Istanbul, Turkey – Turkish authorities Wednesday said they have banned a planned concert Friday in Istanbul by Enrico Macias after calls to protest the French singer’s pro-Israeli views.
Macias, who was born into a Jewish family in Algeria, has on several occasions defended Israel’s lethal response to Hamas’s deadly October 2023 attacks.
“My problem is that I can’t stand the violence of the terrorists,” he said in an interview on YouTube in August. “And if there was violence on the Israeli side, it was because of Hamas,” he said, while saying he had “nothing against the Palestinians.”
Macias has lived in France since 1961, where he has contributed to the popularity of Arab-Andalusian music.
