Date/Time
Date(s) - 8 May 2012
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
The Jerusalem Quartet, the group of Israeli musicians many of you will remember from last year, will be playing at the Corn Exchange Brighton at 7.30pm on Tuesday May 8th. MEET AT 6.30PM AT THE CORN EXCHANGE ENTRANCE. LEAFLETS WILL BE AVAILABLE AND SOME PLACARDS BUT DO MAKE YOUR OWN IF YOU CAN. The Corn Exchange has one entrance on Church Street adjacent to the West Entrance to the Concert Hall. Art and culture have become an important weapon in the Israeli government’s public relations campaign, and in 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched an initiative called “Brand Israel,” to salvage Israel’s deteriorating image abroad. Arye Mekel of Israel’s Foreign Ministry has stated that, “We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits… This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”
The home-base of the Jerusalem String Quartet, the Jerusalem Music Centre, is prominently featured on the Foreign Ministry website, clearly placing the quartet and the other participating cultural institutions in the orbit of the campaign to “re-brand” Israel’s image in the West. Thus, Israel is portrayed as an enlightened centre of arts and technology, thereby concealing the ugly facts about its occupation, racial discrimination and grave violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian rights. The America-Israel Cultural Foundation, a main funder of the Jerusalem String Quartet, has taken as its mission the support of musicians and artists in order to put a different spin on the Israeli apartheid regime: “AICF plays a vital role in Israeli culture. We are the primary source of funding for young artists. These artists show the world a side of Israel many never experience.” It is no wonder that the Jerusalem String Quartet has a link to the America-Israel Cultural Foundation on its website . All four of the quartet members received scholarships from the foundation; and the instruments used by three of them are on loan from the AICF. Through its patronage of young artists like these, the AICF advances its agenda. In turn, by its close ties with and promotion of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, the young artists of the Jerusalem String Quartet become part of the Israel re-branding campaign and are complicit in obscuring, if not whitewashing, Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.
SO WE WILL BE DEMONSTRATING AND LEAFLETTING OUTSIDE THE CORN EXCHANGE TO LET THE AUDIENCE KNOW THAT THEY ARE PARTICIPATING IN AN ISRAELI PROPAGANDA EXERCISE. MEET AT 6.30PM AT THE CORN EXCHANGE ENTRANCE. LEAFLETS WILL BE AVAILABLE AND SOME PLACARDS BUT DO MAKE YOUR OWN IF YOU CAN. The Corn Exchange has one entrance on Church Street adjacent to the West Entrance to the Concert Hall.