A man of (misguided) principle?

At the beginning of the month, I wrote about the fact that Nick Cave was coming under fire for planning to take his tour to Israel, and that it would be interesting to see how he would respond to the criticism. Well, we now have an answer - like Radiohead before him, he's come out swinging, but with a markedly less convincing argument.

In a pre-gig press conference, he's declared that "it suddenly became very important to make a stand against those people who are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians". Which is all fine and well in some contexts, but in this instance is it not more important to make a stand against those responsible for the oppression of Palestinians by Israel?

Frankly, I'm disappointed in him - just as I was in Radiohead - and I'm not alone. Roger Waters has argued that the issue "isn't about music, it's about human rights", and Brian Eno has been equally critical, commenting: "It's nothing to do with 'silencing' artists - a charge I find rather grating when used in a context where a few million people are permanently and grotesquely silenced".