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Hundreds of musicians including Massive Attack and Brian Eno are calling for Live Nation, the world’s leading live entertainment company, to drop operations in Israel.
They have signed a new open letter as part of the Musicians For Palestine campaign, urging Live Nation Entertainment to drop its Israel subsidiary, Live Nation Israel.
“We cannot stay silent while Live Nation Israel glorifies the genocidal Israeli military that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza”, the letter reads. “We echo long-standing Palestinian calls for accountability over its years of artwashing of Israeli apartheid and now genocide.”
It continues: “We call on Live Nation Entertainment to uphold all the authoritative demands of Palestinians, by dropping Live Nation Israel, adopting policies to ensure its programming and partnerships are not complicit in oppression anywhere, and respecting the guidelines of Palestinian civil society. Live Nation’s venues and festivals: please echo and adhere to these demands.”
Brian Eno previously organised the Together For Palestine charity concert in London, which took place in September. The artist also features on the Together For Palestine charity single, ‘Lullaby’, which also features Neneh Cherry and Nadine Shah, with lyrics written by Peter Gabriel.
All profits from the song will be donated to Choose Love’s ‘Together For Palestine Fund’, which supports three Palestinian-led charities: Taawon, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and Palestine Medical Relief Service.
Earlier this year, artists like Massive Attack, Björk, Wolf Alice and AURORA joined the No Music For Genocide Israel streaming boycott.
Meanwhile, the Eurovision Song Contest has continued to face strong criticism for keeping Israel on the line-up for its 70th edition, to be held in May 2026. The organisers have allowed the country to compete in next year’s contest, which led to five countries – Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland – to pull out from the event.
Eurovision director Martin Green has responded to the backlash and boycott by saying that “in a challenging world we can indeed by United by Music.”
This has not stopped critics from highlighting the EBU’s hypocrisy, considering the contest prides itself on maintaining political neutrality but still banned Russia in 2022, just days after the invasion of Ukraine.
Last year’s Eurovision winner Nemo has announced they were returning their winner’s trophy, a move followed by 1994’s Eurovision winner, Charlie McGettigan.
We reported yesterday that Austrian public broadcaster ORF, host of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, confirmed it will not prohibit the Palestinian flag in the audience nor censor any booing directed at Israel’s performance.
“We will allow all official flags that exist in the world, if they comply with the law and are in a certain form – size, security risks, etc,” said the show’s executive producer, Michael Kroen. ” We will not sugarcoat anything or avoid showing what is happening, because our task is to show things as they are.”