BDS says UK performances of Israeli-British duo cancelled following pressure
"Palestinians welcome the cancellation of Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa's concert, which was due to take place in Bristol, UK on the 23rd June and would have whitewashed Israel's genocide against 2.3m Palestinians in Gaza and underlying settler-colonial apartheid regime," the BDS movement said in a post on X on Friday.
The movement said Jonny Greenwood, guitarist with Radiohead and The Smile, had performed in Tel Aviv along with Dudu Tassa in May 2024 on a night that "genocidal Israeli forces massacred displaced Palestinians in their tents in Rafah, burning them alive, just a short drive away".
The movement also noted that Tassa has repeatedly performed for Israeli soldiers, "willingly acting as a cultural ambassador for apartheid Israel," and called on the Hackney Church to cancel its scheduled 25th June concert with the pair.
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Middle East Eye
6 days ago
- Middle East Eye
Planned Jordan food festival slammed as 'shameful' amid mass starvation in Gaza
An upcoming food festival in Jordan has sparked fierce condemnation and calls for a boycott amid rising deaths from starvation and dehydration in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israeli blockade. A series of posters for the second annual Jordan International Food Festival - due to take place next month - advertise an "unforgettable culinary experience" that highlights local ingredients and chefs. But they have sparked anger among many on social media who are questioning the promotion of an "extravagant" food event against the backdrop of a hunger crisis and spreading famine in neighbouring Palestine, where at least 100 people have already died from malnutrition. "Gaza is literally dying of hunger, and a few kilometres away, the Jordan International Food Festival is taking place?!" one user commented on Facebook. "A festival of food, extravagance, and photography... over the bodies of children dying of hunger. This is not just a lack of feelings, but a complete moral failure," he continued, adding that people should boycott or cancel the event. "Cancel the food festival in Jordan. No celebration while Gaza is starving," reads an image shared in Instagram templates, a format which allows for photos to be reshared by different users. "A festival just kilometers away from a genocide is not culture - it's complicity." Social media users are calling for the cancellation of the Jordan International Food Festival, saying it's 'shameful' as Palestinians starve to death in Gaza (Instagram/jiffestival)
Middle East Eye
16-07-2025
- Middle East Eye
Superman: Palestinians are not waiting for a white superhero saviour
James Gunn's new Superman has sparked a lot of excitement and criticism since its release last week. The controversy is about the movie plot that appears to upend the typical superhero formula, with a new geopolitical framing. Gunn has brought a fresh take to the tired old America-is-best cliche of US blockbusters, although he is not the first to explore the dangers of military-technological capitalism. Some viewers are reading Superman as a not-so-subtle attack on Israel, with the US-allied white European regime of Boravia, led by a David Ben Gurion lookalike, attacking its poor, non-white neighbour Jarhanpur. (Spoiler alert) The visual symbolism of key scenes - with a heavily armed army confronting unarmed protestors at a security fence - speaks strongly of Israel's border fence with Gaza and its repeated invasions of the Palestinian territory. For right-wing commentators, this is a step too far, with conservatives accusing the film of "going woke" with its politics. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Gunn began working on the film in 2022, so its germination predates the Hamas attack of October 2023 and subsequent Israeli onslaught against Gaza. The chief villain of the movie, Lex Luthor, is portrayed as an Elon Musk-type billionaire who has designs of carving up Jarhanpur with Boravia, and is supplying it with billions in weapons. So far, so 2020s Middle East geopolitics. Superman is a naive good guy who loves his super-dog Crypto and saves squirrels from giant city-destroying monsters. Gunn has denied the film is about the Middle East, and in the original comic, the conflict was actually set in Europe. There are strong shades of Russian accents and Putin-style dictatorship in Boravia, which blurs the case that it is supposed to be a Jewish state (although the east European origins of many Israelis fuels the idea of this being an Israel-Palestine plot). Superman the peacemaker Superman's girlfriend-reporter Lois Lane interviews him for the Daily Planet about his intervention to stop a Boravian invasion of Jarhanpur. She points to the repressive nature of the regime there, and Superman immediately responds that this is not an excuse to invade the country. This interchange is where the real contemporary political arguments are laid out against US intervention and regime change wars. Superman confronts the more serious problem of how he can save the world when the enemy of world peace is a rogue USA and its aggressive ally A later scene of Boravia's invasion of Jarhanpur is what most viewers have focused on, with a young boy hoisting the national flag as tanks and heavily armed troops advance menacingly and unarmed protesters flee under fire. The scene speaks to the Gaza Great March of Return protests along the Israeli border fence in 2018 and 2019, when more than 200 Palestinians were killed and over 8,000 injured by Israeli sniper fire. Superman was created as a symbol of American power in the run-up to World War Two. While superheroes are not all direct cyphers of US imperialism, the idea of a 'superpower' that enables a character to defeat its opponents through prolonged bouts of combat is the essence of the American way. Superheroes are F-35s in human form. Compared to the slacker comedy vibes of Gunn's breakout Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, this Superman is your typical wholesome all-American hero, and there are even jokes at his expense when he claims to like lame pop bands that he thinks are punk. And yet, here Superman confronts the more serious problem of how he can save the world when the enemy of world peace is a rogue USA and its aggressive ally. His intervention to save a poor Global South country from invasion is seen as unwarranted intervention against a US enemy. He is demonised as a dangerous alien (by an army of literal Twitter monkeys controlled by Luthor), accused of having a harem of wives to take over the planet and turn humans into slaves. Shades of the great replacement theory. Once the story breaks, the people of Metropolis turn against him and he is arrested and imprisoned. Superman hits the limit of geopolitical critique Hollywood style: the whole thing must be neatly wrapped up, with baddies defeated at the end of the last reel The film also takes a swipe at the military-industrial complex and its links to settler colonialism, with Lex Luthor arming Boravia in order to get his hands on a chunk of territory, like Trump's dream of owning a "Riviera of the Middle East" on the rubble of Gaza. The heroes of the film, aside from Superman, are the Justice Gang trio of corporate-backed superheroes, who reluctantly join the fray against Boravia and the billionaire, and the plucky editorial team of the Daily Planet. And this is where Hollywood reaches the limit of blockbuster geopolitical commentary. Rather than portray the military-technology complex as part of a larger imperial-political-media complex, in the film, the evil enterprise to seize a colonised territory is the work of some bad players. Once their scheme is exposed, the media and the corporate superheroes do the right thing and move to end the dastardly plot. The US government is almost a passive bystander being played by Luthor. Ordinary heroes To be fair to Gunn's script, in the film, a South Asian man in Metropolis comes to the rescue of Superman when one of Luthor's clone super soldiers injures him. The man is immediately profiled by Luthor's operation room surveillance system, and is later captured and used as a hostage to get Superman to reveal the location of his lair. His fate is the fate of all ordinary super humans who lay down their lives for others in the face of a brutal imperial machine. This is probably the most truthful moment in the movie. No wonder that Israel and its backers have taken a strong dislike to the film. Arch Israel propagandist Ben Shapiro merely wrote: 'Not Good.' How the New York Times enabled genocide 'more than Starbucks' | Mona Chalabi Read More » Yet if the movie was going to make more than a nod toward the themes that it has used as a backdrop for the usual explosions, monster fights and midair punch-ups, it would need to go deeper. The idea that a New York Times-style paper of record, and a mainstream TV broadcaster would turn around and expose plans to invade and annexe territory by a US-backed settler regime is wholly incredible. Instead, they would conceal the truth by portraying the victims as terrorists and describe Boravia as merely 'defending itself'. Superman hits the limit of geopolitical critique Hollywood style: the whole thing must be neatly wrapped up, with baddies defeated and the people saved at the end of the last reel. The idea of a US team of crack superheroes casually destroying a US allied army in the Middle East to save the indigenous people from invasion is, of course, for the birds. And for that reason, it doesn't really land dramatically. Palestinians are not waiting for any western superheroes to save them. Their allies are the hundreds of millions of people around the world who demand their liberation and an end to genocide. The superheroes are the people risking their lives on aid convoys, and the Palestinian medical and aid staff trying to save lives under Israeli siege. Perhaps this goes without saying, but one day, we might actually see these heroes in a Hollywood movie. I won't hold my breath. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye
14-07-2025
- Middle East Eye
Did Superman call out Israel?
The newly released Hollywood blockbuster Superman: Legacy, which premiered globally on 11 July, is drawing intense social media attention for what many viewers perceive as a bold "pro-Palestine" stance. While director James Gunn has not publicly confirmed any references, online audiences are calling the film one of the most politically charged superhero stories in recent memory, with comparisons to Israel's war on Gaza and the US immigration raids taking centre stage. Set partly in the fictional country of Boravia, a high-tech military ally of the US, the film follows Superman as he confronts a regime accused of invasion, surveillance of dissenters and weapons-fuelled domination over a neighbouring population confined behind a border fence. The plot has struck a nerve with many viewers who see parallels to the ongoing war in Gaza. One of the most widely circulated Reddit posts under the subreddit "Israel" encapsulated the concern from pro-Israel audiences: New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'Have you all seen the new Superman movie? I find it so disrespectful and distressing that a superhero created by two Jewish artists is now being used to promote anti-Israeli messages to the world… I can't understand how this was green-lit at a time like this with global antisemitism on a rise... Of course, the invaders are portrayed as white while the victims are predominantly brown. And of course, if Israel speaks out against the film, it would be seen as 'well, if the shoe fits.'" Honestly I thought y'all were exaggerating calling Superman anti-Israel but oh? That wasn't even subtle — . (@kingbealestreet) July 13, 2025 Users responding on Twitter wrote: 'It's so funny that they instantly recognize that the movie is about Israel's genocide in Gaza without being told and yet still have the temerity to get offended and express their indignation in public. It's like how come you know the evil murderous villains are Israel, guys?' One user compared the concluding scene to images from the 2018 Great March of Return in Gaza. At first during Superman I was like 'this can't be about Palestine' until it was revealed the invading country is a US ally receiving billions in weapons sales from Lex Luthor and the ending resembles the 2018 Gaza border protests Go see this movie. It is SO good 🙂↕️ — gregor samsung 𖢥 (@slimjosa) July 13, 2025 Political commentator Hasan Piker weighed in with his own theory, saying the film's villain - the leader of Boravia - was 'based on David Ben-Gurion', Israel's founding prime minister. 'A lot of people are saying it's [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,' the Twitch streamer said. 'But I think it's Ben-Gurion. It's two hours and 10 minutes of fuck Israel.' bringing this back—in real life, children of Gaza don't have a superman so it was important to get the message and news out there through any means they could. THE S STANDS FOR HOPE. THIS IS WHAT SUPERMAN IS FOR. — honey (@saintpattinson) July 13, 2025 Alongside the film's perceived messaging on Gaza, many viewers said the movie took a strong pro-immigration stance - one that landed during a critical moment in the US amid a wave of Ice deportation raids across the country. Some fans drew a connection between these real-world events and the film's portrayal of Superman, who has historically been depicted in comics and films as an alien from another planet raised in the US Midwest. Viewers online interpreted this framing as a deliberate emphasis on immigrant identity. Israeli 'counter-advertising' Still, not everyone was thrilled. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro promised a critical review, posting simply: 'Not. Good. Review coming soon.' The Israeli consulate in Los Angeles also appeared to respond to the film with two stylised Facebook posts. One used the hashtag #The_Real_Superheroes alongside a glossy, seemingly AI-generated image of Israeli soldiers posed like comic book characters. The other was a trailer-style video declaring: 'When evil rises in all its glory, that's when the true superheroes are revealed'. It featured Israeli soldiers, captives and emergency workers. A social media user summed up the general response to the posts: 'Israel is so disturbed by Superman calling them out as genocidal racists they're counter advertising.' In a social media post following the film's release, Gunn said he was proud to have made a version of Superman that emphasised 'the 'man' part of the equation' - describing him as 'a kind person always looking out for those in need". "That that resonates so powerfully with so many people across the world is in itself a hopeful testament to the kindness and quality of human beings." Landing and social media photo: Superman: Legacy poster (IMDB)
