Fat Freddy's Drop urged to withdraw from the Sydney Festival

File photo / Supplied

By Maori Television

Fat Freddy's Drop is being urged to withdraw from the Sydney Festival over Israeli embassy sponsorship.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa says it wrote to the group on Friday with the request they withdraw from their scheduled performance on January 18 because of the Israeli embassy's $20,000 sponsorship deal with the festival.

In accepting the donation, PSNA maintains "the Sydney Festival is using the Israeli Government Ministry of Foreign Affairs logo in festival promotional material and is aligning itself directly with the racist, apartheid state of Israel.

"We are urging Fat Freddy's Drop to show respect for the Palestinian struggle and pull out," PSNA National Chair John Minto said in a statement Sunday.

"We know this won't be easy or comfortable but it's the right thing – and the only decent thing – to do."

The Sydney Festival has said publically that it is concerned about the controversy but does not intend to end the sponsorship deal.

Festival artistic director Olivia Ansell told media this week that "We feel immense empathy with the situation.

"It's sensitive, something being created to bring artists together, so we can see a myriad of perspectives."

In a report by The Guardian, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Jeremy Leibler, says the boycott is "appalling".

"The Sydney festival should be a safe space to celebrate the artistry and gifts of all peoples, including Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, the boycott organisers have attempted to make the festival culturally unsafe for anyone who believes in freedom of speech, and the freedom to have differences of opinion. It is appalling behaviour and the Jewish community condemns it outright."

More than 30 acts have withdrawn or distanced themselves from the festival which opened on Thursday.