SA musicians join the pro-Palestine chorus for Gaza
More than 15 local artists are playing across three venues – including an iconic East End pub – this weekend to raise funds to help Palestinians rebuild in Gaza.
A group of South Australian artists, formed initially in protest against an Israeli electronic duo performing in Adelaide last month, will take to three stages in the city this weekend to raise funds for an organisation hoping to get Palestinian people in Gaza back on their feet following months of conflict.
The collective – Musicians for Palestine Kaurna Yarta – is throwing a Solidarity Sounds mini-festival on Saturday, at three venues: Somewhere House, Interim Studios and iconic pub The Exeter.
The group is raising money for The Sameer Project – a Palestinian-led donations-based initiative working to supply aid to families in Gaza.
Big names in the local band scene are taking part, including the likes of rising folk star Ella Ion – who recently picked up two awards at the SA Music Awards – as well as Effie Isobel, Bianca Feher, Grace Vandals and The Genevieves.
They join other local artists who have made statements via Musicians for Palestine Kaurna Yarta’s Instagram account, which was created in response to Israeli duo Infected Mushroom playing in Adelaide. They were initially meant to play at UniBar, but after pressure from the activist group moved the gig to Zhivago.
The latest conflict between Israelis and Palestinians began when Hamas-led militants killed 1200 people and took 251 hostages in their cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has since killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.
Under a ceasefire deal that took effect last month, Hamas handed over 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held in Israel.
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Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes since the truce took effect, nearly half of them in one day last week when Israel retaliated for a militant attack on its troops.
The South Australian group says it opposes genocide and Zionism in the SA arts scene.
The group is encouraging artists to sign a pledge to boycott any music venues in Adelaide that “choose to host Zionists”.
Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine.
“We understand both genocide and ethnic cleansing to be implicit to Zionism: the movement that dispossesses Palestinians of their land to create a Jewish ethnostate,” the group’s pledge reads.
“We will not participate in the normalisation of Zionism in the arts. We commit to using our influence as musicians to both keep the public engaged and informed about Palestine, and to obstruct Zionist artists from profiting here.”
“We noticed there was a lot of traction from people in Adelaide on a petition against Infected Mushroom’s performance and we wanted to continue to add pressure, so we created this Instagram page to show people that there are artists who are politically conscious in Adelaide,” organiser Nicola Exarheas tells CityMag.
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“We then thought this shouldn’t stop here, this should be a bigger Adelaide movement. So we thought we should raise money for Palestine.
“We’ve got two prongs: one is generating a music scene that is intolerant to Zionism and showing artists that it’s their responsibility to speak up, and also raising money for Palestinian freedom.”
There are now about 80 artist statements on the Instagram page, “and at the moment there’s a backlog. We’ve got so many we haven’t posted”.
Nicola says there is a “lot of safety and power in numbers”.
“We’ve had artists at the start of this who didn’t feel comfortable signing onto a boycott, and then they saw how many other artists were signing on and they were like ‘okay, I feel safe now’,” Nicola says.
Thea Martin, who plays folk music under the name Short Snarl, says gigs like Solidarity Sounds are “a really tangible way to continue to have conversations that I was already having in my life, and to raise funds”.
“Solidarity doesn’t have to be isolated, and it can feel really depressing and scary, but having events in community with people you know is a really great way to make those conversations a little bit easier,” Thea says.
“I was very excited when I saw this was happening.
“I think as people living in Australia, living in Adelaide, we have our own colonial history. It’s important we have the skills to unpack what that means for us as settlers. Sometimes Adelaide can be quite a conservative city, but there are people who feel similarly and want to learn and engage, and these kinds of events are a really great place to start those conversations.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive officer Alex Ryvchin was approached for comment by CityMag.
Ryvchin has been critical of pro-Palestine demonstrations, and recently told Sky News that he was worried anti-semitism was embedded into the national psyche, warning “two years of relentless lies and demonisation of the Jewish community in this country, of anyone who stands with Israel and of the people of Israel itself will not simply go away”.
Solidarity Sounds is happening on Saturday, November 8, at The Exeter, Interim Studios and Somewhere House. Head to Instagram from more information.
– With AAP
