"Paul Simon, Don't Break Cultural Boycott Again!"

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Dear Paul Simon,

We are members of BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within [Israel].[1] We were dismayed to read that you're planning to Preform in Israel at the end of this year.[2] In 2005, Palestinian civil society initiated a call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) from Israeli institutions, companies and academia, as a response to an over-60-year-old human rights crisis, involving military occupation and the development of a crushing system of apartheid, very similar to that practiced in apartheid South Africa.[3] We are Israeli citizens who have chosen to support the call, and we ask you not to break the cultural boycott; Please don't perform in apartheid Israel, until our government reverses its policies.

Preforming in Israel today is a direct crossing of an anti-apartheid picket line. This line is drawn every time a Palestinian chooses to protest the Israeli occupying power. And every time this line is drawn children, women and men are arrested, injured, maimed and killed. The right to protest has been taken away from Palestinians, and such has been the fate of their lands, homes, freedom of movement, infrastructure, and lives, taken away by the Israeli government with impunity.

You once created the anti-war Songs of America, and understood what it meant to stand in solidarity with the victims of war and occupation of the United States of America. The Palestinian people's situation is no different, as the U.S. funds the Israeli occupation with an annual military budget of over 3 billion dollars.[4]

You have a choice: You can choose to ignore the call of the Palestinian people for their freedom, and conduct business as usual with Israel, enhancing it's image of normality to the international community and to its jaded public.[4] Or you can choose to send a powerful message of non-cooperation and civil disobedience, standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding a stop to the endless wars and injustice.