New BDS Strategy: Sucky Bands Encouraged to Not Boycott Israel

New Article Submission

Thank you for your interest in Jadaliyya. We welcome all submissions. The most significant requirement is for Jadaliyya submissions to be analytically compelling and offer a perspective or argument that has not been covered at length either on Jadaliyya or elsewhere. Because of the volume of submissions, well-written pieces are prioritized. Length is flexible, 1000 to 2500 words is the average range. However, we will accept longer pieces. Once submitted, several members of the editorial committee will review your piece and one of them will inform you of the decision.
Author Details
Article Details
Select Countries
Select Keywords
Select Topics
Only RTF, Word, and Pages documents accepted.

Recommended image size: 762x800 px

Location of each image should be indicated in the text of the article via a square bracket caption that includes: (1) a description of the image; (2) the photographer/designer and source of the image. Please note we only use images you as the author have the right to use, which usually means those of your own creation or those published under Creative Commons. Alternatively, you need specific permission from the copyright holder.
Please read the Release Form and provide an electronic signature [your full name] below to confirm that you accept its terms
Required
Hyperlink words in your article if they refer to links on the internet. We encourage more, rather than less, links (try to avoid footnotes—embed them as hyperlinks if possible)

Article added successfully.

Pages Menu BETA
Aug 5, 2011
New BDS Strategy: Sucky Bands Encouraged to Not Boycott Israel

New BDS Strategy: Sucky Bands Encouraged to Not Boycott Israel

By : Anthony Alessandrini

Heeb Magazine recently asked the question: “Is Israel’s Air Supply Boast Proof of Cultural Boycott’s Strength?” As YNET reports, “Veteran Australian soft rock duo Air Supply will arrive in Israel in September for a series of concerts, following the success of its previous visit to the Holy Land three years ago.”

Heeb’s Bernard Mendelbaum suggests that the fact that Israeli officials have been “reduced to bragging that the 80s shlock band is coming to visit” represents “one of the sadder examples of how the cultural boycott against Israel is having success.” But Air Supply’s visit is also part of a new strategy for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

According to an unnamed source who spoke exclusively to me, while the call for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel continues to appeal to all people of conscience to “comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions,” musicians and other artists who have demonstrated a total lack of integrity, not to mention talent, are being actively encouraged to visit Israel.

“We have had such an amazing group of artists who have come out publicly in support of the boycott, and in some cases have cancelled concerts. In terms of musicians and bands, there’s Elvis Costello, Santana, the late Gil Scott Heron, Pixies, Snoop Dogg, Klaxons, Gorillaz, Roger Waters, just to name a few."

“But at the same time, we found ourselves engaged in campaigns to try to convince lame, unprincipled performers like Justin Bieber to also honor the boycott,” the source continued. “Then it hit us: not getting to hear Bieber perform actually didn’t seem to be a sanction at all. It seemed more like a reward. That’s when we started to evolve this new strategy.”

The source revealed that BDS supporters have come up with a short list of performers who they plan to urge to go to Israel in order to suck there: the list includes Ke$ha, Black Eyed Peas, and Katy Perry, “ideally playing on the same bill together for maximum suckage,” according to a draft proposal that was shown to me.

There is also hope that other “veteran” (i.e. forgotten and desperate) bands will follow in the steps of Air Supply and Deep Purple and schedule concerts in Israel, perhaps even getting back together to do so. “Is Asia still together? They would be good. Or, say, the guys in New Kids on the Block who aren’t Wahlbergs,” the proposal goes on to suggest.

My source added: “I’ve also heard that Gene Simmons has publicly criticized musicians who honor the boycott call, so we’re sort of hoping he rounds up some other sad reality-show has-beens for a tour of Israel. Maybe he’ll even perform with Ozzy Osbourne. Man, imagine how hard that would suck.”

The new strategy isn’t limited to musicians. Campaigns are underway to encourage sucky performers from across the arts to go and suck in Israel: for example, boycott supporters are calling for “Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark” to move to Tel Aviv, as well as for a retrospective of the films of Michael Bay.

The unnamed source acknowledged that a situation in which great artists of conscience continued to honor the boycott campaign, while sucky performers were encouraged to visit Israel, would have adverse effects upon those inside Israel who support the academic and cultural boycott.

“But these supporters realize that at the end of the day, in the face of the Israeli government’s continued flouting of international law and implementation of apartheid measures, performers like Justin Bieber and Air Supply have to follow their sold-off consciences, and just do what they do best.

“Which is to suck,” the source added.

As of press time, Beyonce, who was responsible recently for the liberation of the women of Egypt, was unavailable for comment.

  • ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

    • Three Poems for Gaza

      Three Poems for Gaza

      On the day you were murdered
      I did many of the things
      you would have done if alive—
      woke up, kissed my daughter, went
      to work, taught a few curious souls
      a little about reading a poem—
      then read the news in which
      your name appeared without
      you there anymore. Your assassins
      were thorough.

    • Edward Said, Twenty Years On

      Edward Said, Twenty Years On

      In his poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” W. H. Auden memorably observes the moment of Yeats’ death: “The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.” It’s an ambiguous line, but it captures the ways that the death of a writer separates them from their work, which—one hopes—continues its life without them.

    • Introduction: The Price of the Exchange

      Introduction: The Price of the Exchange

      In the opening pages of Humanism in Ruins: Entangled Legacies of the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange, while introducing the book’s central topic, Aslı Iğsız notes: “More than ninety years ago, the same route that the Syrian refugees are taking today from Turkey’s Aegean seashores to Greece was the site of yet another human displacement en masse: the religious minority exchange between Greece and Turkey.”
Jun 30, 2011 Lebanon
Maya Mikdashi By :
Maya Mikdashi

Top Ten List: What To Expect In Lebanon Now That The STL Indictment is Out

1-Sa`ad al-Hariri will release a videotaped statement from Paris saying that everyone in Lebanon must be brave and steadfast in pursuing justice for assassinated Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri. He will then go out for a five course meal, in Paris.

2-Hassan Nasrallah will release a videotaped statement from an unknown location where he announces that there will be peace and stability in Lebanon. He will sweat profusely, smile, and point his finger at the camera.He will then dispatch armed forces around the country to “enforce” this peace and stability.

3-Walid Jumblatt will provide the answers as he blows, and blows with the changing winds. A remake of the Bob Dylan classic will be called “Walid Bek, my friends, is blowing in the wind . . . Walid Bek is blowing in the wind(s)”

4-The United Nations and the “international community” will remember that international law is supposed to be binding. Well, sometimes at least. As long as it does not concern Israel`s occupation of Palestine, or Israel`s dispossession of Palestinians.

5-Thomas Friedman will make the rounds on mainstream news programs, sharing his “expertise” on Shiites. He will explain why they will react to the news differently than their Sunnite counterparts due to a DNA permutation that causes them to seek “martyrdom.” Friedman will suggest that nothing important has happened since the battle of Karbala, really.

6-Lebanese citizens will begin stocking up on what they need to survive another war. Overnight, the country will experience shortages of cigarettes, vodka, whiskey, and other intoxicants.

7-Lebanese businesses will begin plans to move to “safe” areas away from possible Sunnite-Shiite clashes and “away” from areas populated by their co-citizens who might be targeted by the Israeli war machine for living in a “Hezbollah [civilian] stronghold”. Don`t blame the businessmen, they are just doing their job by feeding the seemingly congenital Lebanese desire to “enjoy the summer.”

8-Al-Jazeera will begin covering the Iranian plot to throw Lebanon into disarray 24/7. Bahrain? What`s that?

9-Michel Aoun will reveal that in fact he is, and always has been, Rafik al Hariri. Thus, the indictment must be an Israeli-American plot, since he is still alive and kicking. The world will finally understand that his erratic behavior is actually due to him being two people, at once. Now, he can be the [Maronite] President and the [Sunni] Prime Minister of Lebanon. Beam me up, Scotty.

10-The stalemate in Lebanon will be stretched even thinner. Political factions opposed to Hezbollah will continue to re-arm and train their “secret” militias. Once they have assurances of Israeli-Saudi-American Saudi support, the stalemate will end with the ignition of a legally “legitimate” local-foreign war against a terrorist organization snubbing its nose at international law. Israel will take (as long as it is feasible) former Lebanese Minister of Defense Elias el-Murr`s advice to not target “Christian areas” of the country. Over a million Lebanese will be internally displaced, and thousands will die in order to enforce an “enlightened,” “life loving” and “democratic” Middle East.