Palestine

Joan Armatrading’s statement posted on her homepage calling on leaders of Israel and Palestine , Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Meshal, to “take that step” to solve “the problem” is a backwards way of acknowledging protests of her recent concert in Tel Aviv, Israel . When she plays SF at the Palace of Fine Arts on Tuesday Aug 8 we want her to know that to flagrantly disregard the Palestinian call for academic and cultural boycott is to take a stand with racism and apartheid.

Please urgently take a minute to sign the petition and send a sentence of support to the co-op board, and forward widely.

Olympia Food Co-op Boycotts Israeli Goods - Now We Need Your Help!

Just days after Israeli commandos murdered at least nine unarmed people on the Free Gaza Flotilla and wounded many others, Joan Armatrading played in Tel Aviv, lining her pockets with blood money, and ignoring calls from the Palestinian people and supporters around the world to respect the boycott.

We call on Joan Armatrading, as a woman of colour who wrote a tribute to and performed for Nelson Mandela, and whose website says, “South Africa has always been close to my heart”, not to play Israel. As we write, people are gathering worldwide, thousands in London alone, to protest the Israeli piracy and murder of at least 20 unarmed people taking part in a humanitarian mission bringing aid to blockaded Gaza.

Women of Colour – UK, US, Palestine – say – Don’t lend credibility to Apartheid!

Millions of us grew up with Gil Scott Heron’s inspiring poetry and music that voiced our struggles against racism, sexism, apartheid and other injustice. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is still iconic. Irish film-makers took the title for their film documenting how the people of Venezuela reversed the coup against President Chavez and their revolution.