Pop singer Lorde apparently caved in to pressure from pro-Palestinian fans in her native New Zealand, causing her to cancel her upcoming concert in Israel. “I’ve received an overwhelming number of messages and letters and have had a lot of discussions with people holding many views,” she said, "and I think the right decision at this time is to cancel the show."
The Times of Israel reports that concert promoter Naranjah sent a message regretting to announce that the artist’s June 5 concert in Tel Aviv had been canceled.
Lorde said that it had been “a dream of mine to visit this beautiful part of the world for many years, and I’m truly sorry to reverse my commitment to come play for you,” adding, “I hope one day we can all dance.”
But thanks to anti-Israel activists, now no one will dance.
Lorde, 21, joins other pop luminaries who have refused to play or backed out of performing in Israel, such as Elvis Costello, Lauryn Hill and The Gorillaz. Other acts, such as Nick Cave and Radiohead, have defied the pressure of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) protesters and performed there.
New Zealanders Nadia Abu-Shanab, who is Palestinian, and Justine Sachs, who is Jewish, wrote an open letter on Thursday on the website The Spinoff, saying that Lorde’s performance in Israel would have sent “the wrong message.”
“Playing in Tel Aviv will be seen as giving support to the policies of the Israeli government, even if you make no comment on the political situation,” they wrote.
That prompted the young singer to tweet in response that she was now “considering all options.”
The Times reports that the "vast majority" of replies to her tweets encouraged her to ignore the BDS protesters and proceed to perform.
Jewish New Zealand film and TV writer Dane Giraud even wrote a essay at The Spinoff in response to the open letter, arguing that the BDS movement was damaging the peace process.
That's because peace is not the goal of the BDS movement. Its aim is to delegitimize and make an international pariah of the Jewish state.
“[Abu-Shanab and Sachs] assert that the situation in the Middle East is ‘actually quite straightforward,'” wrote Giraud. "But that is to reduce complexity to a placard, to skate over a studied consideration of a long and turbulent history. That leads to the reductive idea that ‘exclusion’ is the answer — the collective punishment of Israelis, 1.5 million Arabs included, through campaigns that seek to deny them participation in the world community.”
Recording artists like Lorde who buckle to BDS activists aren't helping to unite people and promote peace through their music. They are only throwing their support behind "Palestinian" Jew-hatred and violence, and in the process, revealing what conformists they really are.