iThe British band "Massive Attack," during their recent performance, displayed images of Yahya Sinwar in the terror tunnels and called for the release of murderous terrorists. This has led them to threaten to sue Israeli activist Hen Mazzig.
This comes after Mazzig tweeted against them: ""Why is the self proclaimed 'pro peace' band @MassiveAttackUK screening footage of Yayha Sinwar during their concert? Sinwar masterminded the slaughter of innocents at a music festival, yet they're celebrating him at a similar event. If you're booking the UK's latest arena, you should care a lot more about the message you're spreading. Encouraging 23,000+ people to sympathize with Hamas is more than irresponsible — it's incitement."
In response, Massive Attack members shared Mazzig’s tweet, stating that while they do not use Twitter, they intend to send him a warning before filing a lawsuit if he does not delete the tweet and apologize.
"Massive Attack categorically reject any suggestion that footage or reportage used as part of an artistic digital collage in our live show seeks to glorify or celebrate any featured subject," they declared.
"To isolate a single section of reportage from the artistic context within which it sits a digital array that spans a wide variety of issues and themes (and explores how they are reported & presented via mainstream & social media) including war, insurgency, climate emergency, corporate tax avoidance and the mineral exploitation of global south nations, and includes a multiplicity of highly controversial current and historical political figures - is tantamount to a wilful device to create conditions for misinterpretation, or distortion."
They clarified the use of Sinwar's face: "In the specific case of the film loop that includes reportage of Yahya Sinwar, the entire sequence interplays with scenes from Jean Cocteau's film "Orpheus", creating both a placement and implicit tone of horrified lament; that an individual of power can take people down into hell."
"It would be bizarre (and perhaps revealing) that any observer of the live show films would solely home in on the Sinwar/IDF footage and completely overlook all other controversial figures featured in the reportage loops."
"Would "x" observer suggest we sought to glorify Vladimir Putin, who appears in four loops? Or Donald Trump who appears in several? Or J Edgar Hoover? Or indeed the IDF soldiers who feature in the exact same location reportage as the Yahya Sinwar footage cited by various social media accounts?"
The band claimed that the accusation was politically motivated: "Unfortunately, the only reasonable conclusion is that this level of deliberate context removal, and such a leap of misinterpretation has political motivations."
They ended with a series of of accusations against Israel. "In a highly charged atmosphere, public figures in including artists who consistently speak out against Israeli war crimes, apartheid and human rights abuses, and in defence of the Palestinian people are subjected to determined and spurious attempts to discredit us, as a deterrent to us from speaking out. These spurious attempts will always fail."