Israel has launched a PR campaign to counter calls for a boycott of the upcoming...
JERUSALEM - Israel has launched a PR campaign to counter calls for a boycott of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest final in Tel Aviv, using Google ads which refer to the boycott but lead to a glossy website extolling Israel.
BDS has called on artists, music fans and broadcasters to avoid the 2019 contest, arguing that it amounts to “whitewashing” Israel’s policies towards Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel calls international boycotts discriminatory and anti-Semitic. The row flared up as music fans begin to trickle in to Tel Aviv, and workers put the finishing touches to the music and public venues.
Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan, said the advertisement, which features high quality photographs and videos, was intended to “show Israel as it really is, a diverse, beautiful and sensational place, while at the same time, successfully dispelling the lies BDS spreads.” Fears were heightened last weekend by a surge of deadly violence between Palestinian militants and Israel, which saw hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli towns south of Tel Aviv, and Israel launching air strikes on militant sites.BDS activists describe their campaign as a non-violent Palestinian-led international movement, inspired by South African anti-apartheid activism.
But no singers have pulled out of Eurovision, and other artists have defied boycott calls: Madonna will be a guest performer at the competition.
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