A passionate debate over a cultural boycott of an Israeli-funded arts company dominated this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Two shows run by Israeli companies were cancelled due to safety fears (and protests) as a result. The Edinburgh Fringe actions follows that of prominent singers, artists and writers, from Brian Eno to Mike Leigh, Alice Walker and Adrienne Rich, all of whom have publicly rejected invitations to perform in Israel. Meanwhile, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) voted to demand that the Israel Association of United Architects be removed from the International Union of Architects. While this latter decision was overturned, it indicates that many in the cultural sector now view themselves as political arbiters of good and bad politics on the world stage and see the arts as legitimate weapons to be wielded politically.

How effective or indeed ethical are cultural boycotts? Some argue that it is a way to question and protest actions of a state, and that doing so has had a positive result in the past - citing the boycotts against South Africa. Others worry about the threat to artistic freedom; that it aligns people with states along national lines, and that boycotts, unhelpfully, politicise the arts. The furore over the Jewish film festival at the Tricycle, and the cancellation of the controversial art performance recreation of a ‘human zoo’, Exhibit B, at the Barbican after protests at its opening night, are just recent examples of how politics and the arts can lead to censorship.

How far will such boycotts go? When New York City’s Metropolitan Opera cancels plans for worldwide video transmission and radio broadcast of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer, due to claims that the work is ‘anti-Jewish’, who can complain, once the arts have been volunteered up as a political football? Are cultural boycotts an example of an artistic good or bad?