Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
22 May 2009
After having talks with the platforms promoting the boycott of Israel and with representatives of Catalan institutions and gathering as much information as possible about the events taking place on 24-25 May at Acre, Israel in which La Carrau has been invited to participate, we feel that we should make the following public statement:
La Carrau is canceling its visit to Acre
First of all we would like to make very clear our total respect for the people of Israel and their different ethnic groups and cultures. We would also like to point out that we did not intend to take part for profit; we were invited to go, not hired. Our reward, rather than economic, was to be the chance to visit some wonderful places and get a close look at ways of life that are very different from our own, due not only to their cultural characteristics but also to the obvious incongruities of a problem that is still unresolved: the imbalance of cultures and religions.
Having said this, the reasons that finally led us to take our decision were:
– That in spite of the efforts we have made to contact different people, entities and media organisations, we have not been able to determine the exact nature of the events in which we are invited to take part.
– That we understand and agree with the arguments given by the network of platforms for the cultural boycott of Israel, as long as this boycott is not aimed at personal initiatives and only affects events orchestrated by the institutions of the Israeli state.
– That we do not wish to have anything to do with an event that could be used as propaganda by the official institutions of the state of Israel, and this seems especially likely when the promoter is the town council of Acre, which is extremely right wing and xenophobic in character.