A music festival in Belgium has cancelled a planned concert by a celebrated German orchestra over concerns about its Israeli conductor’s stance on the war in Gaza.
The Flanders Festival Ghent said on Wednesday that it had cancelled the Munich Philharmonic’s scheduled performance on September 18 due to a lack of “clarity” about the views of its incoming conductor Lahav Shani.
While Shani had spoken in favour of “peace and reconciliation” in the past, his attitude towards the “genocidal regime in Tel Aviv” was unclear given his role as the chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the festival organisers said.
“Given the inhumanity of the current situation, which is also leading to emotional reactions in our own society, we believe it is undesirable to allow this concert to go ahead,” the organisers said, adding that they had chosen not to collaborate with partners who had not “distanced themselves unequivocally from that regime.”
The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra said it was “appalled” at the decision.
“We, the Munich Philharmonic and I, are profoundly shocked that a festival in Belgium – in the heart of Europe and the country that hosts the headquarters of the European Union – would make such an inconceivable decision,” executive director Florian Wiegand said in a statement.
Shani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Belgian and German officials also condemned the cancellation.
In an interview with public broadcaster RTBF, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot warned against conflating Israeli and Jewish identity with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“Remember about 10 years ago, we had the attacks that indeed hurt Belgium, causing injuries and deaths. They were Islamist-motivated, and we had a Muslim community that, rightly so, called for avoiding conflation, so that individuals of Muslim origin or faith would not immediately be equated with terrorists,” Prevot said.
“Let us not repeat the same kind of conflation by assuming that every Israeli or every Jewish person of faith automatically supports Mr Netanyahu’s policies. That is not the case.”
Germany’s Minister of State for Culture and the Media, Wolfram Weimer, blasted the cancellation as a “disgrace to Europe”.
“This is blatant antisemitism,” Weimer, a former newspaper editor, said on X.
Israeli forces have killed more than 64,650 people in Gaza since it launched its war in October 2023, following Hamas’s October 7 attacks on the country.
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