Since mid-September 2025, a coordinated cultural boycott of Israel has been forming under the banner No Music for Genocide, targeting not only live performances but especially streaming: hundreds of artists and labels are blocking their catalogues for Israel via geofencing. Within two weeks, media outlets reported more than 400 signatories, including prominent names from electronic and alternative music; recently, major pop acts joined in as well. At the same time, there have been counter-reactions in the form of show cancellations for Israeli artists abroad, plus a handful of highly publicized decisions by big acts.
What exactly is “No Music for Genocide”?
The campaign calls on musicians and labels to make their music unavailable in Israel. Practically, this means: geoblocking on streaming services. Geoblocking is not rocket science; it’s a standard function in digital distribution: labels and artists define “territories” in which releases are delivered. You know it yourself from Netflix on holiday, when it tells you your damn show isn’t available here.
Distributors like DistroKid document this openly, and industry guides explain that regional exclusions are controlled through delivery metadata sent to Spotify/Apple Music etc. Meaning: anyone who removes Israel from the territory list creates a digital picket line.
The lever here is not the stage but the catalogue. The campaign positions itself as a cultural boycott in the tradition of earlier anti-apartheid movements. We’ve been over this before, and once again the realization: being an artist does not automatically come with a functioning brain.
Spotify and other services are, of course, normally available in Israel; the block doesn’t happen through the platforms but through the rights holders. The visible effect varies: sometimes music was already gone on service A but still present on service B because catalogue rollouts aren’t perfectly synced. Example: Lorde. Apple Music Israel reported removals while some tracks were still visible on Spotify. The campaign implicitly follows PACBI/BDS guidelines on cultural boycotts, which for years have targeted institutions and performances. What’s new is the systematic focus on streams.
From here on, we can indeed talk about brainrot, because Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) claims Israel is not a democracy but a settler-colonial state and that a Jewish state inherently violates Palestinian rights. Well… In 2019, the German Bundestag voted to classify BDS as antisemitic and to cut funding to any organization actively supporting it. During the vote, some MPs said certain BDS slogans resembled Nazi propaganda.
Backlash & Collateral Effects
Shows by Israeli artists abroad are under pressure: recently a set by Roi Perez in London was cancelled; the DJ published a statement afterwards. This shows that the conflict doesn’t only concern “catalogues in Israel” but spills transnationally into the club ecosystem. Inside Israel, cultural life swings between opening and shutdown depending on security situation and budgets. That alone makes local scenes fragile, independent of the boycott. As always, the Mazda gets hit, not the Maybach.
Pro and Con
Pro Boycott
Non-cooperative, low-threshold pressure tool without physical escalation.
Artistic self-determination: rights holders decide where their work appears. This is standard practice in the industry.
Contra Boycott
Collective-punishment accusation: cultural access for uninvolved listeners is restricted.
Chilling effect: pressure also hits Israeli artists who advocate dialogue, as seen in the London cancellation.
Legal risk for participants: civil claims under Israel’s anti-boycott law are possible, even if enforcement abroad remains disputed.
Conclusion: A pointless action and, as a cultural boycott, mostly symbolic. Its impact on actual political change is hard to prove, and the war is over, provided Hamas finally steps aside and disappears. Measures like this mainly generate hearts and likes for the artists but exert little direct pressure. Music fans in Israel will simply use personal workarounds like VPNs, which give access to everything even in China despite the firewall.
and then