Florida Lawmakers Aim to Cancel Lorde Concert, Citing anti-BDS Law
Lorde, oh Lorde Image by Getty Images
Florida Lawmakers are pushing to cancel Lorde’s scheduled concerts in the state after she cancelled her appearance in Israel to support the BDS movement, according to the Orlando Weekly.
Florida is one of 20 states that have a law barring state funds from doing business with entities associated with BDS, the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel over the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Florida law states that businesses that receive state funds are prohibited from conducting business over $1 million with any organization engaged in a boycott of Israel.
Yesterday, Republican state Rep. Randy Fine sent letters to the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and the Tampa Sports Authority asking them to cancel Lorde’s appearances there, scheduled for April.
“Florida has no tolerance for anti-Semitism and boycotts intended to destroy the State of Israel,” said Fine. “Current statutes are clear – local governments cannot do business with companies that participate in anti-Semitic boycotts of Israel. When Lorde joined the boycott in December, she and her companies became subject to that statute. The taxpayers of Miami and Tampa should not have to facilitate bigotry and anti-Semitism, and I look forward to the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and the Tampa Sports Authority complying with the law and canceling these concerts.”
Fine and Speaker Richard Corcoran would like the state anti-BDS law to go further than it does. They are proposing eliminating the $1 million threshold.
Contact Avichai Scher at scher@forward.com or on Twitter, @avi_scher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
