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BACKGROUND:

Our collective was founded in 2011 after a successful campaign to stop Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys from playing Tel Aviv (see links in bio). At our height we boasted over 25 bands and artists committed to the Cultural Boycott of music, venues, and concerts that were financially complicit in Israeli violence against Palestinians or whitewashed it.

After many years and many interruptions wherein the collective ceased activity, it is clear that we need all hands on deck as the final, cruel stages of Zionism continue to prosecute the horrific genocide in Gaza. So PAA is back because we must be, and we will be rebuilding the network with the urgency we think is needed in these times. Please get in touch if you are a former member or interested in contributing to growing the network. And stay tuned for much more!

Far beyond the pop culture punk 'canon', the local movement has stayed alive long past the supposed 'death of punk' in the eyes of music industry capitalists because the spirit of punk can never die: it is an ethos, a culture.

It is the instinct to 'do it yourself', to not wait for permission to make art where it's supposed to be made, but instead where life really happens: in our communities, in basements, house shows, community centres after hours, parking lots, squats, and sure, sometimes even legal venues...

Punk is rebellion and it is dual power. It is building another world in the shell of the old. And we will keep our spaces clean, as we always have, of loser fascists and Zionist génocidaires.

Racism ain't punk. So in our concerts & on the streets--apartheid & colonialism FUCK OFF!

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Punks Against Apartheid Points of Unity 2024/25

In whatever our capacity as artists and musicians, we pledge to respect the 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel, and hereby endorse the following points of unity:

1. We, Punks Against Apartheid, exist to foment greater solidarity between the global punk community and the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

2. We honor the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) in its entirety. We will not play concerts or speak at events in Israel or in any other country that are in violation of Palestinian civil society’s call for cultural boycott.

3. We will not perform, exhibit or otherwise participate in events which deceptively suggest symmetry or shared responsibility between “both sides” for Israel’s ongoing colonial oppression of the Palestinian people and its system of apartheid.

4. We seek, wherever possible, to use our art, music and expression to both educate the wider public and provide real, meaningful solidarity to the cause of Palestinian liberation. This includes (but is not limited to) uplifting the three main demands of the original BDS call, the thawabit, and further demands that may emerge from Palestinian civil and political consensus.

5. We do not prescribe what Palestinian liberation will look like. We nonetheless uphold the Palestinian peoples' inalienable right to self-determination and resistance as enshrined in international law.

6. We pledge to uphold the cultural boycott of the Israeli state until Palestinian liberation has been secured and the BDS movement is asked to stand down.

tinyurl.com/paa-pou-2024