Alicia Keys Going Ahead with Performance in Israel
The singer joined the ranks of Madonna, Alanis Morissette and Macy Gray by going ahead with her planned performance in Israel on July 4.
When Alicia Keys announced that she would be performing in Israel on July 4, she sparked an online war zone with herself at the center. Whether she knew it or not, she would become another poster child for supporters of Israel, like Madonna, Alanis Morissette and Macy Gray before her.
On the other hand, after Keys' announcement, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters both wrote open letters to Keys urging her to cancel her show in Tel Aviv.
“It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists," Walker wrote in her letter.
Walker and Waters are supporters of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which began in 2004, growing out of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or the BDS Movement. Other artists in support of PACBI include the film and television director Ken Loach, the late poet and essayist Adrienne Rich and the legendary folk singer Pete Seeger
