Rockets force cancellation of Neil Young concert in Tel Aviv

Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Neil Young concert scheduled for Tel Aviv has been canceled due to continuing rocket fire on Israel.

The concert, with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, was scheduled to take place at Yarkon Park on July 17.

The concert was cancelled, according to the Shuki Weiss production company, due to “missile attacks in recent days and the fear for the audience’s safety at an event with so many participants.”

It would have been Young’s second performance in Israel; the first was in 1995.

Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters on July 11 released a letter that he wrote to Waters in January, urging him not to sign a contract to play the Tel Aviv concert.

“I find it hard to believe that you would turn your back on the indigenous people of Palestine. That you would lend support to, and encourage and legitimize, with your presence, a colonial apartheid regime, largely settled from Europe, that seeks to confine the native people of the land, either in exile or in second class status in reservations and ghettos. Please, brother, tell me it ain’t so,” the letter read, in part.

Young reportedly did not respond to the letter.

Meanwhile, Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedde on Friday denounced Israel in a tirade during a concert in England.

“At the same time that something this positive is happening, not even that far away, people are f—ing dropping bombs on each other,” Vedder said condemning “those who go across borders and take over land that doesn’t belong to them.”

“I swear to f—ing god, there are people out there who are looking for a reason to kill. They’re looking for a reason to go across borders and take over land that doesn’t belong to them. They should get the f—out, and mind their own f—ing business. We don’t want to give them our money. We don’t want to give them our taxes to drop bombs on children,” he said.