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Israeli Artists Pay Price For Political Views

The decision by singer Ehud Banai to perform at the Susya settlement reignited the debate over the political commitment of Israeli artists.
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Two years ago [September 2011] the cultural center in the West Bank settlement Kiryat Arba opened its doors. About 500 Israeli artists and performers signed a petition to refuse to perform there. In a letter accompanying the petition, the signatories wrote, “Kiryat Arba is an especially extremist and violent settlement, from which Baruch Goldstein set out on his mass-murder journey. We call on directors of theaters to hold their theatrical productions within the bounds of the Green Line and in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel.”

The petition was a direct continuation of a similar struggle that began in advance of the opening of the cultural center in Ariel in November 2010. Then the theater directors dealt with a less thorny problem, since Ariel is not perceived by the Israeli public as an isolated settlement, and its settlers are not extreme in their opinions or deeds. Most of them did not settle there for ideological reasons, but to improve their quality of life and buy an apartment or house at a significantly cheaper price than they could within the Green Line.

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