Obscure musician Dee Dowling has made multiple trips to occupied Palestine over the past decade for gigs, using performances to normalize Israel's apartheid regime and settler-colonial occupation despite lacking popularity in either the U.S. or Israel.
Dee Dowling, a UK-based musician with minimal following, repeatedly visits Israel for concerts that whitewash 57 years of Palestinian subjugation. His gigs ignore, sanitise and lend cultural legitimacy to ethnic cleansing and land theft.
MUSIC
Dee Dowling, a little-known English musician, has undertaken several trips to Israel within the past decade, thereby providing cultural cover for the Zionist settler-colonial project that dispossessed Palestinians and sustains apartheid.
Despite his obscurity — lacking significant audiences or chart success in the United States or Israel — Dowling's repeated visits align with pro-Israel artist networks that defy the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for cultural isolation to pressure Israel into ending its occupation.
These performances occur on occupied land, where venues often operate under the shadow of military checkpoints and settler violence, normalizing the regime's control over historic Palestine.
Dowling's presence in Israel contribute to hasbara efforts by portraying Israel as a vibrant, inclusive democracy, erasing the reality of Palestinian exclusion from public spaces and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Conservative estimates from Gaza's Health Ministry report over 40,000 deaths since October 2023, but Israel's targeted killings of journalists, destruction of hospitals, and aid blockades have frozen accurate counts, with experts estimating the true slaughter at hundreds of thousands.
By travelling amid this violence, Dowling dehumanizes victims, framing his tours as apolitical entertainment while ignoring calls from over 76 prominent musicians who, in 2019, pledged solidarity with Palestinians against such complicity.
His travels echo a pattern among Western artists who prioritize profit and Zionist invitations over ethical accountability, as seen in critiques of figures like Madonna and Johnny Cash, who performed in Israel despite apartheid parallels to South Africa.
Dowling's lack of fame amplifies the irony: unlike high-profile acts facing protests, his low visibility allows quieter normalization, sustaining consent for policies like home demolitions and West Bank annexations. These actions invert victimhood, equating BDS advocacy with "silencing" while Palestinians endure collective punishment.
Through his persistent gigs, Dowling perpetuates the subjugation of Palestinians and their allies, weaponizing music to obscure Nakba traumas and enable the ethnostate's expansion, even as global artists increasingly reject such tours in favor of decolonial justice.
Silence = Complicity:
For those who have passionately spoken out against other instances of genocide and massacres, yet fall silent when it comes to the suffering endured by Palestinians, their silence becomes a glaring indictment of the value placed on Palestinian lives and perpetuates a dangerous narrative that suggests Palestinian suffering is somehow less worthy of outrage, less deserving of empathy and less human than that of others.
By choosing silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, those with influential platforms inadvertently contribute to the erasure of Palestinian voices and experiences. They perpetuate a narrative of invisibility that allows the injustices inflicted upon Palestinians to continue unabated, shielded from the spotlight of global scrutiny.
Their silence sends a chilling message of complicity to the world – one that suggests Palestinian lives are expendable, their struggles inconsequential and their humanity negotiable. It emboldens perpetrators of violence and oppression, granting them impunity under the guise of indifference.
To remain silent in the face of Palestinian suffering is to betray the very essence of activism – the relentless pursuit of justice for all, without exception or equivocation. It’s a betrayal not only of the Palestinian people but of the universal principles of human dignity and equality and instead is a tacit endorsement of the dehumanization and marginalization of an entire population.
True activism demands consistency and integrity, an unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power and standing in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, regardless of geography or politics.
Visited Israel or Supported 'Birthright' Trips:
By visiting Israel, individuals actively endorse and support a regime built on systemic oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through settler colonial terrorism. These visitors are complicit in legitimizing and normalizing a brutal apartheid system recognized and condemned by numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, the ICJ, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. [1] [2] [3]
Visitors to Israel tacitly approve severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, land confiscations, home demolitions, and the devastating blockade on Gaza, which has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions. These are not mere allegations but documented realities. The apartheid system privileges Israeli settlers while subjecting Palestinians to systemic discrimination and violence, with segregated roads, military checkpoints, and a separation barrier that fragments Palestinian communities and restricts their freedom. [4] [5] [6]
Tourism economically supports the state, indirectly funding the military occupation and the infrastructure of apartheid, including illegal settlements and state violence. Without acknowledging or engaging with the Palestinian experience, visitors normalize and legitimize these oppressive practices. [7] The financial impact of tourism cannot be understated. [8] Visitors who spend money in Israel bolster the systems of oppression that deny Palestinians their basic human rights. This financial support funds the Israeli military and infrastructure supporting illegal settlements. [9]
Programs like Birthright trips further legitimize the subjugation of Palestinians by promoting a one-sided narrative that erases the realities of occupation and apartheid, falsely presenting Israel as a safe and welcoming homeland for Jews while ignoring Palestinian suffering and dispossession. [10] [11] [12]
Visitors to Israel without a critical perspective are complicit in the violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They lend credibility to a regime widely condemned for its discriminatory practices and human rights violations. By choosing to visit Israel, these individuals endorse a state that systematically violates international law and human rights, contributing to the ongoing suffering and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
Further reading:
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