RAMALLAH, June 11, 2018 (WAFA) – The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has succeeded in persuading at least four international artists against participating in a Berlin festival sponsored by the Israeli embassy in Germany, according to Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of BDS.

Berlin’s international Pop-Kultur festival announced this week that US musician John Maus has withdrawn from the festival, saying that his band preferred "not to play in a politicized setting."

Shopping, Richard Dawson & Band and Gwenno have also cancelled acts at the three-day festival, which starts on August 15, due to its connection to the Israeli government, whose Berlin-based embassy contributes to program funding.

Barghouti told Voice of Palestine radio on Monday that his movement has succeeded in the past two years in convincing several artists to pull out from the Berlin festival because of Israeli sponsorship in addition to getting more than 42 British bands to join the cultural boycott of Israel.

He said BDS has also succeeded in getting more than 60 Spanish cities and towns in declaring themselves “free of Israeli apartheid” by not dealing with companies involved in Israeli occupation and crimes against the Palestinian people.

“Israel is trying to cover up its crimes against our people by sponsoring art festivals around the world to appear as having interest in literature, art and culture,” he said.

"Israel seeks associations with international festivals, such as Pop-Kultur Berlin, to art-wash its image abroad in the explicit attempt to distract attention from its crimes against Palestinians,” the Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), an arm of the BDS movement, has said in the appeal to artists urging them to withdraw from Pop-Kultur.

“For a supposedly progressive festival to accept sponsorship from a decades-old regime of oppression and apartheid like Israel‘s is unethical and hypocritical," it said.

M.K.