With this article, the BDS movement wants to make a public boycott of the event to be held on 24 September at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. In it, they will have the presence of the renowned Zionist artist, Noa, who will present his last record work.

When, in the context of the genocide being carried out by Israel, almost 50,000 Palestinians have been killed and millions displaced in Gaza and the West Bank, giving voice to the Zionist representatives seems to us to be a lack of humanity and respect.

When we learned that Noa would come to Bilbao, from BDZ we met with the organizers of the BBK Bilbao Kultura Social Forum to express our disagreement and ask them to leave the event. In the face of the refusal, we must make this letter public, indicating the complicity of the City of Bilbao and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia for supporting with public money the normalization and laundering of Zionism.

Bringing Bilbao to NOA or any other Zionist "artist" coming to the West is not just a "cultural act." The "cultural industry" is an essential instrument of Israel's colonial strategy, which aims to legitimize and normalize Zionism on a global scale. "Art" and "music" are weapons of a broader cultural war, of mass distraction, through which the Zionist State constructs the image of "cultural diversity" and "openness to the world", concealing its true supremacist and colonial character.

At this point, some might wonder, but why boycott Noa, known for having publicly adopted "critical" positions on Israel?

The answer is simple: NOA is an active part of this strategy of normalization and laundering of colonization, although its Zionism is disguised with the label of "critical voice". Noa represents a "Zionism with a human face", a "progressive" Zionism that is functional to the colonial project, which can criticize the "excesses" of Netanyahu, but never reach the root of the problem; without putting colonization, apartheid and the imperialist character of the Zionist state at the centre.

One example of the hypocritical and instrumental character of Noa's "progressive Zionism" is the constant equating rhetoric. This odious discourse of the "good settler", which "rejects all violence, come from where they come from", which equips the stone thrown by a Palestinian child against a tank with Israeli bombs killing 1,000 civilians in Gaza, a Palestinian demonstration against the apartheid wall and similarly condemns the destruction or hunger of hundreds of schools and hospitals as weapons of war in Gaza. This hypocritical discourse reduces the conflict to as much abstraction as possible, "to the excesses of each other", a rhetoric that fills the mouth of the "peaceful solution of the conflict", not to mention all the structural issues that are the cause of the "conflict" (colonization, apartheid, ideology of death of Zionism...). It is clear from the BDZ that putting the oppressor, the victim and the executioner at the same level is another instrument of the Zionist cultural war, and Noa is an active part of this cultural war.

To understand the responsibility of Zionism Noa, it is enough to mention some facts that show that its "progressism" is the media tool of the colonial project:

• In 2009 it was part of Eurovision and replaced by the Zionist State, which was replaced by Mira Awad and justified by the Zionist State.
• In 2009, Noa also blamed Hamas for the 14,000 Palestinian deaths that caused the Zionist bombings in the Gaza Strip.
• NOA clearly justified this on the pretext of "counter-terrorism" and other genocidal military attacks, such as Operation Cast Lead, with which the Zionist State attacked Gaza in 2014.
• Amid military and settler attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, Noa held the Palestinian people accountable for the massacres and for the "lack of commitment to peace and dialogue" and defended the Zionist State's "right to defence".
• Finally, Noa is against all the campaigns and actions of the BDS and calls the initiatives in solidarity with the Palestinian people "anti-Semites".

As South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: "If you're neutral in situations of injustice, you've chosen the difference from the oppressor." This difference will be the one chosen by the organisation for the continuation of the programming scheduled for 24 September.

We therefore reiterate our call to desist and to suspend Noa’s participation. Otherwise, we will be in front: 24 September at 18:30 at the entrance to the Guggenheim.

Boycott Noari! No Zionism! Palestine ahead!

Bizkaia Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign Group