Israeli occupation police tried on Saturday to shut down a music performance by popular Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar, claiming his rap is an “incitement against the state of Israel”.
Local reports said the Israeli policemen interrupted Nafar and shouted at him to “get off” the stage while performing the Salam Ya Sahbi song at a Christmas market in Kafr Yasif near Akko city in 1948-occupied Palestine.
Nafar refused to comply and told the policemen that he had not finished his performance.
The police officer then said, “Get off or I’ll bring you down” to which Nafar replied, “Come up and take me down.”
When the rapper got off the stage after finishing his song, about 10 policemen tried to pull him out of the area with one officer pulling him by his neck, reports added.
Some of the organizers and council members of Kafr Yasif town then confronted the officers.
In video footage posted by the rapper on his official social media accounts, the policeman said, “He [Nafar] raps against the police. His rap is incitement against the state of Israel. He will not continue his show. An officer will arrive in a bit to shut down the whole show.”
Tamer said the show continued nonetheless in a message at the end of the video, adding “nothing will stop us.”
This is not the first time Israeli police tried to shut down Nafar’s shows and silence him as the prominent rapper from the Lod city who is a founder member of the first Palestinian hip-hop group DAM has been a frequent target of right-wing criticism in ‘Israel’ for years.
In 2016, then-Culture Israeli Minister Miri Regev left the Ophir Prize ceremony when Nafar sang a song containing words by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. She also demanded that Haifa’s mayor cancel Nafar’s participation in the Haifa Film Festival, claiming Nafar’s words served to legitimise “terrorism” and undermine the State of ‘Israel’.
Following an appeal by extremist Israeli MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, Social Services Minister Meir Cohen stopped a promotional campaign by an organization fighting violence against children in which the rapper took part. Cohen ordered the removal of another video, which Nafar produced with the NGO Itach-Ma’aki – Women Lawyers for Social Justice, to encourage women to turn to sexual assault help centers.
