Press release from BIN and Bricup: Pro-Palestine Protesters thwart draconian secruity at Globe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - MAY 28, 2012
    [updated version, 29th May]

Press Release from
BIN - Boycott Israel Network
and BRICUP - British Committee for the 
    Universities of Palestine
    
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS THWART DRACONIAN SECURITY AT 
ISRAELI STATE THEATRE PERFORMANCE, GLOBE THEATRE
    
* Shakespeare's Globe in security lockdown to defend 
        Israeli National Theatre
* Repeated interruptions
* Israeli Embassy orchestrates propaganda campaign against 
        growing support for cultural boycott
    
Despite unprecedented security at Shakespeare's Globe for 
Monday's performance by Israeli National Theatre, Habima, 
pro-Palestinian campaigners succeeded in unfurling a 
banner and staging a mute protest against illegal 
colonisation and settlement. Protesters were manhandled 
by security staff out of the theatre on London's Bankside, 
where Habima - which entertains colonists illegally 
settled on Palestinian land - was performing the Merchant 
of Venice in Hebrew as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
   
Just before the interval 15 demonstrators stood up 
with Palestinian flags and a banner. Demonstrator 
Veronica Simpson said "Security was unnecessarily 
aggressive. We were just making a peaceful protest 
about Israel". One demonstrator had her glasses 
broken. One man was handcuffed and arrested. 
Pro-Israel audience members shouted abuse, and 
some physically attacked demonstrators.

After the interval two members of the audience 
introduced some adapted texts from Shakespeare 
"Hath a Palestinian not eyes.... if you prick 
us do we not bleed" and "Avaunt and quit my 
sight - Apartheid" before they were removed.

Previously six protesters displayed a large 
banner and several smaller ones they had 
smuggled into the theatre. The banners carried 
the slogan "Israeli apartheid leave the stage".
    
"We tried non-violently to convey the message that 
culture may not be used to give a civilised gloss to 
a state that perpetrates human rights abuses," said 
Zoe Mars, a protester. Audience members walked out 
of the performance because they were disgusted by the 
rough treatment of the peaceful and silent
demonstrators.

There were other smaller demonstrations by members 
of the audience.
    
Protesters' ingenuity was tested by airport style 
security checks including "extensive searches of 
bags and audience members". The theatre box office 
was closed by 4 pm, photographic equipment was banned 
and any bag larger than a modest sized purse had to 
be checked into a special left luggage facility.
    
Israeli Embassy attempts to undermine the protests with a 
Twitter campaign in support of Habima fizzled out when 
their efforts were leaked to pro-Palestinian activists. 
An embassy circular suggested using the hashtag 
#loveculture, because it "won't be taken at first glance 
as a political statement."
    
"This is proof positive that as far as the Israeli state 
is concerned, culture and political propaganda are 
indivisible," said Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, cultural 
working group coordinator of the Boycott Israel Network.
    
"This campaign is not an attack on individual artists, 
we are not censoring the content of their work nor are 
we concerned about their ethnicity or the language they 
speak. As with South African sport in the apartheid 
era, this is about refusing to allow culture to be 
used to whitewash oppression."
    
Israeli, Palestinian and British human rights 
campaigners, backed by respected figures in theatre 
and the arts, have urged the Globe over recent months 
to withdraw its invitation to Habima which is 
complicit in the state's human rights violations 
and illegal colonisation of occupied land.
    
Campaign supporters such as film maker Ken Loach 
and actors David Calder and Miriam Margolyes say 
Habima uses its art to normalise an unacceptable 
situation. Their complicity "makes a mockery of 
their claim to freedom in their work," says Loach.
    
[ contact details edited out of this version ]
    
NOTES FOR EDITORS
    
1.    This campaign went public with an open letter 
published in The Guardian  (March 29), signed by David 
Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Mark Rylance, 
Emma Thompson and Harriet Walter, along with 31 others.
    
2.    See video statements from actors David Calder, 
Miriam Margolyes and John Graham Davies.
    
3. Statement from filmmaker Ken Loach and from  
Palestinian writer Dr Ghada Karmi.
    
4. Photos and a first-hand report can be found on
Tony Greenstein's Blog
    
5. Palestinian theatre company, Ashtar, based in Ramallah 
in the Occupied West Bank, staged Richard II in Arabic at 
the Globe on May 4 and 5. In a post-performance 
discussion, artistic director Iman Aoun revealed that 
she had been strip searched on leaving Tel Aviv airport to 
travel to London. She and other members of the company 
explained their support for the cultural boycott of 
Israeli institutions.

6. Video: "Hath a Palestinian not eyes?"

7. Israeli President Shimon Peres recently cited boycotts
as a key reason why Israel may be obliged to make peace.

8. Foreign Secretary William Hague last month condemned 
Israeli settlement activity, saying: "As the Occupying 
Power of the Palestinian Territories, the Israeli 
government has an absolute requirement to uphold 
international law and to fulfill its commitments."

9. Content of Israeli Embassy circular mobilising 
Twitter support for Habima:

An Important Message from the Israeli Embassy - 
MAY 29TH/HABIMA THEATRE COMPANY
Importance: High

Dear Liverpool Jewish Community Members,

As part of the campaign around Habima's performance 
at the Globe this coming week, we are aiming to get 
something relevant trending on twitter. After careful 
consideration, we have decided to use the hashtag 
#LoveCulture as it is short enough to fit on a 
substantial tweet and won't be taken at first glance 
as a political statement.

To get something trending on twitter, we need it 
to be a sudden occurrence. Therefore, we will start 
tweeting with #LoveCulture at 08:00 UK Time 
(which is GMT +1) on Tuesday 29 May (please do not 
start before this time as it will dilute the 
possibility of this actually trending).

(If you do not have twitter, please email 
acailler@live.co.uk before Tuesday 
29th May and Adam will advise you what/how to use twitter)

Due to the rules twitter has, please refrain from using 
additional hash-tags, sending multiple tweets with only 
minor changes as they won't be counted and please make 
sure that your tweets are relevant, as again not 
complying will result in tweets not being counted.

Examples of tweets that you can use (please try and 
edit them) are:

· Great to see @HabimaTheatre celebrating the Cultural 
Olympiad @the_globe...all the world's a stage #LoveCulture

· Fantastic seeing the foremost Hebrew speaking theatre 
company perform the Merchant of Venice @the_globe 
#LoveCulture

· Was great to hear @edvaizey enjoyed watching 
@HabimaTheatre... did he understand any of it though? 
#LoveCulture

· Jealous of all those off to see sold out @HabimaTheatre 
at @the_globe tonight...last night was great #LoveCulture

If you are using a twitter client such as TweetDeck or 
HootSuite, there is an option to schedule tweets to be 
sent at a predetermined time.

Please feel free to send this on to trusted contacts 
with twitter.

If you have any questions please contact 
pr-asst3@london.mfa.gov.il or elliot@thejlc.org.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach

Photo of protest outside the Globe, Monday evening

http://pic.twitter.com/W0D7Koo1

(Taken by Asa Winstanley, posted on Twitter)

The hashtag for the Habima protest trended worldwide!

Zionists eat your hearts out! (oops, that could be taken as a
reference to Shylock’s “pound of flesh” – no offence intended)

#lovejustice4all trended no.1 in UK: http://twitpic.com/9qae31

– and no.2 Worldwide: http://twitpic.com/9qafe4

(posted by your guest editor, Sue B)

A Shakespearean sonnet for Habima!

 

Shakespeareans for Poetic Justice present:

                    A Sonnet for Habima

 
 
If all the world’s a stage – why then, the stage

Must play its part if we would change the world.

Whence this commotion?  Why such howls of rage

The moment that our banners are unfurled?

 
In Shakespeare’s time, an audience was moved

By speeches about justice and compassion.

The Bard, methinks, could only have approved

Of protests carried out in such a fashion.

 
We’ll take no lessons from those fools who claim

That politics can’t mix with the theatre.

If actors break the law, they are to blame.

Perform in settlements?  They should know better!

 
Attempts to whitewash Israel just got harder:

Now “Globe to globe” meets global Intifada.
 

Sue Blackwell, 26th May 2012

ISRAELI EMBASSY ORCHESTRATES TWITTER DEFENCE OF HABIMA

VIDEO MESSAGE FROM MIRIAM MARGOLYES

Israel’s pretence of keeping culture separate from politics has disintegrated in the days leading up the appearance of the flagship theatre company Habima at Shakespeare’s Globe in London on May

No doubt under extreme pressure from the Zionist lobby, the Globe  is imposing unprecedented security measures on audiences on Monday and Tuesday, in a misguided attempt to prevent protesters expressing their outrage at the presence of Habima, which entertains colonists illegally settled on Palestinian land.

Link to video here.

In moves that will make the theatre resemble an Israeli checkpoint, bags “and audience members” will be subjected to “extensive searches”; the audience will be required to check in an hour and a half before the start of the performance and no bags larger than a medium-sized purse will be allowed into the auditorium.

Now evidence has emerged that the Israeli Embassy is instructing Israel’s supporters in the UK on how to use Twitter in Habima’s defence.

In emails circulated to some sections of the Jewish community, the embassy is launching a Twitter campaign using “the hashtag #LoveCulture as it is short enough to fit on a substantial tweet and won’t be taken at first glance as a political statement” (our emphasis).

Suggested hasbara tweets from Tuesday morning onwards include:

Great to see @HabimaTheatre celebrating the Cultural Olympiad @the_globe…all the world’s a stage #LoveCulture

 Fantastic seeing the foremost Hebrew speaking theatre company perform the Merchant of Venice @the_globe #LoveCulture

and, with an ungrateful dig at Conservative MP Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, who has made a point of promising to attend the Israeli cultural ambassadors’ performance on Monday:

 Was great to hear @edvaizey enjoyed watching @HabimaTheatre…did he understand any of it though? #LoveCulture

Those interested in helping the Brand Israel Hasbara effort are invited to email the embassy at this address: pr-asst3@london.mfa.gov.il

For those who, on the other hand, respect the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions and recognise cultural boycott as a legitimate weapon in the non-violent struggle for freedom, justice and equality, we recommend joining a mass protest outside the Globe at 6pm on Monday May 28 and again on Tuesday 29th.

The protest is a joint effort by the full range of Palestinian solidarity organisations including Jews for Justice for Palestinians, J-BIG, the Boycott Israel Network, PSC and many more.

Film maker Ken Loach said in statement before the protests that Habima, in common with other Israeli cultural institutions travelling abroad, was part of Israel’s propaganda campaign.

“These performances attempt to normalize the unacceptable, the occupation of land that belongs to the Palestinians,” said Loach. “This complicity makes a mockery of Habima’s claim to freedom in its work.”

Despite appeals over recent months from Israeli campaigners and many respected UK theatre actors, directors and playwrights, the Globe has declined to respect the Palestinian boycott call aimed at institutions, like Habima, that use culture to legitimise the Israeli state’s infringements of human rights and breaches of international law.

See actors David Calder, Miriam Margolyes and John Davies explaining their support for the  cultural boycott of Israeli National Theatre, Habima.

Join the campaign facebook page.

Globe Olympic Shakespeare Festival challenged for inviting Israeli National Theatre

This news release went into circulation on Friday March 29, just in time for Palestine Land Day and the Global March for Jerusalem, with publication of a letter signed by leading actors, directors and playwrights, challenging the Globe Theatre for inviting Israel’s national theatre, Habima, to take part in London’s Oultural Olympiad. Habima is complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement of Palestinian land.

ATTENTION EDITORS – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

•  David Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Mark Rylance, Emma Thompson, Harriet Walter call on Globe to withdraw invitation to Israeli theatre, Habima
•  Rylance – “support Israeli artists resisting illegal settlements”
•  Calder – Habima “a cultural fig-leaf” for Israeli brutality

Leading British actors, directors and authors are challenging the Globe to Globe World Shakespeare Festival, part of the Cultural Olympiad, over its invitation to an Israeli theatre company which performs for settlers on illegally occupied Palestinian land.

In an open letter published in The Guardian (March 29), David Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Mark Rylance, Emma Thompson and Harriet Walter, along with 31 others, say the Israeli National Theatre, Habima, “has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

They call on Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, on London’s South Bank, to withdraw the invitation “so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land”.

Habima is scheduled to perform The Merchant of Venice in Hebrew at the Globe on May 28 and 29 as one of 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 world languages during the seven week festival.

The Guardian letter notes that a number of Israeli theatre professionals have declared that they will not take part in performances in “halls of culture” built in two large Israeli settlements. Habima, however, has pledged to continue doing so.

“I sign this letter in support of those artists within Israel who are resisting the requests to play in the illegal settlements,” said actor Mark Rylance.   He drew a parallel with earlier campaigns supporting change in apartheid South Africa.

“Acting in the illegal settlements seems to me an act of provocation and disrespect. Surely peace will only be born when each person respects the other’s boundaries,” Rylance said.

The Globe’s response to appeals from Israeli, Palestinian and British campaigners for Habima’s invitation to be withdrawn has been to insist that the World Shakespeare Festival must be inclusive and keep channels of cultural communication open.

David Calder, whose roles include Shylock with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Lear with the Globe Theatre Company, said that Habima “placed itself outside the general case of ‘bridge-making culture’ by being prepared to play before a segregated audience of illegal settlers in a theatre from which Palestinians themselves are barred”.

Calder said that leading Israeli company Habima are part of “a cultural fig leaf” forIsrael’s daily brutality.

Notes for editors:

1. FULL TEXT OF LETTER + TOP 13 SIGNATORIES, REMAINING SIGS BELOW, ALL IN PERSONAL CAPACITY.

We notice with dismay and regret that Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Londonhas invited Israel’s National Theatre, Habima, to perform The Merchant of Venice in its Globe to Globe festival this coming May.

The general manager of Habima has declared the invitation ‘an honourable accomplishment for the State of Israel’ (i).   But Habima has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Last year, two large Israeli settlements established ‘halls of culture’ and asked Israeli theatre groups to perform there.   A number of Israeli theatre professionals – actors, stage directors, playwrights – declared (ii) they would not take part.

Habima however accepted the invitation with alacrity, and promised the Israeli Minister of Culture that it would ‘deal with any problems hindering such performances’.   By inviting Habima, Shakespeare’s Globe is undermining the conscientious Israeli actors and playwrights who have refused to break international law.

The Globe says it wants to ‘include’ the Hebrew language in its festival – we have no problem with that.   ‘Inclusiveness’ is a core value of arts policy in Britain, and we support it.   But by inviting Habima, the Globe is associating itself with policies of exclusion practised by the Israeli state and endorsed by its national theatre company.   We ask the Globe to withdraw the invitation so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land.

Yours sincerely,

David Calder, actor

Caryl Churchill, playwright

Trevor Griffiths, playwright

Mike Leigh, filmmaker, dramatist

Roger Lloyd Pack, actor

Cherie Lunghi, actor

Miriam Margolyes OBE, actor

Kika Markham, actor

Jonathan Miller, director, author and broadcaster

Mark Rylance, actor

Emma Thompson, actor, screenwriter

Harriet Walter DBE, actor

Richard Wilson, actor, director

Full list of further signatories:

David Aukin, producer

Poppy Burton-Morgan, artistic director, Metta Theatre

Leo Butler, playwright

Niall Buggy, actor

Jonathan Chadwick, director

Michael Darlow, writer, director

Annie Firbank, actor

Paul Freeman, actor

Matyelok Gibbs, actor

Tony Graham, director

John Graham Davies, actor, writer

Janet Henfrey, actor

James Ivens, artistic director, Flood Theatre

Andrew Jarvis, actor, director, teacher

Neville Jason, actor

Ursula Jones, actor

Professor Adah Kay, academic, playwright

Sonja Linden, playwright, iceandfire theatre

Frances Rifkin, director

Alexei Sayle, comedian, writer

Farhana Sheikh, writer

Andy de la Tour, actor, director

Hilary Westlake, director

Susan Wooldridge, actor, writer

(i) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

(ii) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/actors-boycott-west-bank-theatre

2. Habima’s planned involvement in the Globe to Globe festival aroused opposition initially from the Israeli organisation Boycott from Within, who wrote to Globe Theatre Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole in January 2012:

http://boycottisrael.info/content/call-shakespeares-globe-theatre

3. This was soon followed by a Palestinian appeal.

Excerpt from letter to the Globe from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI):

“Just as British theatres in the 1980s avoided inviting South African theatres that were part of the apartheid system and took a stance in opposition to apartheid, so must the Globe today disinvite Habima, a cultural ambassador of Israel and a defender of Israel’s illegal colonies.

All main Palestinian theatre artists and other cultural figures endorse  the cultural boycott of Israel and its complicit institutions as a minimal, peaceful form of resistance to the occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression.”

“We again call on the Globe to cancel this invitation which conflicts with its commitment to human rights.”[1]

4. Israeli, British and theatrical media picked up the story:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/17/globe-theatre-controversial-israeli-company

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/34932/globe-defends-invitation-to-israeli-theatre

5. Habima’s general manager Odelia Friedman declared the invitation to perform at the Globe “an honourable accomplishment for the State of Israel”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

6.  A Palestinian theatre group, Ashtar, based in Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, is to stage Richard II in Arabic on May 4 and  5.  A Habima spokesperson, Rut Tonn, described Ashtar’s appearance in the same festival as Habima as an example of “collaborations which will help with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/55939/israelis-fear-protests-globe-shakespeare-festival

But Ashtar has refuted any suggestion that its appearance in the festival four weeks before Habima’s implies any sort of balance or equivalence, and said in a letter to the Globe:

“They have insinuated cooperation with us to undermine the growing cultural boycott of complicit Israeli institutions.”[2]

7. The Israeli state explicitly utilises culture as a propaganda tool under the auspices of its Foreign Affairs ministry which launched a ‘Brand Israel’ campaign in 2005.

Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said: “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Artists who accept funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are required to sign a contract which states that the artist “is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.”

http://www.haaretz.com/putting-out-a-contract-on-art-1.250388

8. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has highlighted the role of theatre in bolstering the state’s policy of relentless settlement and colonisation and predicted that theatres around the world would lock their doors to Habima.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/puppet-theater-1.310770

9. The failure of the international community to hold Israel to account for its persistent infringements of human rights, flouting of UN resolution and breaches of international law has led to a Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions modelled on the non-violent campaign to end South African apartheid.

http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869

[1] Full text available on request

[2] Full text available on request