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Thirty years later, on Land Day 2006, 68 percent of Israel's Jewish population have stated in a public opinion poll that they “do not want to live next to an Arab”, and a vast majority is voting for political programs that ignore the rights and needs of the Palestinians and perpetuate an apartheid system in Israel itself, convincing the prominent Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, to describe Israel on the eve of the elections as “a nation in which racism is the real common denominator uniting us all.” Military occupation and colonization continue unabated in the West Bank, including eastern

Upon learning of your planned tour, Palestinian as well as several international artists asked in shock: How can the artist whose name around the world was for many years associated with breaking walls of injustice be in any way complicit with the monstrosity of Israel’s Wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at the Hague? Not too long ago, you lent your good name to the War on Want’s effort to collect signatures of public figures against Israel’s Wall.

A group of Palestinian political activists, cultural organisations and their supporters have backed a letter to Mr Waters, who has expressed strong opposition to the 450-mile separation barrier being built by Israel. They urge him to remove the city from his summer tour this year. The letter, which is supported, among others, by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, urges Waters not to perform in Israel "until the time comes when it ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory".

Last month, forty Palestinian filmmakers and cultural workers signed a letter addressed to Ms. Catherine Colomb-Nancy at the Europeaid Office in Brussels regarding their concerns about the Euromed Audiovisual II Project and suggested a meeting in which they could exchange views about the proposal. The letter was sent via fax, email and a hard copy via regular mail. Alarmingly, no one from Euromed responded to the letter, let alone even acknowledged it. The major concerns outlined in the letter were twofold:

The PACBI Call, which was the basis for the academic boycott briefly adopted by the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) in April 2005, urged academics, intellectuals and artists around the world to “comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.” PACBI proposed a number of measures to realize this Call, including the rejection of all forms of cooperation with Israeli institutions; suspension of funding and subsidies to these institutions;