BDS Fail: Lionel Richie Blocks Code Pink Over Campaign to Nix Tel Aviv Gig

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 16: Lionel Richie performs duirng the 23rd annual Keep Memory Al
Bryan Steffy/Getty
Deborah Brand

TEL AVIV – Legendary singer Lionel Richie is in the crosshairs of radical leftist group Code Pink after he blocked the organization on Twitter over its campaign calling on him to cancel his upcoming concert in “apartheid” Israel. 

“BREAKING: Simply because we started a campaign urging him to stand up for Palestinian human rights and cancel his upcoming show in Apartheid Israel, @LionelRichie blocked us! #LionelDontGo,” the group, self-described as a female-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement, posted on Twitter.

Code Pink last month launched an aggressive campaign calling on the “Endless Love” singer to cancel his Tel Aviv performance with a petition that accused Israel of “oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people” and “racist demographic engineering.”

“If you choose to follow through with your performance in Tel Aviv, it will act as an endorsement of Israel’s brutal systems of military occupation and apartheid,” the group wrote.

Although this will be Richie’s first concert in Israel, the 70-year-old singer has been a supporter of the Jewish state for many years. In 2013, he performed at a Friends of the IDF fundraiser in Los Angeles.

Code Pink’s Twitter page is full of slander primarily about Israel but also targeting President Donald Trump over his decisions regarding Iran.

A tweet from Wednesday said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif had “shown a commitment to diplomacy.”

In another, Code Pink retweeted a photo of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with senior Trump peace envoys including Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, and accompanied the post with the text, “A room full of racist apartheid regime apologists and war criminals. Free Palestine!”

While a few artists, including Lorde, Stevie Wonder, Lauryn Hill and of course anti-Israel kingpin Roger Waters, have caved to pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, most have ignored it, with Tel Aviv seeing concerts from the likes of Paul McCartney, Radiohead, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Santana, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Aerosmith, Britney Spears and Bon Jovi in recent years.

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