An Open Letter to Nick Cave

Dear Nick Cave 

Excuse me for disturbing  you, thought I'd  send you  a quick  message.You are a skilled songwriter, a idiosyncratic original who I truly have admired, your superb music has for a long time been part of the soundtrack of my life.your voice of  rich emotional depth a valuable source of inspiration to me, however, I have to tell you that I am currently really saddened to  have read that you are more than happy to continue to appease the Israeli regime, to the anguish of myself and your many fans. because at moment this state is now executing a genocidal war against 2 million Palestinians (most of them children) in besieged Gaza as I'm  sure you have not failed to notice.

I really thought maybe after seeing the continuing slaughter, carnage,with  over 40,000 murdered, that you  might change your  mind, but no. you still  support Israel and disapprove a boycott and in the face of a live-streamed genocide you gave this interview to The Jerusalem Post recently with an  astonishing moral bankruptcy .https://www.jpost.com/international/article-817074

It really was so disappointing to  read. I  have previously considered you as a warm, compassionate, sympathetic individual who back 2014, I remember that you supported 9 activists who had climbed onto the roof of the Elbit UK drone factory to protest the Israeli war on Gaza that was happening at the time, so  please could you  possibly tell  me what has changed since then, because the current situation in Gaza is far far worse.

You have also tweeted against the resistance of the indigenous people of Palestine and condemned them for making their own resistance to apartheid. Which implies to me, that you don't care about the oppressed and you are siding with a force that is currently genociding indigenous people.

I too am disgusted by antisemitism, but your current attitude towards the Israel/Palestine  conflict and lack of empathy for the Palestinian people, and your endorsement of the illegal Zionist murderous occupiers is not only dissapointing and  hypocritical, but inexcusable. 

Apparently it’s ok for you to ‘stand with Ukraine’, but it's too complicated to stand against the  genocide taking place in Gaza. So all things considered it  suggests to  me that you  think that the lives of Ukrainians  are more valuable than the lives of Palestinians.or have I misunderstood something ? I  really  hope I have. 

Additionally you have stated that playing in Israel is not an endorsement of the Netanyahu government, but remember that in  spite of this, your concerts in Israel and public positions on the boycott have been used  by Israel which openly uses culture as a form of state propaganda to justify its illegal occupation of Palestine, while  continuing to target civilians and carry out the wholesale erasure of the culture and identity of Palestinians throughout their ancestral lands. 

Just as South African anti-Apartheid activists called for an international boycott which led to the downfall of the Apartheid regime, Palestinians  for  years  have  been asking for a boycott of Israel as part of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Thousands of artists across the world now refuse to perform in Israel.

The cultural boycott of Israel continues to grow, in spite of the efforts by Israeli promoters to willfully ignore it. Thousands of  UK-based artists and cultural workers have signed Artists for Palestine’s online pledge to refuse to perform or exhibit in Israel. As with the boycott of South Africa, there is no “apolitical” choice. You are either with the oppressed or with the oppressor. I really hope you reconsider your  stance and please add your name to the list and respect the boycott.

You can either heed the cry, respect your brothers’ and sisters’ picket line and stand with them in their struggle for the basic human rights we all take for granted, or you can turn your backs on them.

On your new highly emotional record Wild God you continues to grapple with the all-consuming  traumatic nature of grief and  mourning which I  am  aware you know a lot  about. It’s impossible to contemplate your new record without considering the tragic loss of your two sons. It’s often said that the death of a child is an experience that nobody should ever have to go through. The pain that you  genuinely feel  must be immense. Yet you still  insist on defending Israel's abject cruelty, violence and ethnic cleansing , that  has caused so much  collective grief  for the Palestinian  people. your  current thoughts on the current conflict seem to me to be  totally lacking in empathy for  all those suffering in Gaza  right now?  .

I reach out to you as  a fan and admirer with all my heart and urge you as a man who uses  words to embody love, dignity and fairness, to  think again and  take a principled stand and choose humanity over genocide  and  apartheid. It  takes  courage  to change  a steadfast opinion. If  you were somehow  able to do this my utmost respect for you will return once more, as it  would  for so  many others who can see what’s happening in Gaza and refuse  to accept what is happening. In peace. Free Palestine. 

Yours sincerely,

Dave Rendle,aka teifidancer

West Wales

Palestinians have a right to exist and resist.

 

Massive protest have taken place in Israel over the death of  6 hostages. The death of one single innocent human being is sad, deplorable and unacceptable in this day and age, so yes, of course I grieve for the six hostages killed. but I am not sure exactly who was responsible. The Israeli military  have  said the abducted men and women were killed by Hamas, though the group has adamantly  claimed it was IDF fire that killed them.What benefit was it to them to murder hostages after a year of keeping them alive?

It does not make sense. Since journalists are not allowed in Gaza, we are asked to believe whatever the IOF says. It does not add up. Who would want these hostages dead in order to justify further leveling of Gaza, invasion of the West Bank, and a total genocide of the Palestinian people?

Aljazeerah has reported s that the hostages were killed by Israeli  airstrikes, despite indications that a deal for their freedom was near. It is alleged that Netanyahu chose not to negotiate with the group, leading to a targeted operation.. I  have two  questions . When have Israel ever told the truth?  Which international laws have Israel obeyed since Oct 23?

Anyway so much is being said about this by the likes of Srarmer and the press. but in contrast hardly any mention of over 186,000 Palestinians who have been műrderēd, thousands maimed, starvation as a genocidal tactic, permanently destroyed soil as a result of white phosphorus, everything decimated, while the ethnostate is now currently using polio as a weapon, but all anyone ever hears about are a few hostages. No  mention  of the 9000 Palestinian hostages  currently  being  held  by held in detention by an illegally occupying force without trial and in defiance of the Geneva convention..

How can people identify with the pain felt by Israelis over the fate of their hostages, when these same Israelis turn out to be cold-hearted and indifferent to the fate of the other side's hostages?  Why should the whole world take an interest and work only for our for Israeli hostages, and not for the Palestinian hostages, whose conditions of imprisonment and whose deaths in Israeli prisons should horrify everyone?

Incidentally five months ago, Hamas agreed to release all their hostages in exchange for all Palestinian hostages and prisoners. Instead of an all-for-all deal, Israel chose to carry out a genocide against the people of Gaza, killing many of its own civilians in the process. I dream of a day that Israeli leaders care more about saving the lives of their own people than they do about killing the lives of innocent Palestinian people. 

For their entire existence, Israel has brutally dominated every aspect of Palestinian life, and Israel has absolutely no right to do that, as a result of this systematic oppression Palestinians have the right to  exist and defend themselves and resist. Israelis in occupied Palestine don't.

As I write this, Gaza is still being bombed, its citizens massacred by a state that has dehumanised itself as well as its powerful supporters over the years, each decade worse than the one before. There is no moral, political, or military equivalence as far as the two sides are concerned. Israel is a nuclear state, armed to the teeth by the US. Its existence is not under threat. 

Today dozens of Palestinians have been killed in another deadly day as Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza. The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 42 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours. This includes at least six people killed after Israel bombed and destroyed the building of Namaa College in Gaza City, while several homes and residential complexes have been targeted in areas including Nuseirat and Deir el-Balah. 

At least 40,861 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war on the Palestinian territory, the vast majority of whom are innocent civilians. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have continued deadly raids across the West Bank on Wednesday, with at least 33 Palestinians killed over the course of a week of military violence in the illegally occupied territory, including seven children, with over 130 wounded.

While Israel calls Palestinian resistance terrorism, the Palestinian people have a right to armed resistance. It is guaranteed to them under international law which is unambiguous in its endorsement of “armed struggle” for peoples who seek self-determination under “colonial and foreign domination.”  United Nations resolution 37/43, dated 3 December 1982, “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” 

Moreover, the resolution’s preamble makes clear that it refers not to a hypothetical in the abstract, but rather specifically to the rights of Palestinians, stating, “Considering that the denial of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, sovereignty, independence and return to Palestine and the repeated acts of aggression by Israel against the peoples of the region constitute a serious threat to international peace and security.” 

Under international law, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal, and Palestinians have a right to “armed struggle” against their illegal occupier – Israel - thus ipso facto Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against Israel, but Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian resistance is not guaranteed in the same manner. A fact that is denied and violated by Israel and wilfully overlooked by the rest of the world.

A people living under foreign belligerent occupation may employ armed resistance against their oppressors. Palestinian people are an occupied nation and have the right under the  United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2625 which explicitly endorsed a right to resist "subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation". Palestinians are doing nothing illegal. The occupiers are. 

The issue for the Israeli state is indeed not the nature of the act of resistance by the Palestinians, whether peaceful or armed, or even its ideology, but that any challenge to the structures of occupation and colonisation must be criminalised and suppressed. Prior to Hamas and until today, PLO factions, from leftist organisations to Fateh, Palestinian progressives and democrats, and civilians without any clear ideology, have all suffered Israeli repression.

We shouldn’t be ashamed to declare our support for legitimate armed resistance. International law  allows it. Palestinians have a moral and legal right to resist their own genocide, the theft of their land and their heritage and their culture and their own extermination by the Apartheid State.

The word “resist” terrifies Israel, but for Palestinians, it is a matter of survival. It is a refusal to be subjected to physical, psychological, economic, social, and political violence and abuse. The fact that their occupiers are Jewish is deeply irrelevant - it is human nature to resist your own annihilation by whomever it is that murders your people, steals your land, and tortures your children. Palestinian people are fighting because they have to. They use the means they deem necessary because they have to. They fight as a means to an end, not as the end itself.

Jews in concentration camps had the right to resist their Nazi oppressors. Black folk in apartheid South Africa had the right to resist their white oppressors.  And the Palestinians have the right to resist their Zionist oppressors and also have the right to freedom, dignity, safety, and self-determination. It's really not complicated. Free Palestine.

Dance Upon September's Waves

While the land  lies wounded

Reach out for a sense of calm,

Dance upon September's Waves 

Leave behind broken spirit, 

Beyond  melancholic auras

Feel fractiously slip away,

The mind sobering down 

Heals tired shattered spirit,

As Dawn rises without a care 

Sway with rythms pulse, 

Fill heart with hues of love 

That make your soul leap, 

Inhale poetical vibrations

May music ignite peace,

In morning of deep serenity 

Cast away synergy of anxiety.