{"id":92431,"date":"2022-01-14T17:00:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92431"},"modified":"2022-01-14T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T10:18:07","slug":"22-00-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92431","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Diplomat Slams Antisemitic, \u2018Aggressive\u2019 BDS Campaign Against Sydney Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Israeli Diplomat Slams Antisemitic, \u2018Aggressive\u2019 BDS Campaign Against Sydney Festival<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The homepage of the 2022 Sydney Festival\u2019s website. Photo: Screenshot.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Deputy Ambassador to Australia Ron Gerstenfeld called organizers of a boycott against the 2022 Sydney Festival \u201cagents of chaos\u201d for pressuring artists to withdraw from the event because of its $20,000 sponsorship deal with an Israeli embassy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard a lot about people being targeted, being threatened, through social media of course but also through other means,\u201d he said Wednesday on Australia\u2019s morning news show\u00a0\u201cRN Breakfast.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0He also commented on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement\u2019s \u201cantisemitic\u201d and \u201caggressive campaign\u201d against performers, saying, \u201cThey want to do everything in their power to destroy, to distract, they don\u2019t want the embassy to continue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sydney Festival kicked off on Jan. 6, but not before more than 30 acts pulled out in protest of the festival\u2019s $20,000 sponsorship agreement with the Israeli Embassy in Australia, funding to support the Sydney Dance Company\u2019s performance of \u201cDecadance,\u201d a piece by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.<\/span><\/p>\n

BDS supporters had also said that Australia\u2019s celebrated Belvoir Theatre was boycotting the festival, but the theater company denied those claims in\u00a0a statement<\/a>\u00a0released on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The festival said on its website that it regularly partners with foreign embassies and cultural agencies, and Gerstenfeld told \u201cRN Morning\u201d that the Israeli embassy was asked to financially support the performance of \u201cDecadance\u201d by \u201csomeone from the management of the festival.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey told us about it \u2026 and we were happy and honored to support it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think about it twice \u2026 and no strings attached. We didn\u2019t ask any promises from [the festival] or the dance company to do something, we didn\u2019t intervene in anything, so it\u2019s a bit of hypocrisy to say we are doing some sort of art-wash in order to hide some kind of Israeli activities in any other sphere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Jan. 4, festival organizers\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0they would not terminate their partnership with the Israeli embassy, despite facing pressure to do so from boycotters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Australian Jewish Association has called for anti-BDS laws at the state and federal levels. Robert Gregory, AJA\u2019s director of public affairs, wrote in\u00a0the\u00a0Australian Jewish News<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Thursday that the group had secured support from some organizations, but understands that such legislation would only be advanced by the government \u201cif the Jewish community unites behind it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sydney Festival chairman David Kirk apologized on Thursday for its handling of the fallout over the Israeli embassy partnership, and for putting artists in a \u201cvery difficult position.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThey feel compromised, many of them, and many of them are being pressurized to withdraw their performances from the festival,\u201d he told \u201cRN Breakfast\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in an interview. \u201cAnd we\u2019re very sorry about that. That is something we would never have wanted to do and we never want to see happen again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked why the festival\u2019s board didn\u2019t anticipate backlash for taking the Israeli embassy\u2019s support, Kirk explained, \u201cI guess we just missed it. I mean, that\u2019s all we can say. We have to, I guess, in that sense, offer a mea culpa.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirk said the festival would undertake a \u201ccomprehensive review\u201d to examine how artists were left feeling \u201cunsafe \u2026 and unhappy.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m not trying to hide from the fact that this was a mess. We should have understood, we should have been prepared to debate this much more fully at the time but we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirk also told the morning show that the \u201cpressuring and battering\u201d some artists received on social media was \u201cunacceptable and entirely inappropriate.\u201d The festival had chosen not to \u201cinflame\u201d the situation by having a \u201cpublic spat\u201d with organizers of the boycott campaign, he said, and instead speaking to artists and other groups privately.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The $20,000 sponsorship agreement was originally scheduled to also help fund a Q&A session hosted by the Israeli embassy, as part of an invitation-only festival event at the Sydney Opera House,\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0<\/em><\/a>reported. However, that event was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The 2022 Sydney Festival runs until Jan. 30.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Israeli Diplomat Slams Antisemitic, \u2018Aggressive\u2019 BDS Campaign Against Sydney Festival Shiryn Ghermezian The homepage of the 2022 Sydney Festival\u2019s website. Photo: Screenshot. Israel\u2019s Deputy Ambassador to Australia Ron Gerstenfeld called organizers of a boycott against the 2022 Sydney Festival \u201cagents of chaos\u201d for pressuring artists to withdraw from the event because of its $20,000 sponsorship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92431"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92443,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431\/revisions\/92443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}