"Don't visit, exhibit or perform in Israel," said some 94 renowned authors, musicians, filmmakers and poets from Europe, North and South America, as well as Palestinians and Israelis.

In a joint letter to the Guardian, they suggested that an Israeli boycott, as called for by Palestinian academics and artists may be the way to peace in the occupied territories.

"Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer," the letter said.

"UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed," it warned in calling on other writers and artists to back the campaign.

The call for a cultural boycott has already been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, including in the UK.

The latest initiative was led by renowned British author John Berger, together with UK musicians Brian Eno and Leon Rosselson, filmmakers Sophie Fiennes and Elia Suleiman, singer Reem Kelani and writers Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, and Eduardo Galeano.

They pointed out that the international challenge to apartheid was better fought with a campaign of boycott and divestment that led finally to UN imposed sanctions which enabled regime change in South Africa without terrible bloodshed.

"For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid," their letter said.

It also criticized western governments, who refer to Israel's "legitimate right of self-defence," for continuing to supply weaponry to the Zionist regime.

Boycott Israel-UK