Jewish Artists for Palestine disrupt Royal Albert Hall concert

JVL introduction

For veterans of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, last week’s disruption of a Prom concert in the Royal Albert Hall brought back memories of one of the most dramatic cultural boycott actions carried out in the UK – an intervention in September 2011 which halted the BBC’s live broadcast of a performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and attracted worldwide coverage.

See below for a full report by Jews for Boycotting Goods, one of many groups involved in a carefully planned and coordinated musical guerrilla action. It is worth reading to see how the arguments we deployed then to explain and justify disruptive protest have become so much more pertinent in this time of unspeakable Israeli crimes and craven Western complicity.

First though we pay our respects to the Jewish Artists for Palestine who silenced the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s performance at this year’s BBC Proms over Zionist funding and censorship. The MSO last year cancelled a performance by acclaimed pianist Jayson Gillham due to comments he made in support of Gazans.

Skwawkbox reported that the action had forced the BBC ”to acknowledge the existence of anti-Zionist Jews”. Read the BBC’s own report below, followed by JA4P’s statement. This Instagram link includes video of the action.

NWI

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BBC Proms performance interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters

Kathryn Armstrong, BBC News, 29 August 2025

A performance by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) at the BBC Proms in London has been interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Friday night’s recital had just begun when the orchestra was forced to stop playing for more than 10 minutes due to the demonstration. It later restarted its performance.

Jewish Artists for Palestine, which describes itself as a group of “anti-Zionist Jewish writers, visual and performance artists” has claimed responsibility.

It said in a statement that the interruption was in rejection to “Zionist funding, censorship and complicity in our cultural institutions” over the Gaza war, including the MSO and the BBC.

The BBC apologised for the disruption but said it was dealt with “swiftly” by the Royal Albert Hall.

An MSO spokesperson said: “We are proud of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for the resilience and professionalism demonstrated in its performance in London.”

In a video posted online by a pro-Palestinian group linked to the protesters, people can be seen standing in the upper gallery of the Royal Albert Hall holding black handwritten fabric signs reading “complicit in genocide” and “Jewish Artists for Palestine”.

“The MSO has blood on its hands,” a woman can be heard to shout.

The interruption was captured on BBC Radio 3, which was broadcasting the performance.

Announcer Ian Skelly could be heard narrating what was happening during the interruption, including that security was brought in to remove the protesters.

BBC Radio 3 then broke out of the broadcast for several minutes to play recorded pieces of classical music, during which time Sam Jackson, controller of BBC Radio 3 and BBC Proms, made a statement over the PA system.

Angela Tanner, who was in the stalls, told the BBC that it took quite a while for the protesters to be removed.

“The whole programme had to start again and has been put into a different order after the piano was put onto the stage and taken off again,” she said.

“There was lots of booing from the audience then eventually they [the organisers] announced thanks for our patience.”

Jewish Artists for Palestine said in a statement that it had targeted the MSO’s concert after they cancelled a performance by acclaimed pianist Jayson Gillham last year.

Gillham’s performance in Sydney was cancelled due to comments he made in support of Gazans. The MSO has since said the cancellation had been a mistake.

Shouts of “you silenced Jayson Gillham” and the “MSO is complicit in genocide” was also heard, followed by booing from the audience.

Jewish Artists for Palestine also cited the MSO’s funding and previous performances that Friday night’s principal artist, Khatia Buniatishvili, had given with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Another audience member, who did not wish to be named, said two of the protest groups were promptly taken out of the building by security but it took more time to eject the third.

She said there was a second round of shouting after the performance resumed but that this was quickly stopped.

“Overall, the atmosphere seemed to be strongly against the protest, with many members of the audience annoyed and shouting obscenities with anger at the protesters.”

In a statement, the BBC said: “We are sorry about the disruption to our coverage of the BBC Proms on Radio 3 tonight.

“There was a disturbance at tonight’s Prom which meant the concert was paused for a few minutes and the live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 diverted to pre-recorded music.

“The incident was dealt with swiftly by the Royal Albert Hall.

“Our priority is always the safety and wellbeing of everyone who attends the BBC Proms, and we would like to thank our staff and the performers whose response helped keep disruption to a minimum.”

It is not the first time that a BBC Proms performance has been interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra had to stop its 2011 recital twice due to a disturbance by demonstrators.

In 2023, two protesters from environmental campaign group Just Stop Oil interrupted the First Night of the Proms after targeting a number of other events.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 63,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s population has also been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; and the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed global food security experts have confirmed that there is famine in the Gaza City area.

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Statement from Jewish Artists for Palestine

BREAKING: Jewish Artists for Palestine disrupt the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s performance at the BBC Proms over Zionist funding and censorship🗣

✊️Silencing the orchestra and whole venue and forcing the performance to restart✊️

We are calling out the MSO for:

‼️Silencing pianist Jayson Gillham for expressing solidarity with Palestine‼️

‼️Accepting funding from the Gandel Foundation, who publicly support the genocide in Gaza and are unrepentant long-time associates of Benjamin Netanyahu‼️

As well as the BBC’s ongoing complicity and inability to acknowledge the genocide🚫

Artists held banners reading BBC PROMS & MSO – COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE – JEWISH ARTISTS FOR PALESTINE.

🗣We call on all cultural workers to rise up against complicity in their own institutions, in the face of Israel’s continued apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Go to jewishartistsforpalestine.uk to get involved✊️

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A look back at September 2011

Protest for Palestine at BBC Prom – How and Why

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, 6 September 2011

Events at a Promenade Concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall on Thursday Sept 1 did more to bring to world attention the Palestinian call for a boycott campaign against Israel than any single previous peaceful action.

Repeated interventions by small teams of activists from all over the UK substantially delayed the start of two of the four pieces on the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert programme. The first piece was interrupted as it drew to a close by a boycott choir of thirteen “Beethovians for Boycotting Israel”.

A report, including video clips is here. Additional footage of the choir’s intervention can be seen here.

It was the BBC’s decision to abandon its live broadcast on Radio 3 – the first time a Prom had ever been taken off air – which denied listeners around the world access to the concert. Although media reports made it appear otherwise, the audience in the hall were able to enjoy everything on the programme, with the added bonus of a rarely heard message in support of Palestinian rights.

This is how it happened…

In July, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) wrote to BBC Proms director Roger Wright calling on him to cancel the concert, explaining that the IPO was a boycott target because of its close association with the state of Israel and its armed forces. Further letters went from Israeli activists from Boycott from Within and from BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine).

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) launched a public campaign to halt the concert and mobilised its supporters to mount a picket outside the hall.

Meanwhile, members of BRICUP were working behind the scenes with J-BIG (Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods) and members of the Boycott Israel Network and London BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) to orchestrate protests inside.

Wright paid no heed to the letters he received, replying to every appeal by insisting that the decision to invite the IPO was “purely musical”. Emails sent shortly before the concert to ticket holders showed that he understood full well the political stand he had taken, warning of thorough bag searches and a ban on flags.

Even so, activists had no trouble taking their places in the hall and mounting their action.

The first intervention was by our boycott choir, seated in the choir stalls behind the orchestra. Protesters held up letters spelling out ‘FREE PALESTINE’ a couple of minutes before the end of Webern’s Passacaglia and then sang repeatedly:

Israel end your occupation

Palestine must now be free.

Ethnic cleansing and apartheid

Should belong to history.

Some audience members snatched letters out of the singers’ hands. All thirteen protesters were ejected from the hall, still singing as the last notes of the piece died away.

At the beginning of the second piece, just as conductor Zubin Mehta was raising his baton for soloist Gil Shaham to start playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto, four protesters started calling out slogans.

They waved Palestinian flags and called ‘Free Palestine – End the Occupation’ three times, followed by ‘The occupation – Is out of tune – With international law’ while some in the audience tried to drown them out with shouts and boos. Three were led away by security staff.

The fourth passively resisted by hanging on to the brass railings along the balcony, continuing to shout Free, Free Palestine as Shaham began to play. The protester was finally forced onto the landing, where staff held him on the floor with his hands behind his back for some time.

The violin concerto was then played uninterrupted but after the interval the remaining thirteen protesters, seated in groups of two or three, again intervened, causing a delay of about five minutes to the start of the Albeniz Iberia.

Some of the audience were quite irate by this time and some protesters were hit. But there were no injuries and the Royal Albert Hall made no move to involve the police.

Radio 3 was on air until about a minute into the second piece, when the BBC halted its live broadcast. It returned briefly after the interval but again went off air once our protests resumed. The fourth and final piece, by Rimsky Korsakov, was played without interruption, but the BBC did not resume broadcasting.

Once removed from the hall, protesters joined the PSC picket outside and various newspapers and broadcasters started to show an interest.

Our own news release went out in the early hours of Friday morning.

While Zionist and right-wing commentators were quick to denounce the protesters as jackbooted Nazi thugs, supporters of Palestinian human rights responded enthusiastically.

Rima Tarazi, Director of the General Union of Palestinian Women, applauded the “innovative and courageous action at the Royal Albert Hall.”

In a letter passed on to protest organisers by Scottish PSC, Tarazi said:

“Your courage and commitment to uphold Palestinian rights in the face of an ongoing policy of dispossession and ethnic cleansing, were extremely appreciated by our people and I believe such an action should become a beacon to be followed and emulated by all the peoples of the world struggling for freedom and justice. May our voices continue to join in harmony to create a better and gentler world for all.”

Israeli film-maker Gideon Gitai posted on a comment thread under a predictably hostile article by music critic Norman Lebrecht describing personal experiences which underlined how richly the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra deserves to be a boycott target.

In 1987, Gitai said, he produced a documentary film called “Nablus – a Rebellious Town” in which the IPO appeared playing Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” for Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. The special concert was dedicated “In love to the IDF.”

Has the debate stirred up by the Proms protest been entirely positive for the Palestinian cause?

Some campaigners fear the backlash from music-lovers insisting that politics must not be allowed to sully the purity of the concert hall.

Extreme Israel supporters have been quick to brand the protest as motivated by Jew hatred reminiscent of the Nazi era, claiming that attacking an Israeli institution is an attack on all Jews.

Others take the view that performers so closely tied to the Israeli state do not deserve to play a note uninterrupted and that we have a strong enough case to defend an uncompromising boycott position.

The Palestinian Boycott National Committee has laid down the ground rules for waging the BDS campaign. In each particular case tactical decisions must be carefully weighed, but arguments about anti-Semitism and “musical purity” always needs to be firmly contested.

Israel, as a matter of policy, deploys cultural ambassadors such as the IPO to throw a civilised veil over its persistent, brutal and illegal treatment of the Palestinian people.

Unlike many other vicious regimes that opponents of BDS tell us we should boycott instead, Israel has the ear of western political leaders, newspaper editors and the corporate interests that determine foreign policy priorities. It benefits from scientific, military, academic research and cultural agreements with Europe and has been allowed for 63 years to get away with flouting international law, facing no sanctions of any kind.

Palestinians, while suffering the loss of their land, their livelihoods and their very lives, are ignored or grossly misrepresented by politicians and media and gain nothing from European business or institutions other than patronising lectures and occasional handouts to rebuild infrastructure the Israelis have destroyed or to arm and train security forces for Israel’s benefit.

Gaza is under siege, the situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is not much better, Palestinians living inside 1948 Israel are facing deepening racism and refugees are offered no hope of return.

Ordinary forms of protest and lobbying have proved totally inadequate in bringing Israel to its senses. Boycott, as in the case of apartheid South Africa, has taken off as THE non-violent form of action available to civil society to end the injustices suffered by the Palestinians.

Let’s not forget that Zionists used identical tactics in the early 1980s in their campaign to force the Soviet Union to allow Russian Jews to go to Israel. Music lovers with long memories recall disruption of a Soviet performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture at London’s Royal Festival Hall. A Russian soprano singing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was also targeted.

Cultural boycott actions, it seems, are acceptable in support of the Zionist cause, but criminal when staged on behalf of Palestinian human rights.

A little inconvenience to musicians or concert goers is a small price to pay for getting Palestinian voices heard. And the threat of rising anti-Semitism comes not from BDS campaigners, who are explicitly anti-racist, but from those who insist on shackling Jewish identity to the Israeli state and all its works.

Israel devotes massive resources to its public relations war machine, called “Brand Israel”. Supporters of BDS cannot match a fraction of those resources, but by its own actions Israel makes it easier by the day to “Brand Israel” in the public mind as the racist, colonial settler state it is.

Beethoven would have approved!