Lana Del Rey Cancels Israel Performance

Lana Del Rey cancelled her planned performance at Meteor Festival after pressure from Palestinian boycott activists. The Israeli festival was set to draw 150,000 attendees outside of Tiberias in the upper Galilee region where Del Ray would be the headlining artist of the inaugural festival. Del Ray allegedly reached out to the festival about appearing and was said to have been paid $700,000. Del Ray’s fees will be reimbursed.

She cancelled her concert from pressure behind the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for actions against Israel. BDS movement. BDS calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Western artists who perform in Israel frequently face protests and criticism on social media from members of the BDS movement. Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Kathleen Hanna, Mark Ruffalo, and Angela Davis are loyal supports of the BDS movement, which coerce artists to cancel shows in Israel in protest of Israel’s treatment of Palestine. Nick Cave and Radiohead are some of the few artists who refuse to cancel their shows.

Del Ray tweeted out to her army of 8.92 million fan army about her cancellation. She wrote, “It’s important to me to perform in both Palestine and Israel and treat all my fans equally. Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to line up both visits with such short notice and therefore I’m postponing my appearance at the Meteor Festival until a time when I can schedule visits for both my Israeli and Palestinian fans, as well as hopefully other counties in the region.”

Previously, Del Rey had dealt with criticism for choosing to play in Israel. She defended herself by saying, “What I can tell you is I believe music is universal and should be used to bring us together. We don’t always agree with the politics of the places we play within or even in our country.”