Spain pans music festival’s ‘discrimination’ against Matisyahu
Israeli Embassy says demand that Jewish rapper endorse Palestine as condition for participation carries anti-Semitic overtones
The Spanish Foreign Ministry has denounced a local music festival’s recent cancellation of an appearance by Jewish singer Matisyahu due to pressure by anti-Israel groups.
In a statement Tuesday night, officials said organizers’ demand that the rapper publicly endorse a Palestinian state, “if it was determined by the Jewish identity of Matisyahu, brings into question the principle of discrimination.”
It added that “Spain reiterates its opposition to boycott campaigns against Israel, as it reaffirms its firm position in favor of a negotiated solution to the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict.”
The Israeli Embassy in Madrid has also denounced what it called “ideological censorship” by the festival, adding that, as the singer is not Israeli, the decision appeared to carry “anti-Semitic overtones.”
The Rototom Sunsplash festival, at Benicassim in eastern Spain, announced Sunday it was cancelling Matisyahu’s performance after the Valencia chapter of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement described the singer as a “lover of Israel” and asked organizers to request that the singer “clarify” his political views.
Matisyahu has called the festival’s conduct “appalling and offensive.” Posting on his Facebook page on Monday, he wrote that “festival organizers contacted me because they were getting pressure from the BDS movement. They wanted me to write a letter, or make a video, stating my positions on Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pacify the BDS people.”
Festival officials, for their part, have lamented having “met two extremes: on one side an association that does not listen to reason…and on the other an artist who, facing our simple request to condemn war as a solution to conflict has not answered several times.”
“We have not said no to Matisyahu because he is Jewish or a Zionist. We simply considered… that his presence would have generated conflict, without any possibility of dialog,” the director of the festival said on its Facebook page.