A little part of my soul broke away when I heard the news: One of my all-time musical heroes, Morrissey (previously of the 'miserablist' 80's pop/rock Manchester group the Smiths) is to play in Israel at a festival on July 29. I actually found out a while ago but was in denial. The Smiths were a major source of comfort, pain, beauty and inspiration for me in some of the most formative years of my life, and I can listen to certain songs and albumns tirelessly.
Morrissey announced his news on a YouTube video, which ended with the words "God Bless Israel." Many news outlets reported his words as "God Bless Israel, Stay Nice!" He had the word ISRAEL written in Hebrew in bold black writing on his right arm. Israeli paper Haaretz reported the news soon after.
For anyone who might not know, Morrissey is a militant vegetarian. He invites PETA to have stalls at his concerts- I've seen them. Certainly, as one of my dear friend pointed out to me, being a vegetarian does not define your political sympathies- look at Hitler. But I must say it does seem a little bizarre to find it appalling for a chicken to live in a tiny cage, in filthy conditions, and with its life at the mercy of a greater force able to terminate that chicken's life at a whim. How can Morrissey sympathize with battery poultry but not the 1.4 million people of Gaza, who live in the world's biggest open-air prison? How can he reconcile supporting animal rights when he also supports apartheid, genocide, land and water appropriation, racism, bigotry....? How can he stand by the words MEAT IS MURDER and not say OCCUPATION IS MURDER? I think Morrissey needs to educate himself a bit more on the situation is Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories before he fancifully flaps around and warbles on a stage built on someone else's land. He's probably just alienated a huge base of his fans, who from my experiences in Manchester, are mostly leftist in nature.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel wrote to Morrissey asking for him to withdraw from the concert. The letter read as follows:
Today, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed your video message to the Israeli public, confirming your performance in Tel Aviv on July 29, 2008 [1]. You end your message with the words "God bless Israel, stay nice!" This message and your planned Israel gig are indicators of either a serious lack of understanding of what Israel is or a conscious bias towards Israel, despite its colonial and apartheid reality. Celebrating Israel, as you plan to do, at a time when it is persistently committing war crimes and other grave breaches of international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza, is an act of complicity in maintaining Israel's illegal occupation and regime of racial dscrimination against the people of Palestine.
It is ironic that your persistent affection for outsiders and misfits has often driven you to write in their voices. Someone hated, rejected and violently attacked by a racist, nationalistic society has her point of view expressed in these lyrics, which you wrote:
"We're old news
All's well
Say BBC scum
One child shot, but so what?
Laid my son
In a box, three feet long
And I still don't know why
A short walk home becomes a run
And I'm scared
In my own country"
Singing in Tel Aviv despite the fact that more than 800 Palestinian children have been killed -- many in a willful manner -- by the Israeli occupation army and settlers in the past 7 years alone would effectively tell us, in our faces: "One Palestinian child shot, but so what?" This year, Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its establishment over the ruins of another country, Palestine. With the creation of this state sixty years ago, three quarters of a million Palestinians were dispossessed and uprooted from their homes and lands, condemned to a life of exile and destitution. Israel at 60 is a state that is still denying Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights, simply because they are "non-Jews." It is still illegally occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. In the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), Israel is continuing the construction of its colonies and massive Wall in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of July 2004. It is still persistently and grossly breaching international law and infringing fundamental human rights with impunity afforded to it through munificent US and European economic, diplomatic and political support. It is still treating its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized discrimination.In 2006, virtually all leading Palestinian artists and cultural figures have called for an international cultural boycott of Israel [2]. To date, many leading international cultural figures, including Ken Loach and John Berger, and some artists' unions, like the Irish Aosdana, have heeded the Palestinian Call and shunned Israel, just as they boycotted apartheid South Africa. On December 3, 2007, you said "I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass without being absolutely clear and emphatic with regard to what my position is. Racism is beyond common sense and I believe it has no place in our society." It is "absolutely clear" that your performance in Israel would betray a regrettable double standard, if not a categorical negation of those noble ideals.* The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
If your listening Morrissey, I am sorely disappointed in you. For years I slept in a Morrissey shirt- I shall no longer. I will continue to listen to the Smiths and to Morrissey's solo work, but I fear it will not sound as poignant as it used to.
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