Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (February 11, 2022) Album • Page 45

Cultural Boycott

not trying to be flippant by just posting this link with nothing else it's just I just woke up, happy to talk more about it or answer qs etc

 

I just went back and read some old posts of mine from when Radiohead did the same thing - I still don't think playing in Israel is the worst thing imaginable and like there are situations where bands would do that and it wouldn't really effect how I see them but Big Thief is not one. Radiohead is just so huge and I always thought their politics were kinda iffy bullshit and anyone that famous probably has more ego than politics anyway...it was disappointing and Thom's statements about it were EXTREMELY annoying and completely misunderstood the point of BDS, but it didn't really effect how I viewed the band overall.

This band though, like, with so much focus on energy and community and yeah even politics in a sometimes indirect way, it's just a slap in the face. Like, the idea of Adrianne standing on stage in Israel and talking about how much good energy is in the room and how you should care for your neighbors oh and remember not to lock your knees on the floor! is nauseating. It's WORSE because they are aware of and apparently support BDS and because of that fucking post. Especially posting it verbatim for the rescheduled show really feels like there was no internal conflict in the band or any of them members in scheduling this show, they just felt like they had to pre-empt the backlash. Which is really gross to me.

 

Yeah i can’t find it but I’m like 90% certain I’ve seen this band do land acknowledgements lol sorry that this is your member’s hometown or whatever but there’s something bigger than that which you could be a part of but you’re choosing some individualistic journey citizen of the world bullshit over it.

 

i wouldn’t presume his relationship with israel is really that complex, especially with their statement. maybe he is against them committing genocide, until we hear them come out with a follow up that’s just a presumption. anyone continuing to live in israel and, by extension, support their continued mandatory selective service is, at least in a small part, supporting israel more than palestine.

 

Essentially, in 1948 the United Nations declared the former British Mandate of Palestine - conquered from the Ottomans in WW1 - would be split into an Arab state and a Jewish state, and the city of Jerusalem would be an internationally administered neutral city. The initial implementation of this UN resolution resulted in what's known as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, where the vast majority of non-Jewish Arabs in what was to become Israel were forcibly displaced. The descendants of these displaced Palestinians almost to a one still live in the open-air prison of Gaza, the police state of the West Bank, or refugee camps in Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon. The UN has acknowledged their right of return to their ancestral homes but they have not been granted this right and it is a major block to lasting peace in the region.

Since 1948, Israel has consistently encroached on the borders the UN established for the Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, even as those borders are adjusted by the UN in peace efforts. It continues to build illegal settlements in mandated Arab land and treats Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank as second class citizens to the extent that it has been labeled an Apartheid State even by Western-aligned NGOs and watchdogs like Human Rights Watch. Recognizing the structural similarities between the Israeli state and it's international backers and Apartheid South Africa and it's international backers, Palestinians have decided to adopt a tactic that worked for SA's Anti-Apartheid movement: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. The goal of the moment is to make the apartheid state an international pariah by depriving it of cultural clout and soft power (boycott), international investment funds (divestment), and an uncontested place in the international community and it's markets (sanctions). For what it's worth - this tactic was extremely successful in South Africa.

What Israel has that South Africa didn't is the world's most advanced and probably well-funded Ministry of Culture (it's not called that but that's how I think of it) which runs international hasbara (closest literal translation "to explain," essentially "organized propaganda") campaigns to whitewash (or pinkwash) it's image. From the link I posted above:

Israeli government officials have summed up how Israel instrumentalizes culture to cover up its grave violations of international law. "We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank,” one official admitted, “and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture."

Essentially, the view is any time an artist plays in Israel they are undermining the BDS movement and empowering hasbara, even if they play with caveats like Big Thief is. Once it gets run through the hasbara machine any caveats don't matter, the only thing that they can't make good for them is outright refusal to participate in solidarity with the Palestinian campaign for BDS.

One thing that I want to make clear though because it comes up a lot and can lead to "gotchas" - although Israel is a particularly brutal apartheid state is perpetrating an ongoing genocide, I don't like when people frame this on moral grounds. It leads to questions like "why are you singling out Israel, aren't the US and Australia settler colonial states which wiped out indigenous populations, and in the case of Australia especially, continuing to do so in a brutal fashion?" Of course the answer is yes, but the important thing is that BDS is not a position or a movement born of a moral stance but a simple tactic: the oppressed Palestinians believe it is their best chance at liberation and have asked us to participate in solidarity. It is a tactic. We do not BDS the US or Australia because it's not a tactic that those effected have asked us to use (rightfully imo, hard to boycott the cultural and military hegemon of the world). This is something Thom Yorke did not understand at all but is very important to this discussion imo. People like to say "don't play in Israel, you're legitimizing it as if it was just another state," but unfortunately in many respects it is just another state, but it's one whose oppressed have asked us to BDS, so we do. This is a simple but tricky and key distinction imo.

 

Thanks for that. Makes it much easier to understand when these situations enfold and people receive backlash. Like I remember Gal Gadot had received criticism for fighting in an army against one of the related sides? I didn’t understand it and was too nervous to ask.

 

Gal Gadot being in so many movies despite her poor acting can only be the work of the M*ss*d.

 

It's a lot of history that has been muddled but ultimately it is not as complicated as it is made to seem. I wish I had a better overview/primer article on hand but I do not lol.

Gadot is Jewish non-Arab Israeli, which meant she had to do two years of military service in the Israeli Defense Forces or spend that time in jail. For this reason simply being in the IDF is not usually enough for me personally to write someone off completely - although I like to think I'd go to jail in that situation - but she is proud of her 'service' and has made clear her ongoing support of Israel and it's project. The mandatory military service, btw, is a huge part of how Israel functions. Notice non-Jewish Arabs are not conscripted. This means essentially every Jewish Israeli adult has gone through two years of military propaganda about their role in relation to their "enemies." Closest analogy I can think of is imagine if every white American was an inner city cop for two years and had their 18 year old head filled with the kind of things higher-ups in inner city police departments think about the people they police. And then imagine the effect that might have on national politics. This is part of why the leader of the current government, which is to the left of the previous one!, still brags about how many Palestinians he's killed and how no one did it better than him.

The police department analogy might seem a bit strained but consider that universal conscription continues even in peacetime and during peacetime the IDF polices the West Bank and Gaza and what is supposed to be the neutral, internationally administered city of Jerusalem and beats Palestinian worshippers at the most sacred mosque in Islam on a regular basis and facilitates the literal, outright stealing of homes from Palestinians in that city. As in, they leave to worship, and come back and a Jewish family is living in their home and tells them to fuck off. Or their house is just bulldozed. This happens regularly and is facilitated by the IDF.

 

Unironically though, I'm quite certain virtually every Israeli international celebrity is being handled. They have a very pragmatic view of soft power

 

except Natalie Portman of course. And if you tell me otherwise, I’m just going to convenient forget.

 

Yep this is what bugs me about it even more than with other artists, you nailed it.

Will I continue to listen to this bands music and enjoy it? Yes. Will they continue to feel like one of the last pure corners of the universe, a respite from the extreme shittiness that engulfs basically everything these days? Nope, that’s over! But it’s probably on me for expecting that from them anyway

 

can't stop laughing imagining zionists listening to them to own the libs

 

Zionists are big thieves themselves.

 

Wow, thanks @Wharf Rat for the good article and detailed explanation of things. I appreciate it. Things make more sense to me now

 

The Tweedy siblings have uhh a lot to say about this

https://twitter.com/sammytweedy/status/1532906331962855425?s=21&t=virvu7KPDRvewDhB41riuA

Spencer also made a story in support of Big Thief but it is gone now

Edit: Here is part of Spencer’s story

 

There’s more from Sam Ray and Sammy Tweedy but it just devolves into the two taking shots at each other so it’s not worth sharing here.

 

Sorry to triple post, but I’m surprised this is the position Jeff Tweedy’s children are taking. The Tweedy fan kind of exude the same ethos that Big Thief does in terms of community and wholeness and cultivating good understanding as musicians all that.

 

^^^^ my policy since age 15

 

tbf sammy is, like, 20. not a great look to be going round after round with a dumb kid, even if sam ray is right.

using the antisemitism card sucks though lol. it isn’t antisemitic to say that israel sucks, it’s antisemitic to presume that all jews support israel

 

jesus man those are some unfortunate threads

 

lol log the fuck off dude, email your professors about it

 

Can we go back to last weekend when DGD and Big Thief weren’t fucked. Ugh

 

I hate Zionists so much

 

Big Thief has already played Israel too… along with other artists who have previously played Israel such as Mitski, Gogol Bordello, Radiohead, Tame Impala, Pixies, Washed Out, August Burns Red, MxPx, The Kooks, Steve Akoi, Yo La Tengo, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Eric Andre, Alt J, Ozzy Osbourne, Alanis Morrisette, Herbie Hancock, Matisyahu, Jennifer Lopez, Mac Demarco, Slowdive, Dillinger Escape Plan, Brittany Spears, Garbage, Incubus, !!!, Perfume Genius, among many many many more. Is the only difference Big Theifs fan base and/or their statement?

To be clear, this isn’t about the moral implications of playing there. I truly didn’t realize it was as common a place to perform as it is.

Concerts in Israel by Year