#tel aviv 2019

[travelblog]

[tatsuma-forever]

i’m going to try to explain this in very basic terms so everyone understands

the only reason russia was banned from eurovision is because the groups funding eurovision threatened to pull out if they were allowed to compete. these groups have not applied the same pressure to eurovision over israel committing genocide. these groups have not applied the same pressure regarding azerbaijan either.

no matter how much you hear the opposite, eurovision is extremely political. the ‘no politics’ rule exists to silence people the broadcasters disagree with. in 2019, eurovision was held in tel aviv. the icelandic group hatari brought out palestinian banners while their points were being announced, and they got booed and fined. politics are allowed if eurovision deems them palatable. war is ‘okay’ to talk about IF you agree with eurovision

if belarus was disqualified for propaganda, israel should be too.

[kropotkindersurprise]

May 2024 - With Eurovision coming up, and the fascist state of Israel being allowed to pinkwash their genocide of the Palestinian people once again, let's remember Icelandic anti-capitalist band Hatari who showed their support for Palestine in 2019 when Eurovision was being held in Tel Aviv, and were fined for it (€5000,- lmao). Later that same month they brought out the pro-Palestinian song Klefi / Samed (صامد) together with Palestinian artist Bashar Murad.

anyway, the BDS movement is calling for a boycott of Eurovision 2024!

[sayruq]

Meta identifies networks pushing deceptive content likely generated by AI

Meta (META.O) said on Wednesday it had found "likely AI-generated" content used deceptively on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, including comments praising Israel's handling of the war in Gaza published below posts from global news organizations and U.S. lawmakers. The social media company, in a quarterly security report, said the accounts posed as Jewish students, African Americans and other concerned citizens, targeting audiences in the United States and Canada. It attributed the campaign to Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm STOIC. While Meta has found basic profile photos generated by artificial intelligence in influence operations since 2019, the report is the first to disclose the use of text-based generative AI technology since it emerged in late 2022. Researchers have fretted that generative AI, which can quickly and cheaply produce human-like text, imagery and audio, could lead to more effective disinformation campaigns and sway elections. In a press call, Meta security executives said they removed the Israeli campaign early and did not think novel AI technologies had impeded their ability to disrupt influence networks, which are coordinated attempts to push messages.

[las-microfisuras]

Ellen Auerbach Strand cerca de Tel Aviv, 1934 © Akademie der Künste, Berlín, Kunstsammlung Inv.Nr.: Auerbach 4935 / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019

[heritageposts]

🍉 Bashar Murad - MASKHARA بشار مراد مسخرة

From a 2021 interview with Bashar, where he explains some of the choices behind his music video for Maskhara:

[...] Meanwhile, the coffee cup reading is a metaphor of family expectations, and the pink outfits, the pink lighting and filters, and pink roses stuffed into a military tank are a nod to pinkwashing – the promotion of the queer-friendliness of a political entity to distract from human rights abuses. As a gay Palestinian himself, the latter hits close to home. In 2019, Bashar attracted global headlines through his involvement in Globalvision, an alternative concert that was livestreamed simultaneously with Eurovision in Tel Aviv – which had been plagued with pinkwashing controversy. "We didn't get the same number of viewers as Eurovision, but it still felt like we were doing something important," Bashar recalls. "Eurovision is a very queer event. It's also a musical event, so it was not just pinkwashing, it was also artwashing. As a gay artist, it was so important for me to make a statement. "They were also emphasising the fact that Eurovision is not political when it's the epitome of politics. It's different countries voting for and against each other and flags being waved everywhere. "But when it comes to Palestine and our voices, we were shut down. We were told that no, this is not a political event, this is a party and this is a happy event."

. . . continues at The New Arab (5 Mar 2021)

[komsomolka]

Despite Israel’s ongoing brutal assault on the Gaza Strip and its 2.4 million Palestinians, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) continues to pursue a controversial deal to normalize relations with the occupation state. Riyadh has persisted in deepening relations with Tel Aviv in multiple sectors despite receiving ‘death threats’ from opponents of normalization in the kingdom.

So why, then, does the crown prince insist on trudging down this unpopular path unless he believes that establishing ties with Israel is crucial for securing his ascendency to the Saudi throne? [...]

The two states share several strategic goals. Saudi Arabia is opposed to the regional Axis of Resistance, which includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Hamas, and other non-state actors, and has implemented repressive measures against the Palestinian resistance. The kingdom has for years targeted supporters of Hamas and individuals funneling funds to the Palestinian territories. This includes the arrest of more than 60 Palestinians in 2019, some of them Hamas officials and Saudi nationals who received lengthy prison terms.

As recently as May, Saudi Arabia stepped up its campaign to arrest social media users in the kingdom who attacked Israel online – this after more than 34,000 Palestinians had been killed in relentless Israeli airstrikes on population centers.

From the sidelines, Saudi Arabia has also supported the normalization efforts of Bahrain and Sudan while offering the occupied West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) economic incentives to collaborate further with Israel. [...]

Economic normalization is crucial for MbS’s coveted Vision 2030 project, which aims to transform the kingdom’s economy and institute social liberalization. The deal with Israel includes opening Saudi airspace to Israeli flights and encouraging Israeli investment in Saudi heritage sites. Jared Kushner, the architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords, has played a prominent role in these efforts, working to establish an investment corridor between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Among the most ambitious projects is the fiber optic cable linking Tel Aviv to Persian Gulf countries, as well as a planned railway expansion that would connect Saudi Arabia to Israel via Jordan. Ibrahim contends that the Palestinian resistance’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation last October disrupted these plans, placing a whole host of these economic projects in jeopardy: The Al-Aqsa Flood came and thwarted this project and disrupted it for an unknown period. Therefore, the Saudi regime, along with the US and the Israeli entity, was the first to feel that the Al-Aqsa Flood was directed primarily at the normalization project in the region.

Cultural and media strategies have played an advanced role in acclimating Saudis to normalization with Israel. Since the events of 11 September 2001, Saudi Arabia has worked on revising its education curricula, gradually removing references to Israel as an enemy and promoting a more neutral stance on the occupation state. Art and media have also played a role, with Saudi TV channels airing programs that subtly promote peace with Israel.

The media, in particular, has been a powerful tool in shaping public perception, with Saudi outlets often hosting Israeli officials and broadcasting reports from within the kingdom. This propaganda campaign has aimed to create a climate conducive to normalization, although public support for such a move has fluctuated, especially after the events of 7 October.

At the heart of the crown prince’s Vision 2030 is his desire to position Saudi Arabia as a global sports hub. The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, leads this expansive project by purchasing major foreign sports franchises and hosting international sporting events in the kingdom.

The sports sector has been yet another tool of soft normalization, paving the way for official Israeli teams to appear in Saudi Arabia, where they raise the occupation state’s flag and sing its national anthem. Official matches and competitions are held between Saudi and Israeli players, and the Saudi national football team has even participated in matches held in the occupied West Bank.

[splatoonpolls]

So Eurovision had a singer who participated before in the opening ceremony. The singer is Eric Saade and he’s Palestinian. For that he wore the keffiyeh which the EBU didn’t like.

“I got this keffiyeh by my dad when I was little, to never forget where my family came from. I didn’t know that one day it would be called a “political symbol”. It’s like calling the dalahäst (a type of wooden horse that’s associated with Sweden) a politician symbol. In my eyes that’s racism. I just wanted to be inclusive and wear something that’s true to me, but the EBU thinks my ethnicity is controversial. It says nothing about me, but everything about them. I’m saying the same thing as this years Eurovision slogan “united by music”

And like when Madonna performed in Tel Aviv 2019, they decided to not publish his performance. (Madonna showed two dancers, one with the Israeli flag and one with the Palestinian flag walking together).

Here’s the full article, it is in Swedish though

[moonmoonthecrabking]

if you like eurovision, i think you know it’s time to boycott.

if you like eurovision, have been watching it for years, even if it’s only just for the music, you know that it is inherently political. from bloc voting to song bans to how and when russia and ukraine have participated in the past decade, it’s very clearly political.

which is why israel’s participation this year is very much a statement. if they are not excluded, which they have not been, it is a validation of their horrific acts against palestine. russia was banned, because of the invasion of ukraine, but doing nothing to israel because of palestine suggests the state’s* actions are “not that bad” or even are acceptable. they are not. formally, the rules of the contest don’t allow propaganda, but israel still attempted to submit a song with political lyrics. israel’s presence in eurovision also has contributed to pinkwashing, portraying it as the perfect place for queer people, especially with how it is perceived as a country in the middle east. this was particularly true when the contest was held in tel aviv in 2019.

i’m not going to say “eurovision is trashy”, because that can be a reason behind liking it, or not your personal experience. i’m not going to ask why israel, a non-european nation, is involved in eurovision (it’s because the european broadcasting union is not confined to europe necessarily, and it wants to make money). those are moot points. what i am going to say is that israel’s continued presence in the eurovision song contest, especially after this year, sides the ebu with the genocide in gaza.

the ebu, as well as each country’s broadcasters, wants money. if we don’t watch and don’t vote, we vote with our time and our dollar to say this is unacceptable. it will not fix the damage that has been done, but at least we won’t be encouraging this behaviour.

boycott eurovision. free palestine.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Eli Lake and Danielle Shapiro

Since the October 7 massacre, a small “charity” based in Canada has been ubiquitous on elite college campuses, celebrating the bloodbath at public rallies and seminars. The group is called Samidoun, and it claims to be an NGO advocating on behalf of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

On Tuesday, the U.S. and Canadian governments put an end to that charade. 

Samidoun is not a charity at all. Rather, it’s a group “that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization,” according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Treasury Department. The government describes it as a “sham.”

For anyone who has followed the history of Palestinian terrorism, PFLP is a name you’re no doubt familiar with. It was founded in 1967 as a Marxist revolutionary group, and was supported during the Cold War by China and the Soviet Union. In 1976, the PFLP teamed up with West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group to hijack a flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Entebbe, Uganda, separating Jewish and non-Jewish passenger hostages. Eventually, Israeli commandos freed the hostages. The episode was turned into the movie 7 Days in Entebbe.

For most of the 1990s and 2000s, PFLP was largely an afterthought for both Israelis and Palestinians (though it did murder an Israeli tourism minister in 2001). That began to change in 2019, when the PFLP killed a 17-year-old girl in the West Bank with a roadside bomb that also injured her father and brother. Since then, the government of Israel has pressed its allies to designate Samidoun as a terrorist front for the PFLP. The designations from Canada and the U.S. on Tuesday are the culmination of that effort. 

One place where that designation will have an effect is elite campuses, where Samidoun has long established itself as a partner—and funder—for anti-Israel student initiatives. Just in the past year, Samidoun has co-sponsored a divestment rally at Princeton, taught an “Abolish Imperialism” lecture at Harvard Law School and, most infamously, led a “Palestinian Resistance 101” teach-in at Columbia University that resulted in the suspension of multiple student organizers who used the event to “promote the use of terror or violence.” 

As far back as 2017, Princeton’s Palestine club shared links from Samidoun’s media page and encouraged students to work with the group on initiatives to free a Palestinian activist who had assaulted an Israeli soldier. In 2022, Princeton’s Palestine club again partnered with Samidoun to lead a “Palestinian Prisoner Letter-Writing Session” on campus. This long and close relationship between Princeton students and faculty and Samidoun has been replicated at top universities across the country.

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former FBI analyst and deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, told The Free Press that the U.S. and Canadian governments have debated over the last year about designating Samidoun a terrorist group. Their reservation was due to the fact that Western governments do not sanction organizations based just on violent and hateful speech. “They have been saying horrible and nasty things,” Levitt said. “We don’t designate people for saying nasty things.” 

What turned the tide, according to Levitt, was that Israel had accumulated mounds of evidence that Samidoun was, in effect, a fundraising arm for the PFLP. Some of this information has been available for some time. For example, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy released a report in 2019 that detailed Samidoun’s role in raising money for the PFLP. That report claims that PFLP operatives transferred money from Lebanon to a man named Khaled Barakat when he was living in Europe. On Tuesday, Barakat was also designated as a foreign terrorist financier. His wife, Charlotte Kates, is Samidoun’s “international coordinator.” 

In 2022, the Netherlands barred Kates and Barakat from entering the country where they had planned to land and then drive to a pro-Palestine march in Belgium. More recently, Germany designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization in November 2023. 

Even though PFLP has not captured the headlines of better-known groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, it remains deadly. Although it was not involved in the original planning for October 7, the terrorist group joined the massacre once it was underway. NGO Monitor has published PFLP statements and Telegram posts that show its participation in the 2023 attack, joining after the first wave of Hamas operatives.

[emmikatjohnson]

I designed and printed this poster in 2019. It has never sold well and I still have a lot left that I've been selling as clearance at my live events. They are scratched very easily and many of them are already scratched as show in the images. It does add a fun weathered band posted kind of vibe.

When I pulled them out for an event recently, I realized in horror that when I had designed them 5 years ago I had added Tel Aviv, Israel on the tour list. At the time, I was unaware of Israel's politics, but in light of their continued genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, I have decided to hand modify each remaining poster by crossing out the city and writing "Ceasefire Now!" in it's place.

All proceeds of this poster will be donated to the victims of the genocide.

Support Now!

I have included the "pay what you want" feature, so if you'd like to donate more, you can do that, as well.

I'd like to believe that that is what The Hex Girls meant when they said "Love the Earth"…and everyone in it!

[travelblog]

[mariacallous]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified in court Tuesday in his trial on corruption charges, an unprecedented moment that comes years after he was indicted for fraud, bribery and breach of trust.

Netanyahu has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the cases, which revolve around allegations of bribery and attempting to illicitly shape media coverage. He says the trial is a “witch hunt” meant to take him down politically. He has repeated similar sentiments so far on the stand.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019, the first time a sitting prime minister has been charged in a criminal case, and the trial began in 2020. The proceedings have taken years in part because of pandemic-era restrictions and then because of Israel’s multi-front war that began with the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas invasion.

Netanyahu is indicted in three separate cases: One charges that he received illegal gifts from Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer, including cigars and champagne. Two others revolve around media coverage. One of them charges that he made a secret deal to limit the distribution of a right-wing newspaper in exchange for favorable coverage from one that criticized him, and another says he made regulatory decisions to benefit an Israeli businessman in exchange for favorable coverage on another news site. He is being questioned on all three.

“This is an opportunity to puncture these ridiculous accusations,” Netanyahu said at the start of his testimony, which came after a statement from his defense attorney. He added, “I was astonished at the extent of the absurdity.”

In addition to responding to questions from his lawyer about the cases, Netanyahu has spent time on the stand talking about his political career and events that occurred during his more than 15 years serving as prime minister. He claimed that the vast majority of Israeli media is “left-wing,” although one of the most widely-read papers, Israel Hayom, is seen as pro-Netanyahu.

He also said favorable media coverage is not important to him, and that if it were, “All I would have needed to do is signal and say that it’s OK, there will be two states�� — a Palestinian state alongside Israel, something he has opposed for nearly all of his career. He added, “I would have moved a few steps to the left and been raised up.”

(While Netanyahu interviews on international news outlets relatively frequently, interviews with Israeli media are rarer.)

He also claimed that he dislikes champagne.

His testimony is far from a one-day affair. He is scheduled to appear in court three days a week, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., until questioning is finished. The trial is being held in the Jerusalem District Court, but Netanyahu’s testimony is taking place in an underground courtroom in Tel Aviv for security reasons.

Netanyahu and his allies, in addition to decrying the charges themselves, have said the testimony schedule is an unreasonable burden on a prime minister at wartime, but attempts to push it off have been unsuccessful. Several lawmakers from his Likud Party were in the courtroom to watch him take the stand, including Transportation Minister Miri Regev and Amir Ohana, the speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Pro- and anti-Netanyahu protesters also assembled outside the courthouse.

[opencommunion]

"On July 26, 2014, the nineteenth day of Israel’s 2014 summer assault on Gaza, I saw a large group of Israelis on the news marching in the streets of Tel Aviv waving Israeli flags, encouraging their state to continue its bombardment of Gaza while chanting in celebration: In Gaza there’s no studying No children are left there, There’s no school tomorrow, There’s no children left in Gaza! Oleh! Gaza is a graveyard. Calls for the killing of Palestinian children, the destruction of their schools, and the transformation of their home, the Gaza Strip, into a graveyard are not confined to the chanting of angry rightwing nationalist mobs, as some might argue in an effort to dismiss the acute danger of such spectacles and the messages that are implicit or explicit in such displays. High-ranking Israeli officials and policymakers also speak this language of the mob. In July 2014, Israeli lawmaker and justice minister Ayelet Shaked posted the text of an article by Uri Elitzur, the late Israeli journalist and advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to Palestinian children as little snakes: 'They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.' In calling for the genocide of the Palestinians while simultaneously animalizing their children, the justice minister’s rhetoric goes hand in hand with that of the mob – there shall be no schooling in Gaza because no children must remain there. ... Keeping Palestinians living as dogs, as [Moshe] Dayan stated, or labelling them 'little snakes,' as Shaked did, are acts rooted in the violent formation of the settler-colonial state. This language presents a classic case of blaming the victim. It animalizes the Other in order to normalize and decriminalize genocidal acts against them. ... Inside Gaza, an unending process of displacement and dismemberment is the way of life, amounting to an ongoing genocide." Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding (2019)

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

▪️GAZA - IDF ATTACKING RAFAH.. the most southern city of Gaza, and the one that connects Gaza to Egypt - both via entry port and likely smuggling tunnels, and the last Hamas stronghold.  Multiple reports of IDF airstrikes into Rafah this morning.

▪️HOSTAGE PROTEST IN FRONT OF IDF HQ.. Hostage families and activists for their release blocked Begin Road in front of the Kirya base in Tel Aviv (across from Arielli) last night in protest against the “poison campaign” that they say is being waged against the families and demanding a deal that would lead to the release of their relatives.

▪️DEFENSE MINISTER ON LEBANON.. "We are pushing the enemy. The military operation gives Hezbollah an understanding that it is better for it to choose the political path, and at the same time proves our military capabilities." 

▪️SYRIA - OVERNIGHT ATTACKS ON HOMS.. airstrikes, though local channels report civilian deaths from failed air defense missiles rather than the attack.  Sources associated with the regime list 4 sites that were attacked:  Elkzir area (Kosair) southwest of Homs- civilian casualties from air defenses, Havat Aloer and the eastern area of Tadmor Square, Hamra Street in the city of Homs, a building collapsed, and in the area of the municipal stadium - civilian casualties from air defenses, the Alauras area in Homs.  While likely Israel, the IDF does NOT confirm attacks in Syria.

▪️US HOUSE REJECTS ISRAEL AID DUE TO INTERNAL POLITICS..  The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Republican-led bill on Tuesday that would provide $17.6 billion to Israel, as Democrats said they wanted a vote instead on a broader measure that would also provide assistance to Ukraine, international humanitarian funding and new money for border security.  The vote was 250 to 180, falling short because it was introduced under an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage.  The against was mostly Democrats.

▪️US PRESSURE… A senior American administration official told NBC: The Biden administration is exploring various options, including recognition of a Palestinian state, which would give legal and symbolic status to the Palestinians and add international pressure on Israel to take part in meaningful negotiations that would lead to sustainable peace. (( First, as always where is the pressure on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority for “meaningful negotiations”?  Second, this is a classic “we’re not doing that, but some anonymous official is saying we might - to create pressure” tactic. Third, we will not suicide because defending ourselves doesn’t meet your expectations. ))

▪️IRAN FUNDING HAMAS.. IDF captures documentation showing direct funding from Iran, in years 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2020, Hamas leader Sinwar received $15 million, $48 million, $42 million, and $12 million, respectively. 

▪️HOUTHI SHIPPING ATTACKS.. US Central Command: “Yesterday the Houthis launched 6 missiles at two merchant ships - one Greek and one British. 3 missiles were launched at the Greek ship, one exploded near the ship and caused minor damage. One was intercepted by the destroyer USS Laboon and one fell in the water. 3 missiles that were launched at the British ship - they all missed.

▪️US/UK ATTACKS ON YEMEN.. Arab sources reported a British-American attack overnight in the Hudaydah area of Yemen.

▪️IDF announces grants and tax reductions for disabled IDF veterans, according to the percentage of disability (in Israel you get a disability rating of 19-100%, and disability support is based on the percentage.)

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #543:

Kate Miller-Heidke, Australia's 2019 representative, is a well decorated opera singer. She has performed for the English National Opera, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and has even composed her own opera called The Rabbits.

[Source]

Participants of Tel Aviv 2019: Kate Miller-Heidke, Eurovision.tv.