Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall tweets BDS and Jewish roots before TA concert
By JOSH SOLOMANScreenshot of Mick Hucknall's twitter(photo credit: TWITTER)
Ahead of his performance in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, Mick Hucknall, the lead singer of the veteran UK pop band Simply Red, took to Twitter to discuss the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and his Jewish roots.When Hucknall arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday, he posted a photo on Twitter of the city’s beaches and skyline with the comment, “Greetings from Tel Aviv. A view from the front line of our Western Democracy.”The front man of Simply Red then went on to Tweet about anti-Semitism and the BDS movement.He tweeted out a screenshot of the “Anti-Semitism” page from Wikipedia. He followed it with posting Frank Sinatra’s “Send in the Clowns.”Hucknall shifted the conversation directly to the BDS movement.Tweeting “at least Im in the best company... #TelAviv” in reference to a Mick Jagger quote from 2013, “We’ve been slammed and smacked and twittered a lot by the anti-Israeli side; all I can say is: anything worth doing is worth overdoing. So we decided to add a concert.”The English singer followed up by posting a photo of Elton John with the quote, “Thank you Tel Aviv. This is the first night of our tour and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer audience or better place to play.”The Tweets kept coming. Hucknall referenced the BDS push to prevent Carlos Santana from playing in Israel and then he tweeted out “Ouch!” in reference to a Twitter user’s post about a recent Coldplay music video – “Sorry #BDS supporters, you can’t watch. It was directed by Israelis.”Hucknall capped off his day of tweets with one final comment: “Phew! And yes, my maternal Grandmother was Jewish.. Goodnight all and shalom!”