Eric Burdon performs in Edinburgh tonight in the only UK leg of a tour that was to have included a gig in Tel Aviv, Israel, on August 1st. Palestine solidarity activists welcome yesterday’s announcement that he has pulled out of the Tel Aviv engagement "under increasing pressure" to cancel, according to his Manager.
According to Israeli daily, Haaretz, "he was pressured not to perform in Israel and ultimately chose to cancel the concert, which was to take place August 1. "We are under increasing pressure, including many threatening emails that we are receiving on a daily basis."
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign was among those who wrote, and invited others to write, to Eric Burdon asking him to remain true to his long-term hostility to racism and Jim Crow in the US South.
SPSC notes the extreme vagueness of alleged “threats” made to Burdon and is unaware that any were actually made during weeks of very public, legitimate political and moral pressure that was brought to bear in support of the Palestinian call for boycott of Israel. There is currently a wave of Israeli state-enforced ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,
We welcome Eric Burdon’s decision to follow in the tracks of Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Carlos Santana, Gil Scott-Heron, Annie Lennox, the Pixies, Massive Attack and many others in refusing to perform in apartheid Israel. This is another small crack in the wall that imprisons the Palestinian people.
He will now be unreservedly welcome in Edinburgh tonight.
Appeal from many Scots and others to Eric Burdon to boycott Israel.
http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php/solidarity/boycott/cultural/music/1586-eric-burdon-don-t-play-in-tel-aviv-on-august-1st
This was first published as a press release by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
