boycotted at the Eurovision song contest, authors have signed open letters, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is leading a push to exclude the country from sports events.<\/p>\n
Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov announced last week at a concert in Britain that he would no longer perform in his home country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are seeing a situation which is comparable to the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa,\u201d Hakan Thorn, a Swedish academic at the University of Gothenburg who wrote a book on the South Africa boycott movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was definitely a shift in the spring of this year when the world saw the images of the famine in Gaza,\u201d added the sociologist.<\/p>\n
The international boycott of South Africa\u2019s white supremacist government began in earnest in the early 1960s after a massacre of black protesters by police in the Sharpeville township.<\/p>\n
It culminated with artists and sports teams refusing to play there, with boycott busters such as Queen or Frank Sinatra facing widespread public criticism.<\/p>\n
Thorn says many public figures were reluctant to speak out about the Gaza war, which was sparked by the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas which left 1,219 people dead in Israel, most of them civilians.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s retaliatory strikes have killed more than 65,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza\u2019s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history of the Holocaust and criticism of the pro-Palestinian movement for being anti-Semitic has been a serious obstacle to a broader mobilisation against what Israel is doing right now,\u201d explained Thorn.<\/p>\n
A campaign to boycott Israel, known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, began 20 years ago over the country\u2019s occupation of Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government accuses its supporters of being anti-Semitic and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu frequently labels critics as \u201cHamas sympathisers\u201d.<\/p>\n
David Feldman, who heads the Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism at Birkbeck College at the University of London, said such statements have created \u201ca lack of confidence over what the boundaries of anti-Semitism actually are\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny eruption of anti-Semitism is concerning, but any attempt right now to identify the movement to boycott Israel with anti-Semitism is missing the point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a vehicle of protest against Israel\u2019s destruction of Gaza and the ongoing murder of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the anti-apartheid movement is referenced by today\u2019s campaigners against the Gaza war, history provides some sobering lessons for them.<\/p>\n
After the start of the South Africa boycott movement, it took 30 years before the regime fell, exposing the limits of international pressure campaigns.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the early 1970s, it\u2019s true to say that boycott was the defining principle of a self-identified global anti-apartheid movement, but the movement on its own was not enough,\u201d Feldman, who wrote a book about boycotts, added.<\/p>\n
The real pain was caused by the gradual asphyxiation of the South African economy as companies and banks withdrew under pressure, while the end of the Cold War sharply increased the country\u2019s isolation.<\/p>\n
Inside Israel, many artists worry about the consequences of the international boycott movement.<\/p>\n
Acclaimed Israeli screenwriter Hagai Levi (\u201cScenes from a Marriage\u201d, \u201cThe Affair\u201d) said earlier this month that \u201c90 percent of people in the artistic community\u201d were against the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re struggling, and boycotting them is actually weakening them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source thearabweekly.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LONDON \u00a0 From the music, film to publishing industries, growing numbers of Western artists are calling for a cultural boycott of Israel over the Gaza war, hoping to emulate the success of the apartheid-era blockade of South Africa. With most Western governments resistant to major economic sanctions, musicians, celebrities and writers are hoping to build […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2044595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2044594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cultural-boycott-of-Israel-spreads-as-artists-take-a-stand.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2044594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2044595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2044594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2044594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2044594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}