[This is truly remarkable!

As one Lorde fan recently wrote: Oh Lorde!

The largest-circulation newspaper in New Zealand is not just defending in the editorial below Lorde’s decision to cancel her Tel Aviv gig, heeding appeals from her fans and BDS activists. It is defending the right to adopt the peaceful tactics of BDS to end Israel’s occupation and international law violations, and it compares BDS for Palestinian rights to the global boycott movement that supported the struggle against apartheid South Africa.

It calls out the Israeli regime for plagiarizing some of its most common anti-BDS arguments from the propaganda playbook of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Phan Nguyen was arguably the first — as far as I can tell — to brilliantly research and expose several aspects of this propaganda plagiarism in this article in Mondoweiss (highly recommended).

Another beautiful article on Lorde’s cancellation is penned by Yousef Munayyer, director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. You can read it here.

From all the positive coverage of Lorde’s refusal to be complicit in art-washing Israel’s brutal crimes against the Palestinian people, one has to agree with the conclusion of Yuval Ben-Ami, an Israeli author who wrote a book on Lorde. He told Newsweek:

“Several other great artists have canceled, [but Lorde] appears to be the first of her generation, and that’s meaningful. I am a huge fan of Lorde, but an even bigger fan of equality. So long as people here live without rights, hers is the right choice, and if the BDS movement is emulated in other places where human rights are a concern, that would be commendable.”

I wish you all a happier, most just and peaceful new year!

Omar Barghouti]