‘Apology risks legitimising anti-Israel falsehoods’
The only apology needed was from the boycott activists who "sought to bully and pressure other artists".
Senior politicians and communal leaders have questioned Sydney Festival chairman David Kirk’s apology to artists and performers in the wake of the ongoing boycott.
Kirk last week rejected calls to return $20,000 in funding sought from the Israeli embassy to stage the performance Decadance and announced an independent review into festival funding.
“We are hoping that review will help us never put artists in the situation we put them in this year whereby they’ve felt pressured or compromised to withdraw their acts. We are very sorry that we’ve done that to artists, and we accept that we have to do better,” he said in comments published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Wentworth MP Dave Sharma said Sydney Festival was right to reject calls “to return funding from the embassy of a friendly country”, but should have been more forceful in coming out and condemning those proposing the boycott and condemning their intimidation tactics.
“I’m not clear what the Sydney Festival has to apologise for, other than not pushing back more strongly against these strong-arm bullying tactics,” he said.
NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel chair Scott Farlow said the only apology needed was from the boycott activists who “sought to bully and pressure other artists”.
“There is no wonder that the local Jewish community feels continually threatened when Israel is singled out in this way time and time again,” he said.
NSW Shadow Arts Minister and Parliamentary Friends of Israel deputy chair Walt Secord said Kirk’s statements required clarification.
“No one should be seen to be showing any deference to the vile and racist BDS movement,” he said.
Agreeing there was no reason for the festival to apologise, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said the sole blame for any bullying and harassment “lies with the boycott campaigners”.
“Any misplaced apology risks not only legitimising the extreme and slanderous falsehoods and claims that the campaigners are making about Israel, but exposing this and other festivals to repeat bullying and harassment by Israel haters and others,” he said.
In the proposed review, he insisted a wide range of voices must be heard, including mainstream Jews.
“The damage and hurt this episode has caused to the Jewish community must be considered,” he said.
While commending the festival board for “refusing to submit to the intimidation and aggression of the BDS movement”, Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said it was unclear from Kirk’s subsequent comments if he regretted artists being the subject of attacks by boycott organisers or that the Sydney Festival asked the Israeli embassy for sponsorship.
“To suggest that it was Israeli sponsorship rather than the behaviour of the BDS movement that is responsible for this abuse would be morally bankrupt and an exercise in ‘victim blaming’,” he said.
The AJN contacted Sydney Festival media several times to try to speak to Kirk. No response was received.
Meanwhile, Independent Wentworth candidate Allegra Spender this week added her voice to those rejecting the boycott.
“Those supporting this boycott and BDS movement more generally should consider very carefully whether they are applying the same standards to other countries, as they do Israel,” she said.
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