PALESTINE (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Tommy Sands’ performance at the “Festival Bloomsday Concert ” Sunday June 20 has been cancelled.
The Israeli Ireland Friendship League in association with the Municipality of Ramat Hasharon are organizing the event and asked Sands to censor his performance by not performing "Peace on the Shores of Gaza," the song he had written as the anthem for the MV Rachel Corrie that set sail from Ireland to Gaza.
When Sands refused, his performance at the concert was cancelled.
The cancellation came shortly after Ireland's recent decision to expel an Israeli Diplomat after an investigation over the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai earlier this year, proved that the 8 Irish passports used by the suspects in the assassination, an operation supposedly under Israeli intelligence, had been forged according to the Palestine News Network.
While many artists are cancelling their performances to boycott Israel, Sands included Israel, Palestine, and Gaza on his tour.
Sands noted the importance to visit, "I realized that even though Ireland was seeing Israel in a dehumanizing way…there are many activists here who may need solidarity from the outside," according to the Palestine News Network.
During his performance last week at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem, Tommy received an invitation to play at the weekly Sheikh Jerrah demonstration in East Jerusalem this Friday. Sands accepted the invitation despite the fact that it was not a planned venue for the tour.
Sands is a known activist in speaking out through his music about the conflict between Northern and Southern Ireland. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
