ALREADY COMBATING efforts abroad to boycott Israel, the country now faces an internal boycott after more than 60 actors and artists signed a petition against performing in West Bank settlements.
The petitioners were responding to the near-completion of a new performing arts centre in the city of Ariel, one of the West Bank’s largest settlements, making the city a venue for the major Israeli theatre companies.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the boycott. “The state of Israel is subject to a delegitimisation campaign by different elements in the international arena, including attempts to launch academic and economic boycotts,” he said. “The last thing we need now is an attempt of boycotts from within.”
The issue is sensitive ahead of this week’s Washington peace talks where the future of the settlements, built on West Bank land captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, will be a core issues discussed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
Leading playwright Joshua Sobol, who signed the petition, said he hoped the boycott would shake up Israeli public opinion. “People somehow became indifferent to the many issues which are existential issues in Israel, and this may revive public debate.”
Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi praised the boycott, saying the artists were “at the forefront of the struggle against injustice”. However, the move was criticised by some leading figures on the left, who noted that theatres receive public funds, and citizens who live over the 1967 green line also have a right to culture.
Ministers threatened to withdraw state funds from theatre groups that refused to perform in the West Bank. Most of the companies decided to perform even if individual actors boycotted the theatre.