Artists’ anti-war petition sparks fierce backlash

Responses to petitions calling for an end to the Gaza war and condemning the killing and starvation reveal how toxic Israeli public discourse has become.

In early August, some 1,300 members of Israel’s arts and culture community, including some of its best-known and best-loved performers, signed a petition calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza. A second, similar petition was signed by another 1,300 designers and architects.

Signatories of the first petition included David Grossman and Etgar Keret, musicians Achinoam Nini, Chava Alberstein, Gidi Gov, and Assaf Amdursky, and filmmakers Ari Folman and Nadav Lapid. Many them perform, often pro bono, for survivors of October 7, bereaved families, wounded soldiers and evacuees from the Gaza Envelope and the north.

The petition, organised by Eyal Sher, director of the Israel Festival and the International Jerusalem Jazz Festival, read:

"Don't risk committing war crimes! Don't abandon the principles of human morality and the values of Judaism! Stop the war. Bring all the hostages home. Now."

The intent of the petition, says Sher, is to “retrain our compassion muscles, to give expression to the values that we want to live by. We wanted to raise the complexities of the situation – to support our country, and our army, and to engage Israeli society in a discussion about what is being done in Gaza in our name.”

But in Israel’s hyperpoliticised society, in which public statements must be either “for or against,” there is little room for complexity or engagement.