Just days before Belgium’s Francofolies de Spa music festival kicks off, several artists have pulled out in protest over the inclusion of Franco-Israeli pop star Amir Haddad in the line-up.
The first to drop out of the show that runs from July 17 to 20 was French performer Yao, who accused Amir of supporting the Israeli army and refusing to acknowledge what she described as a “genocide in Palestine”.
“My social, political, and humanist convictions are incompatible with sharing the stage with an artist who denies the ongoing genocide in Palestine and has participated in events backing the Israeli army,” Yao announced on social media on July 15.
Not long after, another artist decided to withdraw, the Brussels-based DJ Raql.
“I’ve decided to withdraw from the Francofolies de Spa. It’s not possible for me to perform on a line-up with a former soldier of the Israeli Army, especially given the current context and his open support for that policy. I prefer to stay aligned with my values,” she claimed on social media.
The Who’s That Girl? collective, a Liège-based group promoting queer and female DJs, also voiced its support for the boycott.
In a post, they criticised Amir as a public symbol of support for what they called “an army of occupation, colonisation, and ethnic cleansing” and they withdrew their artist’s performance from the lineup schedule for July 17.
The collective includes DJ Raql, Velota, Libra Romea, and Lauravioli.
It was publicly known that Samir did military service in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) intelligence and was a former staff sergeant.
Despite mounting pressure, neither Amir nor the festival organisers has shifted their position.
Amir was still scheduled to perform, with organisers defending that decision.
They argued that, as far as Amir is concerned, they had never “witnessed any propaganda on stage”. They added they were not in a position “to morally assess his personal trajectory” other than through his songs dealing with “universal and consensual themes such as love, celebration, the quest for self and resilience”.
Punk duo Bob Vylan and rap group Kneecap’s sets at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival have triggered criminal probes and a revoked US visa, amid accusations of hate speech. https://t.co/9a5WKbgP79
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 1, 2025
Francofolies was not the only festival to come under pressure over its line-up.
The European Jewish Association has also urged the Rock Herk festival of July 18-19 to remove the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan from its programme.
“This is not about silencing criticism of Israel, this is about silencing a proud and unbowed proponent of hate speech against Jews,” wrote Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, in a letter to the Rock Herk organiser on July 11.
“You do not have to support Israel. You can, even if you choose to do so, support the Palestinian cause. We live in a democracy. But hate speech is entirely different. What Bob Vylan is doing is calling for murder,’’ he added.
Vylan will perform as scheduled, organisers said.
Other Musicians have withdrawn from summer festivals over the political tensions surrounding Israel and Gaza.
In June, US rapper Azealia Banks pulled out of two UK festivals, claiming promoters pressured her to make political statements about Palestine.
“So guys, I am cancelling Boomtown and Maiden Voyage [London, August 9], the promoters have been stressing me out for weeks trying to force me to say ‘free Palestine’ and threatening to cut me from the bill because I won’t say ‘free Palestine’ and I’m not dealing with the threats and I’m not putting on a f***ing hijab,” she claimed on June 25.
“They’re both trying to extort me by insinuating that I need to say I support Palestine or they will drop me from the gig, but I would much rather drop them and not associate with anything that has cheap groupthink bullshit attached to it,” she added.
The Boomtown [near Winchester, August 6-10] organisers denied in a statement that she was pushed to make a political statement on stage.
“For clarity, Boomtown does not and will never dictate the personal views and beliefs of performers,” the event organiser said.
Maiden Voyage organisers have not so far commented.
