Rapper Azaelia Banks has announced that she will perform in Israel the week of the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks — and embark on a wide-ranging tour that includes a trip to a museum honoring an early Zionist leader who preached Jewish self-defense.
“✨🇮🇱 Okay so listen… The Jewcy Diva is touching down in ISRAEL on October 4th — I’m coming back to get a real experience without the drama and the bs,” Banks wrote in a post on X Sunday announcing the visit.
Banks’ performance, set for Oct. 9 in Tel Aviv, marks the artist’s first return to Israel since 2018, when she vowed never to come back following a series of racist encounters during her visit. The artist appeared to have a change of heart about Israel in June when she declared “I’m a Zionist” on X.
In the performance announcement, Banks also said that Oct. 7 would be a day of “deep remembrance — honoring every life taken, every family touched.” She outlined an extensive itinerary for her visit, including stops at the Dead Sea, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem and the site of the Nova music festival.
She said she would also be meeting with Israeli soldiers and visiting the Jabotinsky Institute, a research center honoring Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of revisionist Zionism who is a hero to some contemporary activists who believe Jews should fight antisemitism with force. The group Betar USA, which sees itself as reviving Jabotinsky’s mantle, shared Banks’ announcement and tweeted, “can’t wait to welcome her with Zionist love in Israel on october 3rd.”
The visit comes as over 400 artists and labels, including Bjork, Massive Attack and Paramore, have signed a petition titled “No Music for Genocide” calling for their music to be blocked from streaming in Israel.
In a post on Instagram, Banks decried her fellow musicians for the boycott effort, accusing them of “using Palestinian suffering to refurbish their back catalogues.”
“Why didn’t anyone boycott America when black people were going through it recently in the aftermath of Obamas tenure???,” wrote Banks. “Before you boycott Spotify in Israel Why haven’t artists collectively boycotted streaming services for paying us dirt???”
True to Banks’ pattern of making provocative statements about the Israel-Hamas conflict on her X account, she also used the moment to unleash a volley of posts on X over the past week that swung from pro-Israel to anti-Arab.
“The lore of Israel & Zionism and the Jews is charming and relatable as hell,” Banks posted on Saturday. “Israel is like wakanda for jews they really ate that. Zionism is iconic Zionism is punk.”
On Monday, the artist wrote that conservative Jewish political commentator Ben Shapiro is a “sex symbol” and also posted “g’mar chatimah tova 🛌 ⭐️🕯️,” the traditional greeting for Yom Kippur.
The week prior, Banks denounced the “protesting and fake support” for Palestinians, writing, “I really truly wholeheartedly am against Palestine and everything it’s trying to stand for” and calling on protesters to “pressure them to just quit.”
The artist also posted early Monday morning that “Maybe Gazans should stop breeding in a war zone?,” adding that she believed “it’s irresponsible to be giving birth in gaza to stateless children.”
Banks, who was once engaged to a Jewish man, has said that her refusal to support the Palestinians has cost her fan support and required her to cancel some concert appearances.
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