Union of Theatres of Europe deletes reference to Habima-organised ‘Terror Special conference’ on their website

As set out in our previous post, a Terror Special Conference was billed as part of the ‘rich programme of activity,’ on 13-16 November in Tel Aviv, prepared by Israel’s national theatre Habima for the attendees of the 2014 General Assembly of the Union of Theatres of Europe (U.T.E.). To discuss ‘The Democratic Dilemma in the War on Terrorism’ was a chilling line-up that included a former director of Mossad, former head of the security section of Shin Bet, a former Director of the Counter Terrorism Bureau of the Israeli PM’s office, and an Israeli Philosophy professor who wants to change the laws of war to remove protections afforded to non-combatants. Although – to our knowledge – that event took place on 14 November, U.T.E. has now deleted it from their website page for the general assembly programme.

Jews sans Frontieres obtained for us a cached copy of the old page, which had been replaced by 15 November. Curiously, on the cached page, the following text and logo are no longer visible at the foot of the programme, but we had saved them in Word:

Israeli national theatre, Habima, co-hosts seminar with the International Institute for Counter-terrorism

In our open letter, we protested the participation of European theatres in a Brand Israel exercise led by Israel’s national theatre, Habima. The ‘Terror Special conference’ is part of ‘TERRORisms’, a two-year European Union-funded project by the Union of Theatres of Europe (U.T.E.), under the leadership of its current president, Habima’s Artistic Director Ilan Ronen. We now have more information about the U.T.E. conference seminars:

On Friday 14 November, Habima Theatre will jointly host with the International Institute for Counter-terrorism (ICT) a seminar on ‘The Democratic dilemma with Counter-Terrorism’, located at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel. The IDC is a private, right-wing university highly complicit in Israel’s military industrial complex.

Open letter to members of the Union of Theatres of Europe meeting in Israel 13-16 November 2014

[Please see our follow-up post for an update: participants at the meeting organised by Habima include a former director of Mossad, former head of the security section in Shin Bet, and former Director of the Counter Terrorism Bureau of the Israeli PM’s office.] 

The purpose of the open letter is to protest the participation of European theatres in a Brand Israel exercise led by Israel’s national theatre, Habima. The ‘Terror Special conference’ is part of ‘TERRORisms’, a two-year project by the Union of Theatres of Europe, under the leadership of its current president, Habima’s Artistic Director Ilan Ronen.

As Habima has boasted, ‘Membership in the UTE is honor and privilege for Israel’s National Theater, the only member not on the European continent, tying Israeli theater to the center of artistic Europe.’ One look at the current homepage of the U.T.E. website tells one a lot about the disproportionate role that Habima – and Israel – play in its 2014 programme.

* The following theatre companies are listed as participating in the ‘TERRORisms’ project:
Staatsschauspiel Stuttgart, Germany 
National Theatre of Oslo, Norway 
Jugoslovensko Dramsko Pozoriste, Belgrade, Serbia 
Habima – National Theatre of Tel Aviv, Israel 
Young Vic Theatre London, England [an associate member of the project, not attending the Tel Aviv meeting] 
Shiber Hur Company, Palestine [withdrawn] 
Comédie de Reims, France

Letter in French here

Dear members* of the Union of Theatres of Europe: