With a bold call for protests against Israel’s crimes of apartheid, US-based pop band Of Montreal has dropped out of Israel’s Meteor Festival on September 4, just days before it was set to begin.
This follows the cancellation by headliner Lana Del Rey, who nixed her performance on August 31.
Seventeen artists – more than one-third of the festival’s original international lineup, according to Palestinian campaigners – dropped out following sustained appeals by Palestinian and international activists to respect the boycott call.
“After exhausting all of the different possible ways of justifying playing an Israeli party festival, while the political and military leaders of the country continue their murderous and brutal policies against the Palestinian people, we came to the realization that there is no actual appropriate move other than to cancel the show,” Of Montreal stated on Facebook.
Read the full article by Nora Barrows-Friedman at Green Left Weekly.