Toronto, Canada
Toronto, CanadaFlash 90

DJ Asher Swissa (Skazi) was playing music at a party in Canada, organized by an Israeli entertainer and primarily aimed at the Israeli audience. Even so, the event manager said partygoers from around the world were also in the audience.

The Israeli flag was taken down from the stage during the performance by a local security guard. "This hasn’t happened to me before," Skazi told Ynet, even though he said he doesn't believe it was an anti-Israel act. "The venue is managed by an Israeli, but I think they prefer not to have any flags, from any country, at all. They have a policy of separating music from politics."

"The guard took the flag down aggressively," the DJ recounted. "I'm not used to this. But this seems to be the policy: no music and politics. Even so, with or without a flag, I’m from Israel."

Golan, the event organizer and club manager, explained that this was their general policy. "The world isn’t in a great situation and there are Arabs, Persians, Chinese, Indians and Brazilians in Canada."

However, Golan did apologize for the way the flag was removed. "I saw the video, that shouldn’t have happened, but there weren’t supposed to be flags at all. I’m really sorry that it turned out to be aggressive. I bring Israeli artists and I’m proud that Skazi is Israeli. I just don’t want to have problems here; we don’t want people to end up in uncomfortable situations."