Activists held a symbolic action of solidarity with Palestine during the performance of 2018 Eurovision Song Contest winner, Netta Barzilai, at the Malta EuroPride opening concert, Moviment Graffitti said in a statement. The activists present at the concert waved Palestinian flags and held placards condemning the pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid and occupation.

The group said that Netta Barzilai has regularly participated in initiatives organised by the Israeli state outside Israel, in initiatives that celebrate the banishment of Palestinians from their homeland, and in concerts of the far right.

This symbolic action of solidarity with Palestine serves as reminder that Israeli state efforts to erase its oppression of the Palestinian people from the international agenda will never be successful, Graffitti said.

Last month, five Maltese organisations, including organisations that were pioneers in organising Pride events in Malta, called for Netta Barzilai’s invitation to be revoked. They stated that the principles of equality and freedom are not a menu from which one chooses at will, highlighting the huge contradiction that a manifestation such as EuroPride - that is supposed to celebrate love and equality - embraces personalities who are accomplices in the racism, killings and ethnic cleansing of the Apartheid state of Israel. The request to remove Barzilai from the event was ignored by the organisers.

In the same way that in the nineties, the Apartheid regime in South Africa came to an end following international boycotts and sanctions, Palestinian civil society wants the world to put pressure on the Apartheid state of Israel by means of boycotts and sanctions against all those that in one way or another are accomplices in its actions, Graffitti said.

Activists showed their support for the Palestinian cause by reminding the general public that Palestinians have been massacred in their thousands, and that hundreds of thousands have been forced out of their lands by inhumane and illegal Israeli state actions since 1948. No amount of pinkwashing will erase these atrocities, the group said.