TIES TO ISRAEL & WEAPONS COMPANIES: Founded in 1987, SXSW is an annual film, cultural, and technology festival that takes place in Austin, TX. Palestine solidarity activists have targeted this event several times over the years for its ties to U.S. weapons manufacturers and its platforming of “Brand Israel,” a public relations campaign led by the state of Israel to culturewash Israel’s war crimes.
RESPONSE TO GAZA GENOCIDE: More than 80 artists withdrew from the 2024 festival, pressuring SXSW to cut ties with U.S. militarism.
Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams, AKA Squirrel Flower, explained her decision to boycott in an Instagram post: “These defense contractors make the weapons that the IDF uses to bomb Gaza. The IDF has now killed at least one in every 75 inhabitants of Gaza, [and] I refuse to be complicit in that,” she wrote. “I don’t believe that a music festival should include profiteers of war—I believe that art is a tool to create a better world and has no place alongside warmongers.”
Following the pressure campaign led by artists, in June 2024, SXSW announced: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the U.S. Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”
The success of the SXSW campaign demonstrates that even innocuous-seeming cultural institutions have long been entangled with the U.S. war machine, and that through organizing and strategic pressure campaigns, those ties can be cut.