Committee blasts Batsheva boycott

Responding to Vancouver video artist jamie griffiths’s call for a boycott of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, a spokesperson for the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC) said any attempt to stifle Israeli arts would hinder, not help, the peace process.

“Israeli culture, more than anything, has helped promote cross-cultural understanding,” insisted Paul Michaels, communications director for the CIC. “To boycott something like the famed Batsheva Dance Company”¦only hurts any effort for reconciliation. It’s absolutely counterproductive.”

Griffiths said she would be boycotting the dance troupe—which has been dogged by protests at recent performances in Pittsburgh and Chicago—when it appears at the Vancouver Playhouse this Friday and Saturday (February 21 and 22, see story above), in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement championed in an article by Naomi Klein. “They [Batsheva] really have become like the Israeli poster child of Israeli culture,” griffiths said.

“In general, the arts community in Israel is very, very progressive,” Michaels said. “It’s the last element of a society you want to impair or hurt.”

Comments

3 Comments

JLG

Feb 19, 2009 at 4:06pm

Might be nice if you also spoke to someone that can speak for the Palestinian perspective? C'mon Georgia Straight...
CIC is an organization promoting Israeli culture in Canada. Of course they are not going to support a boycott.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45798
The very interesting thing about this discussion locally is that no-one I have spoken to is questioning the validity of an Israeli boycott... simply the validity of boycotting ARTISTS, as a part of that boycott... Let's not lose the point, shall we? Maybe you could run a story on the bigger boycott picture?

zenobia

Feb 19, 2009 at 4:40pm

Until I see Palestinian artists able to promote their culture to the rest of the world, I believe that any form of Israeli promotion of their culture is fair game for a boycott. Alas, the Palestinians are imprisoned in their modern day ghetto surrounded by a wall unable to "to help promote cross cultural understanding."

ism

Feb 20, 2009 at 3:28am

The Georgia Straight's "balanced coverage" of the Batsheva Boycott is reaching Canwest-ian proportions.

253 words on Griffiths position vs 1789 on Batsheva's.

But I'm sure those Batsheva ads appearing on the GS home page have nothing to do with it.