Legal group suing two New Zealanders over singer Lorde’s Israel boycott

An Israeli legal rights group is suing two New Zealanders it blames for convincing pop singer Lorde to cancel her performance in Israel.

Shurat HaDin said on Wednesday that it had filed the suit in a Jerusalem court on behalf of three Israeli concert ticket-holders.

The group said the lawsuit is intended to give “real consequences to those who selectively target Israel and seek to impose an unjust and illegal boycott against the Jewish state”.

The three Israelis are seeking about $13,000 in damages.

Lorde announced late last year that she was cancelling her planned June 2018 concert in Tel Aviv.

The two New Zealanders – one Jewish and one Palestinian — had appealed to the singer in an open letter to “join the artistic boycott of Israel”.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand Herald newspaper published a handwritten note from Lorde, honouring fellow Kiwi musicians as well as sightings of other attendees at the Grammy Awards ceremony in New York.

Lorde wrote her thanks to fans back home for embracing her Grammy-nominated album, Melodrama.