boycott

I first heard at the end of January 2009 that the Israeli dance group, Batsheva, was performing in Minnesota as part of a wider North American tour that would take it to Michigan, Chicago, California, New York and Vancouver. After Israel's brutal December 2008 attack on Gazan civilians and civilian infrastructure, it was definitely time to come out of hibernation, say the hard things, and organize some protest.

As a veteran of the student Anti-Apartheid Movement in London during the 1980s, the notion of cultural boycotts was not alien. After all, cultural boycotts were part of what brought the pressure that ended the Apartheid regime, along with divestment and product boycott campaigns.