.@Lowkey0nline has become the latest target of pro-Israel groups seeking to use disingenuous accusations and slander to silence any voice advocating for Palestinian rights.
The attack follows a familiar McCarthyite playbook of trawling though social media accounts and finding quotes to take out of context. The foundation is always the same: To define criticism of Israel outside of a very narrow proscribed framework as inherently antisemitic.
Part of the charge sheet against Lowkey is his calling out of the racist laws & policies of the Israeli state. Those attacking him ascribe antisemitism to descriptions of Israel as an example of a settler-colonial state practicing apartheid and ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
The attacks on Lowkey come in the same week that UN Special Rapporteur @MichaelLynk5 has joined @amnesty, @hrw and @btselem in recognising that Israel is practising apartheid. All of these human rights bodies have been also similarly smeared for affirming this truth.
To misuse the language of anti-racism to preserve the ability of a state to practice the most egregious form of institutionalised racism - apartheid - undermines any kind of coherent anti-racist politics.
The attack on Lowkey has now moved to pressuring Spotify to remove all of his music. The immediate aim is to destroy Lowkey as a public voice and as an artist. If this were to succeed, it would not only erase his art and expression about Palestinian rights...
...but also his powerful narration of his experience as British-Iraqi and his opposition to the illegal war on Iraq. It would also remove the work he has done to elevate the voices of the Grenfell families and to honour those whose lives were taken in that horrific tragedy.
Beyond the attacks on Lowkey as an artist, the deeper intent is to chill others from speaking out in support of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, and to marginalise that struggle.
These attacks must be resisted by all of those who genuinely care about rooting out racism in all of its forms, and those who value the preservation of key democratic rights as well as the cultural rights of artists. #LongLivePalestine
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