Despite widespread urging by human rights leaders and activists to cancel a performance in Israel, American pop singer Alicia Keys announced she would be performing in the country on July 4. She has now become what activists say is an open supporter of Israel's Apartheid state alongside the likes of Madonna, Alanis Morisette, Macy Gray and others before. After confirming she would be performing, 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. The announcement is being met with calls for her to cancel the concert from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). "We all ask Alicia Keys to stand on the side of justice and cancel her gig in Tel Aviv, Israel.Alicia Keys is scheduled to play to a segregated audience in Israel on July 4, 2013 at Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv. Other bands will open for her, but have not been announced yet." Keys said in a statement that she is "excited to go to new places on this tour, among them Tel Aviv. I plan on bringing with me a show full of emotion and inspiration." Concerning the call to boycott, the Times of Israel wrote that many "prominent recording artists announced their arrival and then canceled, often following pressure from the anti-Israel set." The latest artist to cancel a show after a call to boycott was Stevie Wonder. Wonder was an outspoken critic of South Africa under its system of apartheid. The BDS movement draws on the move to boycott and divest in apartheid South Africa in its mission statement: In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions" Lollapalooza has also removed dates in Israel from its upcoming tour citing budgetary concerns. BN
