Dear band members and management of Big Thief,

We are writing as people committed to freedom, justice and equality to say how pleased we are that Big Thief canceled its planned July 2022 concerts in Tel Aviv.

As Palestinians, organizers, artists, and others working to end Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, we were deeply saddened when Big Thief announced these Tel Aviv shows. As you now have surmised, these performances would undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and would defy the call by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law.

There is a global consensus that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid as defined under international law against the Palestinian people. Palestinians and South Africans have been joined by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem, and many others in affirming that position.

The Israeli government and right-wing support groups like Creative Community for Peace/StandWithUs explicitly use international artists’ performances in Israel as propaganda to deflect attention from Israel’s systematic violence and discrimination against Palestinians.

Big Thief’s performances would have been seen as supporting Israeli government actions. These include the often daily killing of Palestinian children, women and men; demolition of Palestinians homes; and seizing Palestinians’ land to expand illegal Israeli settlements.

In just the last month Israeli soldiers killed renowned Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in what CNN called a targeted attack , and later attacked pallbearers carrying her coffin. They shot and killed six Palestinian children, and they began demolishing the West Bank Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta, and violently expelling over 1300 residents from their homes.

Tel Aviv itself, where Big Thief planned to perform, was founded on the ruins of Palestinian villages such as Manshiyya and Salama, whose residents were driven from their homes in 1948 and have remained refugees since.

The Tel Aviv venue that the band had selected for its concerts, Barby, grotesquely endorsed the Israeli government’s deadly attacks on besieged Gaza in 2014 which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including over 500 children. Barby proudly celebrated the murder of those Palestinian children by honoring the soldiers who carried out the brutal assault with a gift of free Barby tshirts saying “Fuck You. We’re from Israel.” Barby did this on the same day that an Israeli airstrike killed 16 Palestinians sheltering in a UN school in Gaza.

The most recent sustained Israeli attack on Gaza just one year ago killed 260 Palestinians, including 66 children, and led over 600 musicians to sign a pro-boycott #MusiciansForPalestine letter saying they refuse “to perform at Israel’s complicit cultural institutions.” Signers included Rage Against the Machine, Roger Waters, Serj Tankian of System of a Down, Run the Jewels, Black Thought and Questlove of The Roots, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Chromeo, Noname, Owen Pallett and Patti Smith. Many other leading musicians have canceled shows in Israel to support the Palestinian boycott call, including Lorde, Lauryn Hill, Lana Del Rey and Elvis Costello.

Boycott is a proven, peaceful tactic that has been used by peoples struggling for freedom in places like the U.S’s Jim Crow South. In the fight against apartheid in South Africa, cultural boycott by international artists who refused invitations to play in Sun City played an important role in the freedom struggle.

We are grateful that Big Thief recognized where the higher ground lies by honoring the Palestinian demand for boycott of Israel. Big Thief has followed the lead of hundreds of other principled musicians to honor the Palestinian picket line. May they be followed by hundreds more UNTIL PALESTINE IS FREE.