London: Pro-Palestine protesters disrupt Israeli performance

Pro-Palestine campaigners have disrupted a performance by the Israeli regime’s theatre company at London’s Globe Theatre by standing up during the performance with Palestinian flags and banners denouncing “The Israeli Apartheid regime.”

On May 28, when Israel’s Habima Company was performing Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant Of Venice’ during the Globe to Globe festival, a group of 15 demonstrators started waving Palestinian flags.

The police also arrested a man on suspicion of assault on a security guard, with the Scotland Yard confirming his keeping in custody.

The Palestinian-led global movement for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel had made a call to boycott the Habima’s Hebrew-language performance as the Israeli company was working with the apartheid regime of Israel as a “cultural ambassador.”

“This campaign is not an attack on individual artists, we are not censoring the content of their work nor are we concerned about their ethnicity or the language they speak,” said Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, coordinator with the Boycott Israel Network.

“As with South African sport in the apartheid era, this is about refusing to allow culture to be used to whitewash oppression.”

London theatre has vowed “enhanced security” for Israel by sending a letter to ticket holders, outlining extraordinary measures including extensive bag and “random body searches,” aiming to prevent protesters expected to disrupt the controversial performance on 28-29 May 2012.

However, the boycott Israel activist group London BDS accused the Globe of “turning the theater into an Israeli-style checkpoint.”

“We tried non-violently to convey the message that culture may not be used to give a civilized gloss to a state that perpetrates human rights abuses,” said protester Zoe Mars.

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