The Pixies Join Festival Lineup in Israel More than three years after canceling a planned performance in Israel, the Pixies are once again scheduled to play there as part of a new music festival in June. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the band would perform on a bill that also includes Soundgarden at a two-day festival scheduled for June 17 and 18 at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv. In 2010, the Pixies were among several bands scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv but withdrew amid an international furor over a raid by Israeli naval commandos that killed nine people on a Turkish activists" ship bound for Gaza. "The decision was not reached easily," the Pixies said at the time. The choice to perform in Israel is often a contentious one, pitting those artists who have called for a cultural boycott of Israel in protest of its treatment of Palestinians against those who say music can be a unifying force. Last summer, the pop singer Alicia Keys was criticized by the musician Roger Waters and the author Alice Walker for scheduling a concert in Tel Aviv, but she played the show anyway.