This summer, the Israel Festival went ahead without a single international act.

For an event once known for bringing global performers to Jerusalem, their absence was conspicuous. International artists who would ordinarily have appeared on the program had withdrawn, declined invitations, or become unwilling to face the political pressure attached to performing in Israel. One planned French tightrope troupe pulled out; Israeli performers took its place. The festival even created a backstage tour called “Temporarily Removed,” devoted to the productions that never arrived.

This is what the cultural boycott looks like when it is visible: an Israeli institution loses artists, audiences lose performances, and the political argument plays out in public.

For nearly three years, the larger conversation about cultural boycotts of Israel has been framed in similarly institutional terms: Israel versus ANGA, Israel versus the Venice Biennale jury, Israel versus whichever festival, gallery, or cultural body that has just cancelled an appearance.

It is a framing that suits both sides. Boycott organizers can say they are targeting a government and its institutions, not a people. Israeli officials can respond with the full weight of state rhetoric, from foreign ministry statements to diplomatic pressure and accusations of politicization, “contamination” and “indoctrination.”

But this framing obscures a quieter group absorbing the cost.

The New Boycott Crisis, a report produced earlier this year by the UK advocacy group Freedom in the Arts, tells that less visible story. Based on nearly 200 responses across three surveys—of artists, cultural venues, and the agents and managers who represent them—plus a roundtable involving 30 senior arts leaders, the report examines how organized boycotts and cancellation campaigns are reshaping Britain’s cultural sector.

Its finding is rather blunt: it is not only the Israeli state or its cultural institutions absorbing the consequences. Individual artists,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)