BILLET: Madonna sings for apartheid; yet campaign to boycott Israel grows stronger 19Jun12 June 19, 2012
by Alexander Billet -  The Electronic Intifada  -  12 June 2012
Madonna kicked off her âMDNAâ tour on 1 June with all the spectacle one has come to expect from her. First-rate choreography, costume changes galore and, of course, all the hits trotted out for a crowd of 30,000 at Ramat Gan Stadium on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. There was even a little controversy mixed in to remind us of the days when the âQueen of Popâ used to be truly shocking.
Now, the hired pens are frothing over her depiction of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead. Predictably, the responses range from the obtuse (âhow can she show the swastika in the land of the Jews?â) to the supportive (âshe was right to bring attention to the rise of the right in Europeâ) to outrage from Le Pen herself (who is threatening to sue âif she tries that in Franceâ).
All of this commentary misses that which is both most obvious and most hidden: that in order to play in Israel in the first place, Madonna had to cross what must be worldâs largest picket line.
âI chose to start my world tour in Israel for a very specific and important reason,â said Madonna from the stage of the stadium. âAs you know, the Middle East and all the conflicts that occur here and that have been occurring for thousands of years, they have to stop. You canât be a fan of mine and not want peace in the world.â
That same day, two Palestinian brothers, both in possession of tickets to Madonnaâs âpeaceâ concert, filmed their attempt to get to the show (âAnarchists Against the Wall and Sheikh Jarrah movement reject Madonnaâs invitation to whitewash Israeli apartheid and occupation,â Live from Occupied Palestine, 31 May 2012).
That attempt was thwarted by Israelâs wall in the West Bank. Madonna said nothing about them or the other innumerable Palestinians who were similarly unable to attend. For all her rhetoric about world peace, she said nothing of the very segregated crowd for whom she was performing.
Silent on Palestinian suffering
She said nothing of the Palestinian political prisoners on continued hunger strike. Nor did she say anything about the members of Israelâs parliament, the Knesset, calling for African refugees to be summarily deported. In fact, her âthousands of yearsâ line, parroted from the same old Orientalist schlock fed to the West every day, reveals that Madonna knows absolutely nothing about the daily conditions of Palestinians.
Even the debate over the image of Marine Le Pen ignores a massive part of the issue â specifically that even while the fascist menace seems to be gaining traction in European elections, the far-right is on the rise in Israel too. Ultra-orthodox gangs are allowed to beat up Arabs on Israelâs streets with impunity. Cities like Haifa are warning businesses that theyâll lose their licenses to operate if they hire African refugees. Avigdor Lieberman, the same foreign minister who routinely promises âtransferâ of Palestinians, has enthusiastically met with Geert Wilders, the hard right, anti-immigrant leader of the Dutch Freedom Party.
One simple, shocking image of Marine Le Pen wonât even scratch the surface of this, and as you may have guessed, Madonna didnât mention any of Israelâs home-grown proto-fascists. As for the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, the Queen of Pop wouldnât touch it with a ten-foot pole.
This, in essence, is where the victory lay for Israelâs occupation of Palestine: the brutal reality of a colonial settler state relying on a policy of racism and apartheid, repainted as a clash between a peace-loving bastion of culture and a civilization bent on war.
Itâs no wonder, then, that such fanfare has surrounded Madonnaâs Israel tour-launch. Ever since she announced it at this yearâs Superbowl, the concert has been touted loud and clear â perhaps by nobody more than Israelâs politicians and officials. In the days leading up to the concert, the Israeli embassy in London took time to smear the BDS campaign as âan anti-Israeli movement.â The Board of Deputies of British Jews called comparisons to apartheid South Africa âa specious and desperate effort by a failing boycott campaignâ (âIsrael is new South Africa as boycott calls increase,â The Independent, 3 June 2012).
PR gimmick
But if the push for cultural boycott is failing, then why go out of the way to denounce it so vociferously? Why is the Knesset passing laws that allow for boycott advocates to be sued in court? Why is the Israeli government discussing stepping in to insure promoters against the financial effects of âpolitically motivated cancellationsâ?
So scared of BDS are some in the music industry that last year saw a consortium of American and Israeli entertainment executives to set up the âCreative Community for Peace,â whose expressed intention is to counter the movement for a cultural boycott of Israel.
Truthfully, the Israeli government and concert industry have plenty of reason to be nervous. Though the launch of the âMDNAâ tour did indeed take place in Israel, the BDS campaign surrounding it was one of the most high-profile in some time. It was so public that Madonnaâs public relations team stepped in to announce that 600 tickets to her show would be given to members of left-leaning organizations (âMadonna invites Israeli, Palestinian activists to Tel Aviv concert,â Haaretz, 31 May 2012).
This too backfired. Some groups declined the invitation on the grounds that those living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza wouldnât be able to attend. And given the amount of publicity surrounding the controversy, they were afforded a larger platform to make the case for BDS.
Among these were Anarchists Against the Wall and the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, the latter of whom released a statement making clear that: âMadonna has never criticized the Israeli occupation, its separation policies, or its regime of privileges. Therefore, we believe that the reason she sought the presence of Israeli peace activists was to further a public image of an artist who promotes peace in the Middle East. We refuse to be a public relations gimmick for Madonna at the expense of the Palestinians. This is not our wayâ (âMadonna invites leftist groups to concert, anarchists refuse,â +972 Magazine, 31 May 2012).
The inequities of Israeli society have even been inadvertently illustrated from within Madonnaâs own camp. Headlines were made when Ali Ramadani, one of Madonnaâs backup dancers of Palestinian heritage, tweeted from al-Aqsa mosque while visiting. âAt the amazing al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem,â wrote Ramadani. âI donât want to say itâs in Israel, but Palestine, strength and honor.â Israeli newspapers called his tweet a controversy (âKeeping up with Kabbalahâs Queen of Pop,â Times of Israel, 29 May 2012).
It seems, then, that even as the Israeli concert industry has stepped up its game, so has the BDS movement. The campaign surrounding Madonnaâs mega-show has arguably been the most high-profile since 2010, when the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre provoked several well-known acts to cancel performances in protest.
Since then, there have been several other cancellations Israeli concerts (Tuba Skinny, Natacha Atlas and Cat Power) after consistent campaigning from BDS activists. Still others (The Yardbirds, Zdob si Zdub), while not officially joining the BDS campaign, have quietly canceled their gigs in Israel without rescheduling. Far from failing, the cultural boycott movement is doing exactly what itâs meant to do: shine a light on the fierce injustice of Israeli apartheid and shame those who cross the picket line.
If the stakes have indeed been raised on both ends, then the need for sharp critique and hard arguments canât be understated. Madonnaâs endless prattle about world peace may have been hollow, but itâs also effective in the hands of colonizers. Just as in South Africa, Israeli officials have long sought to paint the Arab-Israeli conflict as âequal-sided.â Famous images of young Palestinians slinging rocks at massive tanks provided to Israel by the worldâs biggest military superpower have gone a long way toward poking holes in this myth over the past twenty years.
Obscuring a double standard
Nonetheless, Israelâs political class â from its far-right to its dwindling liberal camp â continue to demand that Palestinians put down their arms, even as Israeli settlers and the Israeli military barrel through towns in the West Bank, and Gaza is locked from the rest of the world. The double standard is palpable, but the role of culture â at least in the hands of the occupiersâ government â has been to obscure it.
Speaking of those activists that did attend the concert, Madonna told the crowd, âThere are several very brave and important NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that are representing both Palestine and Israel together.â Again, note the wording. And note the implication: that itâs two equal sides at war here.
Never mind the Nakba (the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948), never mind the decades of displacement, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees scattered by Israeli land grabs or the thousands locked up in its prisons. Never mind that Israel is armed to the teeth by the west and is one of the worldâs top military spenders as a proportion of national income. With that simple turn of phrase, all of this history and reality is swept aside for words that let the colonizers off the hook and place at least some of the blame on the colonized who dare to resist.
There is another crime, more esoteric in nature, at play here. Whether Madonna is aware of it or not (and thereâs a good chance she is), her music and art are willfully being lent to the cause of crude state propaganda. This is no conspiracy theory. Israeli politicians are frequently over the moon to have high-profile artists play in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu himself was so publicly chuffed to have Justin Bieber perform in Tel Aviv that he attempted to force a meeting with the teen pop star (âJustin Bieberâs meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu âcancelledâ,â The Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2011).
When fake punkers Simple Plan announced their own show in Israel earlier in the spring, it made it onto the State of Israelâs Twitter account. Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, has said publicly, âWe are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and cultureâ (âAbout face,â Haaretz, 20 September 2005).
This, of course, flies in the face of everything that those who are against BDS tell us: that art is somehow âaboveâ politics, and has no role to play other than âbringing people together.â No matter how many times itâs debunked, this old chestnut persists. It ignores that art, for all its high falutinâ pretensions, is a form of labor. And, as any union member will tell you, when labor is withheld it can throw one hell of monkey wrench into the gears of the machine.
This is, ironically, even more true for mega-stars like Madonna. Though she may not have to put the same amount of sweat and sacrifice into her music that she had to 25 years ago, her shows require countless stagehands, sound techs and security staff to pull them off.
And so, once more, it really canât be denied that the launch of the âMDNAâ tour in Israel was a victory for the apartheid state. What also canât be denied is the growth of the movement for BDS. Every effort was taken to put the heat on Madonnaâs camp, resulting in some surprising chances to speak truth to power. Case in point: the ongoing campaign to get the Red Hot Chili Peppers to cancel a forthcoming Tel Aviv show has gained a welcome shot in the arm.
Thereâs no substitute for that experience. The opportunity to shine a light on Israelâs crimes is arguably bigger than itâs ever been. Madonnaâs glitzy, glaring flash might blind and confuse for a little while, but in the end, itâs really no match for the collective effort of all those pushing that light in the right direction.
Alexander Billet is a music journalist and solidarity activist living in Chicago, and runs the website Rebel Frequencies (www.rebelfrequencies.net). His first book, Sounds of Liberation: Music In the Age of Crisis and Resistance, will be available in the fall. He can be reached at rebelfrequencies [AT] gmail {DOT] com.
Thank You.