Justin, it is admirable you are focusing on “Justice” in your world tour. However, there is a state on the tour whose actions clearly undermine this value. We are dismayed that you have chosen to schedule performing in Israel, a state that practices apartheid.

People can no longer close their eyes for the crimes against humanity being committed by apartheid Israel.

On February 1, 2022, the human rights group Amnesty International published its report titled “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity” accusing Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.

The report says that “Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony.”

Amnesty also exposes the involvement of “almost all of Israel’s civilian administration and military authorities… in the enforcement of the system of apartheid against Palestinians across Israel, in the West Bank and Gaza,” as well as “against Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside the territory.”

Thus, I join with dozens of artists and civil society organizations to ask you to cancel your October 2022 concert performance in Israel.

In 2018, Israel proclaimed the Nation State Law to officially enshrine ethnic/racial discrimination in Israel’s Basic Law — the state’s constitutional equivalent. The legislation stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.” It also establishes Hebrew as Israel’s official language, and downgrades Arabic — a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis — to a “special status.” It also enshrines “Jewish settlement as a national value” and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.” In addition, there are over 65 additional laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) on the basis of their national belonging.

In January 2021, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem cited the bill as one of the many reasons for their conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state that “promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

On October 23, 2019, Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the OPT told the United Nations General Assembly that decisive international action was needed, and the “international community has a responsibility and legal obligation to compel Israel to end its 52 year-long “occu-annexation” of Palestinian territory and to remove barriers preventing Palestinian self-determination.” We call on you to join fellow Canadian, Michael Lynk, in leading the way by showing this decisive international leadership against Israeli settler-colonialism and war crimes.

When international artists perform in Israel, they help to create the false impression that Israel is a “normal” country like any other. This is the call from Palestinian writers, artists and cultural centers. There is a growing number of anti-colonial Israelis and people worldwide who support the Palestinian civil society BDS call including the cultural boycott of Israel. We are glad to be part of this support and urge you to join by canceling your concerts in Israel.

Don’t be used by Israel to “artist-wash” its brutality and crimes against entire populations.

Join with those who stand with “justice” and “stay” away from apartheid and war crimes.

Campaign by: The Canadian BDS Coalition, read more HERE

List of Artists who have signed (if you are an artists also sign HERE)

List of Organizations that have signed (if your organization wish to sign it can sign HERE)

Update August 31, 2022: https://bdscoalition.ca/2022/08/31/dozens-of-fellow-artists-join-with-civil-society-to-tell-justin-bieber-to-not-play-apartheid/