British pop duo Pet Shop Boys will go ahead with their scheduled Tel Aviv concert this coming Sunday, despite pressure from pro-Palestinian supporters to cancel.
Pro-Palestinian group Innovative Minds is promoting a protest at another Pet Shop Boys event this week. Posters prepared for the protest read: “Open your eyes to the ugly reality of apartheid Israel. Cancel your Tel Aviv concert. Stand with the oppressed.” and contains the captions: “1 child killed every three days” and “2 kids caged every day.”
Pet Shop Boys’ singer Neil Tennant rejected the comparison on the group’s official website: “It’s a caricature. Israel has (in my opinion) some crude and cruel policies based on defense; it also has universal suffrage and equality of rights for all its citizens, both Jewish and Arab.
“In apartheid-era South Africa, artists could only play to segregated audiences; in Israel anyone who buys a ticket can attend a concert.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the boycott call has not received much media attention in Britain. Concert producer Plug Production Generators suggested in a statement that since the same groups raise the same issues every time a concert is announce in Israel, the band is not taking it very seriously and is continuing with its preparations.
