Hat tip to Jihad Watch
Thursday night at the Royal Albert Hall in London the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was performing under the direction of Zubin Mehta. Below you can see the disruption by pro-Palestinian protestors.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/09/anti-israeli-protesters-london-proms.html
(LA Times)
As Jihad Watch mentions, this is reminiscent of the disruption of the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren's speech last year at UC-Irvine. I was present at that event.
In the video here you can witness the contrast between civilization and uncivilized, thuggish behavior. These thugs felt that they had every right to deny the audience the pleasure of listening to the concert for which they had paid for.
I wonder if the Palestinians could even produce a philharmonic orchestra. After all, they have shown time and time again that their talent is in disrupting and destroying while the Israelis prove time and time again that they are a nation of producers. The contrast is so striking.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
Mr. Fouse while I fully condemn actions like the disruption of concerts in Britain or heckling of ambassadors in Irvine, you have to understand that Israel's apartheid policies towards the Arabs and Palestinians is a root cause of these hooligan behaviors.
Word is going around the music world that these interruptions are counterproductive to their causes. In fact, it is driving those who would sympathize with their causes into the opposite camp.
So may these idiots do this every stop.
@Anonymous
What apartheid? Arabs like other minority groups in Israel have full citizenship rights. The right to vote, hold office, sit as judges, pay taxes, etc... There is no separate buses, restrooms, benches, etc... one for Jews and another for others. There is no apartheid in Israel. Look at every Muslim nation on this planet and you will find apartheid and worse.
Mr Anonymous,
I do not understand. Since the late 1960s, I have been living with Palestinian sky-jackings, the Munich Olympics massacre, acts of terrorism, suicide bombings, kidnappings, and what have you. The ultimate goal is to destroy Israel. Israel is in an existential fight for her survival. They could have had two states in 1948. They preferred war. Then they followed Yasser Arafat. Until the Palestinians turn away from terror and recognize Israel's right to exist, they have no future.
No I don't understand.
Late sixties???
Would the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 count?
How about "Operation Susannah" in the mid 1950's?
Had never heard of the susannah affair. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
Doesn't sound too nice, but I note it flopped, no one was killed and Israel went through a scandal and inquiry-something that palestinians have never done. Unlike the Palestinians, Israel has a legal system to oversee wrongdoing.
As for the Liberty attack, what evidence do you have it was other than a tragic error? Has either argument ever been proven?
Had never heard of the susannah affair. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
Doesn't sound too nice, but I note it flopped, no one was killed and Israel went through a scandal and inquiry-something that palestinians have never done. Unlike the Palestinians, Israel has a legal system to oversee wrongdoing.
As for the Liberty attack, what evidence do you have it was other than a tragic error? Has either argument ever been proven?
"Israel's apartheid policies towards the Arabs and Palestinians is a root cause of these hooligan behaviors."
This is false for a large faction of Palestinians. All one has to do is read the Hamas charter. Their clearly state their problem is with the idea that there is a homeland for Jewish people. It isn't only about treatment of Pals in the terrorities.
While I support equal rights for all in Israel proper and the two state solution where a Pal homeland is created next to Israel, I am not under the delusion that this solution will be satisfactory to end the violence by all Pals in the short term.
Some Pal leaders have tied religion into this conflict and that complicates the matter. When people think they are fighting for "justice" under the guise of their religion, they get tribal and are not often willing to make the compromises that will be needed for peace.
There is a large faction of Pals that still reject the idea that there is homeland for the Jewish people in land they consider an Islamic waqf.
Hamas charter
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
- wejomerv
"Late sixties???
Would the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 count?
How about "Operation Susannah" in the mid 1950's?"
Israel is an imperfect democracy. The fact that you can bring up a couple accounts where Israel may have acted poorly shows you are grasping for straws compared to behavior by the Arab states surrounding Israel, particularly when one of those incidents has been throughly investigated and been shown to be a mistake on the battlefield. This sadly happens. Israel had a case in the last month where one of their soldiers was killed by friendly fire.
- wejomerv
"I wonder if the Palestinians could even produce a philharmonic orchestra."
Just because a nation like Israel has a philharmonic orchestra does not give it an automatic moral high ground.
Remember that Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa had exceptional orchestras and legendary conductors.
Protest fail. Do the people who conduct this sort of protest think people will suddenly side against Israel because they interupted this performance? Do they think the Palstinians do not get enough press?
If anything this type of action plays into deeply ingrained stereotype that Pal supporters are irrational and unreasonably angry.
They may have legitimate grievences and to seek solutions to the conflict but this is an unreasonalbe and irrational way to go about it.
"If anything this type of action plays into deeply ingrained stereotype that Pal supporters are irrational and unreasonably angry.
Maybe the pro-palestinian protestors are irrational and unreasonable.
Gary, I don't believe that this happened, because I read all about it in the New York Times. You and Miggie and Squid have made it abundantly clear that the Times is inherently unreliable, and no credence should be placed in its reporting.
Assuming, just for the sake of speculative argument, that maybe such an incident could have occured -- after all, other news sources also reported it -- it is quite as reprehensible as the Jewish and Roman Catholic eastern European activists who used to disrupt cultural performances from socialist countries. They too were filled with righteous indignation which appeared to justify interrupting and exposing the crass communist propaganda.
(Yes Findalis, SOME of the protests were limited to politely handing out leaflets to patrons on the way in, but not always.)
Anonymous has a ghost of a point. Whenever some set of people believe they have a righteous cause, which is being ignored, and are up against an adversary sufficiently powerful to be indifferent to the case they present, those who are righteously indignant get frustrated and look for unconventional ways to make their point.
Those who are clever, imaginative, and have studied Sun Tzu's The Art of War find ways to make their point which evoke massive waves of sympathy and support. This can even be done by a military operation, such as the Sandinistas who seized control of the entire Nicaraguan parliament, secured the release of 80 imprisoned comrades, and got away with nobody killed.
On the other hand, murdering an entire nation's Olympic team somehow fails to impress anyone favorably.
This disruption, although not threatening life or limb, interrupts people trying to enjoy a good concert, and implies that if a given orchestra's government is doing something that somebody somewhere in the world doesn't approve of, ergo, the orchestra should not be allowed to complete an etude in peace. Every orchestra in the world is based in a nation with a government that is doing something that somebody doesn't approve of.
As they say, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Suit yourself Findalis. Your memory is entirely your own domain.
What I actually said is that the Palestinian organizations did their causes no favors. As an exercise to garner support, or even establish pretensions to power, it was a sad and failing spectacle.
As for continuing the games, I would have done that too, in the same spirit that George W. Bush (appropriately, whatever Michael Moore said) finished reading the story to the school children on 9/11. We're not changing everything in reaction to some terrorist intrusion. Don't Israelis make a point of going out to their favorite restaurants on the very street where a suicide bombing happened the week before?
What was missing was a second-string Israeli Olympic team ready to step into the breach and continue competition. I'm sure there were plenty of athletes who would have had the courage to to that, if the opportunity had been offered. It would have been the right message to send... pending Mossad's meticulous job of tracking down the perpetrators, including the quaint touch of sending funeral wreaths to each one the day before they were killed.
Post a Comment