Review of 2024: a year of protests and boycotts

2024 has been a big year for the overlap of music and politics. However, no topic has made its mark on 2024’s musical community quite like Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which is characterised as ‘genocide’ by the UN special committee. Since the escalation of violence following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, we’ve seen individuals, festivals and venues grapple with either taking a stance or maintaining a silence.

In February, Arts Council England (ACE) updated their policies, warning against arts organisations making ‘overtly political or activist’ art. While they stated that this new ruling had nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza, a freedom of information request (FOI) made by the actors union Equity revealed that these new steps were discussed between the council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on December 12, 2023, under an item titled ‘Reputational risk relating to Israel-Gaza conflict.’ Following this, filmmaker Asif Kapadia retweeted a 2022 ACE statement of solidarity with Ukraine, outlining what many would consider a direct double standard.

In 2023, accusations of censorship were levied at streaming giants, including Spotify and Apple Music, after they temporarily removed Mohammed Assaf’s 2015 song ‘My Blood is Palestinian’. While the platform claimed the removal was due to distribution disputes, some believed the motives were politically charged, especially as, at the same time, the Zionist group We Believe in Israel (WBII) had created a petition, which received close to 4,000 signatures, for the removal of what they described as ‘anti-Israel’ content from Spotify.

Other accusations of silencing pro-Palestinian voices include the Royal Academy being called out after removing works related to the conflict in their Artist Summer Show and the Barbican cancelling a series of lectures, including one set to be led by Indian author Pankaj Mishra entitled ‘The Shoah After Gaza’.

As the conflict escalated – according to Al Jazeera, at the time of writing, 44,970 Palestinians have been murdered since October 7 – pro-Palestinian groups called for boycotts to raise awareness of the situation. This was perhaps best publicised through the call organised by Queers For Palestine to ask the UK’s Eurovision contestant Olly Alexander to boycott this year’s competition, which took place in May. This open letter was signed by over 450 artists, including bands like Goat Girl, H Sinno and Chardine Taylor-Stone. This was largely due to accusations of bias being thrown at the competition after organisers refused to allow Russia to partake in the 2022 iteration but allowed Israeli singer Eden Golan to continue with her performance. She has since joined the IDF as a volunteer. In the end, Alexander decided to participate, citing his belief in the power of music to unify and his wishes for peace.

Other boycotts include those organised by Bands Boycott Barclays, who facilitated multiple bands, including Speed, Scowl and Ithaca, to pull out of Download Festival over Barclays’ ties to Israel. Previously, pressure from the same action group saw over 100 acts quit the Great Escape music festival, and artists including Lankum called for Latitude Festival to drop Barclays as a sponsor, expressing on Twitter, ‘We firmly believe that collective action is the most effective action.’ Not only did Barclays suspend sponsorship of all Live Nation Festivals following the protests but, according to Palestine Action, the bank has sold all shares in Elbit Systems, a key weapons manufacturer arming the Israeli military, following collective action. Barclays have since published a counter-statement stating that the listing of any shares in Elbit was not due to an active investment on their part, but due to ‘client-driven transactions.’

Artists who have directly spoken out in solidarity with Palestine include musicians who signed the ‘Music for a Ceasefire’ statement, as well as artists such as Massive Attack and Jerry Dammers, who have vocally renewed their support for Palestine since the escalation in violence. This summer, we also heard cries of ‘Free, Free Palestine’ at many UK festivals like Glastonbury and WOMAD, with groups including Kneecap, DAM and Emel sounding the charge. Within the industry, however, some believe more still needs to be done.

“This year, we’ve needed artists to be clear and forthright in their positions on genocide,” declares music writer Robert Kazandjian. “This shouldn’t be a political position, but it fucking is because there are a lot of spineless rats in this business.” Kazandjian does shout out Mustafa the Poet, who has organised fundraisers and released tracks which directly address the violence in Gaza, and also directs me to a Pitchfork article which names Mustafa’s Artists for Aid fundraiser as one of the only major pro-Palestine fundraising events in the US which have come out of the music industry this year.

On a recent panel at an off-WOMEX event in Manchester, DJ Irfan Rainy echoed Kazandjian’s frustration, stating that out of the bands who boycotted The Great Escape, many of them were smaller grassroots groups with more to lose. “If you’re big enough, you hold more power”, he states simply, “You should be
flying the flag.”

Of particular importance at the panel and elsewhere has been how to ensure Palestinians are part of any debate that the music industry is having on the crisis. Lorena Junghans, an impact producer and manager who works with Palestinian artists, says the most influential thing UK artists can do is use their networks to help support Palestinian musicians in building their own resilient structures. “While fundraisers are great, what the Palestinian music scene needs is long-term support. If a venue were to decide, for example, to dedicate a small percentage of their profits to the scene, this will start to create a structure for the music industry in Palestine so that we’re not dependent on other structures.”

As it stands, though there has been some solidarity and campaigning, absent or confused messaging and a lack of dialogue from across the industry has left many Palestinians feeling isolated from the West when it comes to finding solutions. Palestinian artist Ahmed Eid, initiator of the Palestine Music Space in Ramallah, was also at the panel in Manchester. He said: “We can’t be dependent on a white colonial system. I’m fucking out – we will find our own structures.”