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Edinburgh festival: no change on Israelis despite boycott campaign

July 16, 2012 16:46

ByJennifer Lipman, Jennifer Lipman

1 min read

The organisers of the Edinburgh International Festival have said they will not bow to pressure after pro-Palestinian campaigners called for an invitation to an Israeli dance company to be withdrawn.

Israel's Batsheva Dance Company is due to perform three shows at the event between August 30 and September 1, as part of a UK-wide tour.

But the company has been targeted by pro-Palestinian activists in Dundee, who called for the shows to be disrupted on the basis that Batsheva is "actively complicit in whitewashing Israeli human-rights abuses, apartheid, and occupation of Palestinian land" because it receives funding from the Israeli government.

Prominent anti-Israel groups, as well as individual activists from MP Jeremy Corbyn to journalist John Pilger and Yvonne Ridley, have now backed a letter sent under the auspices of the 'Don't Dance with Israeli Apartheid' campaign.