Israeli DJ cancels Tomorrowland Belgium set over ‘threatening' pressure from pro-Palestinian group: ‘really on our backs'
'Due to security considerations and our deep commitment to spreading only love and music, my performance at Tomorrowland scheduled for Today, July 26th has been cancelled,' DJ Skazi wrote on social media just hours before he planned to take the stage.
Asher Swissa, who performs as Skazi, flew back to Israel just one day after arriving in Belgium, and blamed a pro-Palestinian group for the decision to pull the plug on his set.
3 Swissa performed for IDF soldiers in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
Instagram/skazi_asher
'There was a pro-Palestinian organization that was really on our backs, doing everything to stop it from happening,' he told reporters at Ben Gurion Airport, according to Israeli media.
'It was all very intense and threatening.'
The pressure came from Belgian pro-Palestinian group 11.11.11.
3 Tomorrowland is expected to draw 400,000 people over two weekends.
AP
'His performances are part of a propaganda campaign that condones violence against Palestinians,' the group said on social media, urging festival organizers to nix the set, saying the artist calls himself 'combat DJ.'
Swissa had previously performed for IDF soldiers in Gaza after Hamas' terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Tomorrowland's organizers indicated the decision to abort the set wasn't theirs.
3 Tomorrowland is the largest electronic festival in the world.
Belga/AFP via Getty Images
'We respect and appreciate Skazi's decision to withdraw at this time,' organizers said in a statement.
'We maintain deep respect for Skazi's musical journey and hope to hear his music on one of our stages again in the future.'
Swissa had been a mainstay at the wildly popular music festival — the largest EDM gathering in the world — for the past 14 years.
This year's festival, which concludes on Sunday, was expected to draw a crowd of 400,000 over two weekends.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
Bill Maher slams woke mob over Sydney Sweeney jeans ad controversy
HBO 'Real Time' host Bill Maher ripped into the woke mob for branding actress Sydney Sweeney a Nazi — all because she joked about having 'great jeans' in a new American Eagle ad. 'In other uncomfortable racial news, sad news, we found out this week that Sydney Sweeney is a Nazi,' the late night funny quipped Friday night. 'No she's not, but you've seen the ad … This a very important ad that we're seeing now, there she is dressed like Jay Leno in all blue denim.' HBO 'Real Time' host Bill Maher slammed the woke mob Friday for claiming actress Sydney Sweeney is a Nazi — because she boasted about having 'great jeans' in an American Eagle ad. AP 'And she talks about the fact that she has blue eyes and then says she has great jeans, you know, because she's wearing jeans!' goofed Maher, referring to the ad's pun of the word 'genes' made by the blonde-haired, blue-eyed 27-year-old Euphoria star. 'But according to the woke people this means she's a white supremacist.' Actress Sydney Sweeney shows off her 'great' jeans in American Eagle ad. American Eagle Then Maher landed a savage blow. 'It also doesn't help that her bra size is 36KKK and that the name she gave her tits is the 'Proud Boys,'' he said. 'I also like it's pretty funny that all the online social justice girls are like 'it's racist, there is no such thing as good genes. Right, and then you go on Tinder and swipe left on every bald guy.' American Eagle's stock rose more than 10% immediately after Sweeney's campaign launched July 23. The White Lotus actress has yet to respond to the backlash caused by the new 'Great Jeans' campaign.
Time Magazine
6 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Hamas Releases Video of Israeli Hostage Evyatar David
Hamas has released a propaganda video showing a severely emaciated Israeli hostage being held in what appears to be an underground tunnel in Gaza, the first video of its kind in months. Evyatar David, 24, was kidnapped at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023, during the terrorist attack by Hamas in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. The video shows David looking visibly gaunt as he ticks off days on a calendar in a narrow tunnel. Another section of the video shows him being forced to dig a hole in the ground that he says will be his grave. The Hamas propaganda video is interspersed with images of starving Palestinian children. David, a guitar and piano player who comes from a musical family, is one of an estimated 20 living hostages still being held by Hamas and other militants. Of the estimated 250 people taken during the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 140 have been released during negotiations, 8 have been rescued, and the bodies of 57 who died in captivity or during rescue attempts have been recovered. Read More: The Tragedy Unfolding in Gaza David's family, who asked for the video not to be published, said in a statement that he had been 'deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas's tunnels in Gaza,' describing him as 'a living skeleton, buried alive.' 'The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen. He is being starved purely to serve Hamas's propaganda,' they added. The video release comes a day after Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group with ties to Hamas, also released a video of another Israeli hostage, Rom Braslavski. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff met with the families of the hostages in Tel Aviv on Saturday, where he told them that Trump and he believe they will be 'successful' in negotiating a deal to bring all of the hostages home. 'Now we have to get all the 20 [live hostages] at the same time... we think that we have to shift this negotiation to all or nothing so that everybody comes home. We think it is going to be successful and we have a plan around it,' Witkoff said, according to Axios. 'President Trump now believes that everybody ought to come home at once - no piecemeal deals. That doesn't work.' Ceasefire talks have continued to stall between Hamas and Israel as a starvation crisis spreads in Gaza, with a United Nations (UN)-backed international food security body warning that there is a 'worst-case famine scenario' unfolding in the region. The UN said this week that humanitarian access to Gaza 'remains severely restricted,' and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) director of emergencies said the level of starvation was 'unlike anything we have seen in this century.' It added that Israel is now allowing 'humanitarian pauses' with more than 100 aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza on Sunday. Witkoff and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visited an aid site in Gaza run by the controversial Israel and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Friday, as the United Nations said that over 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food since the end of May, including 859 at GHF sites. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in response that reports of civilian casualties near distribution sites are under review. 'The IDF allows the American civilian organization (GHF) to operate independently in distributing aid to the residents of Gaza, and operates in proximity to the new distribution areas in order to enable the orderly delivery of food,' it said in a statement to TIME. 'IDF forces are conducting systematic review processes in order to improve the operational response in the area and minimize, as much as possible, any friction between the civilian population and IDF forces,' it continued.
Hamilton Spectator
8 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Pope thrills hundreds of thousands of young Catholics at Holy Year youth festival
ROME (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics poured into a vast field on Rome's outskirts Saturday for the weekend highlight of the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year: an evening vigil, outdoor slumber party and morning Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV that marks his first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics. Leo arrived by helicopter as the sun set over the Tor Vergata field and immediately boarded his open-topped popemobile for long loops through the flag-waving, cheering pilgrims. They had already been partying there for hours, setting up campsites for the night as misting trucks and water cannons spritzed them to cool them down from the 30C (85F) temperatures. 'It is something spiritual, that you can experience only every 25 years,' said Francisco Michel, a pilgrim from Mexico. 'As a young person, having the chance to live this meting with the pope I feel it is a spiritual growth.' For the past week, these bands of young Catholics from around the world have poured into Rome for their special Jubilee celebration, in a Holy Year in which 32 million people are expected to descend on the Vatican to participate in a centuries-old pilgrimage to the seat of Catholicism. The young people have been traipsing down cobblestoned streets in color-coordinated T-shirts, praying the Rosary and singing hymns with guitars, bongo drums and tambourines shimmying alongside. Using their flags as tarps to shield them from the sun, they have taken over entire piazzas for Christian rock concerts and inspirational talks, and stood for hours at the Circus Maximus to confess their sins to 1,000 priests offering the sacrament in a dozen different languages. History's first American pope was presiding over the vigil Saturday night. He was then returning to the Vatican for the night and coming back for another popemobile romp and Mass on Sunday morning. A mini World Youth Day, 25 years later It all has the vibe of a World Youth Day, the Catholic Woodstock festival that St. John Paul II inaugurated and made famous in Rome in 2000 at the very same Tor Vergata field. Then, before an estimated 2 million people, John Paul told the young pilgrims they were the 'sentinels of the morning' at the dawn of the third millennium. Officials had initially expected 500,000 youngsters this weekend, but Leo hinted the number might reach 1 million. 'It's a bit messed up, but this is what is nice about the Jubilee,' said Chloe Jobbour, a 19-year-old Lebanese Catholic who was in Rome with a group of more than 200 young members of the Community of the Beatitudes, a France-based charismatic group. She said, for example, that it had taken two hours to get dinner at a KFC overwhelmed by orders Friday night. The Salesian school that offered her group housing is an hour away by bus. But Jobbour, like many in Rome this week, didn't mind the discomfort: It's all part of the experience. 'I don't expect it to be better than that. I expected it this way,' she said, as members of her group gathered on church steps near the Vatican to sing and pray Saturday morning before heading out to Tor Vergata. There was one tragedy before the vigil began. The Vatican confirmed that an Egyptian 18-year-old woman, identified as Pascale Rafic, died during the pilgrimage, reportedly of cardiac arrest. Leo met Saturday with her group and extended his condolences to her family. Romans inconvenienced, but tolerant Those Romans who didn't flee the onslaught have been inconvenienced by the additional strain on the city's notoriously insufficient public transport system. Residents are sharing social media posts of outbursts by Romans at kids flooding subway platforms and crowding bus stops that have delayed and complicated their commutes to work. But other Romans have welcomed the enthusiasm the youngsters have brought. Premier Giorgia Meloni offered a video welcome, marveling at the 'extraordinary festival of faith, joy and hope' that the young people had created. 'I think it's marvelous,' said Rome hairdresser Rina Verdone, who lives near the Tor Vergata field and woke up Saturday to find a gaggle of police outside her home as part of the massive, 4,000-strong operation mounted to keep the peace. 'You think the faith, the religion is in difficulty, but this is proof that it's not so.' Verdone had already made plans to take an alternate route home Saturday afternoon, that would require an extra kilometer (half-mile) walk, because she feared the 'invasion' of kids in her neighborhood would disrupt her usual bus route. But she said she was more than happy to make the sacrifice. 'You think of invasion as something negative. But this is a positive invasion,' she said. ___ AP reporter Paolo Santalucia contributed to this story. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
