In December last year, Lorde announced that she would cancel her gig in Tel Aviv following backlash regarding Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the Guardian reports. This included “two young women based in Aotearoa, one Jewish, one Palestinian,” who wrote an open letter to Lorde saying, “Today, millions of people stand opposed to the Israeli government’s policies of oppression, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations, occupation and apartheid. As part of this struggle, we believe that an economic, intellectual and artistic boycott is an effective way of speaking out against these crimes. This worked very effectively against apartheid in South Africa, and we hope it can work again.”
Following the criticism, Lorde decided to cancel the concert, a move which prompted an American Rabbi to take out an entire page advert in the Washington Post to brand Lorde a “bigot”.
Now, over 100 musicians, actors, writers and artists — including Brian Eno and Kathleen Hanna — have signed an open letter supporting Lorde’s decision. It highlights the ad’s author’s extremely dubious grounds on which to slander Lorde, saying, “Shmuley Boteach, the author and promoter of the advert, supports Israel’s illegal settlements and wrote last month on Breitbart to thank Donald Trump for ‘electrifying the world’.” The letter concludes by advocating for Lorde’s freedom of choice, saying, “We deplore the bullying tactics being used to defend injustice against Palestinians and to suppress an artist’s freedom of conscience. We support Lorde’s right to take a stand.”