No Music for Genocide, the marketing campaign that has rallied dozens of artists to drag their music from streaming companies in Israel, has launched an open letter calling for a boycott of the Eurovision Music Contest over its determination to permit Israel to compete. Launched in partnership with the Palestinian Marketing campaign for the Educational & Cultural Boycott of Israel, the letter is signed by Brian Eno, Huge Assault, Kneecap, Idles, Sigur Rós, Erika de Casier, Dry Cleansing, Mogwai, Black Nation New Street, Macklemore, Primal Scream, Scorching Chip, Smerz, and tons of extra. “For the third consecutive 12 months,” the letter states, Israel can be “celebrated onstage regardless of its ongoing genocide in Gaza, whereas Russia stays banned for its unlawful invasion of Ukraine.”
The signees name for “public broadcasters, performers, screening celebration organizers, crew, and followers” to boycott the track contest till the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, bans Israeli broadcaster KAN. “We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives,” the letter reads. “When youngsters in Israeli prisons endure beatings for buzzing a tune. When all that’s left of almost each stage, studio, bookshop and college in Gaza is piles of rubble, underneath which slaughtered our bodies nonetheless await restoration and correct burial.”
Broadcasters in Spain, Eire, Iceland, Slovenia, and Netherlands have already pulled out in protest of Israel’s inclusion, the letter notes. It concludes, “As artists, we recognise our collective company—and the ability of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit.”
Kneecap added: “Russia was banned from Eurovision in 2022. Israel has been murdering Palestinians for many years and is now committing genocide—and for the third 12 months working, they’re welcomed again onto the stage. That’s not neutrality. That’s a selection.” They continued, “We’ve paid a value for talking out—misplaced gigs, courtroom circumstances, visa bans—and we’d do all of it once more tomorrow. Silence is complicity. We stand with No Music for Genocide and each artist, fan and broadcaster who refuses to let the world’s largest music occasion be used to whitewash genocide.”
Final 12 months, Caribou, Hayley Williams, Dry Cleansing, Lorde, Björk, and extra participated within the No Music for Genocide streaming embargo, geo-blocking their music from Israel.
