The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity
by Sarah Gillespie
Thursday, May 31st, 2012
Last week I went to see an excellent play at the National Theatre called The Collaborators by John Hodge. The play explored Josef Stalin’s unlikely admiration for dissident playwright Mikhail Bulgakov and the complex bond between art and ‘the State’. The play was a reminder that historically, even when culture has been puppeteered by an authority, unapproved and unintended meanings have a way of leaking out. Had the horror of Stalin’s Holodomor been contemporaneous today, we may well have been called upon to boycott the works of Bulgakov. This would do a great disservice, not only to the cannon of great literature, but also to the counter-revolutionary spirit evoked by Bulgakov’s work. I don’t claim that all art originating from criminal or repressive states, is loaded with subversive messages, but that art has the capacity to transcend the binary world of ‘placard politics’ (‘for’ this or ‘against’ that) and deliver the transforming might of pathos, spirit, sadness and beauty.
Reflecting on this reinforced my reluctant opposition to the cultural and academic boycott of Israel and, in particular to the call by the BDS to sabotage or ban any mode of expression delivered by state-enforced Israeli artists, musicians and thinkers. While the motives of many activists speaking out against Israeli artists and intellectuals are well intended and heart-felt, any action that seeks to abolish freedom of expression or thought is not winning any prizes for tolerance. Jews had their books burnt by Nazis & Israelis continue this dubious tradition by banning writer Gunter Grass, composer Daniel Barenboim and academic Norman Finkelstein. Surely, if we are ‘humanists’ we cannot be lured into suppressing or vandalizing art or ideas. If we do, we enter the supremacist domain of those we claim to oppose.
Furthermore, while the BDS sanctioning of goods is a logical, pragmatic tactic that I whole-heartedly support, I fail to understand the rationality of banning certain Zionist artists and not others. Last weekend Gilad Atzmon’s devoted nemesis, Tony Greenstein, took it upon himself to publish an inordinately long piece about some comments I wrote on this issue on the Facebook page of Ben White, an activist and writer who argues that Israel is essentially identical to South African Apartheid. I don’t agree with White’s prognosis. In the thread I wrote the following:-
(Culturally) ‘boycotting a nation state’ is premised on the notion that the country functions autonomously & can be ideologically quarantined. I’m not an expert on South African politics, but I certainly don’t recall the Apartheid regime enjoying the most powerful lobby group in the United States, I don’t recall the Apartheid Friends of Labor Org in the UK – nor do I recall British lawyers abandoning Universal Jurisdiction to allow SA leaders to travel freely. In short, Israel is unique in that it is maintained by Zionists across the globe on the Left & the Right. Boycotting academics & artists who happen to be born within the perimeters of Israeli sovereignty is futile. Who cares if some art-house Israeli movie gets refused from European film festivals when you’ve got Steven Spielberg’s ‘Munich’ grossing $130,358,911 worldwide?
Predictably, Ben White did not address my questions. Nor did Tony Greenstein when he recycled my words, along with an impressive gallery of photos lifted from my personal Facebook account, on his amusingly foul-mouthed blog.
Supporters of the cultural boycott state that they don’t boycott individual Israelis if those individuals are anti-Zionist (like academic Shlomo Sands). This is very kind of them. However, if it is a person’s political persuasion, not the arbitrary lottery of their Nationality, that determines whether they are spared prohibition, why is it only Israeli-born Zionists get banned? Why not picket the lectures of Zionist ‘University of London’ professor David Hirsh? Why interrupt a work of a genius like William Shakespeare (not commonly known to have been a massive Netanyahu supporter) while in cinemas across London, Sasha Baron Cohen’s Zionist propaganda film, The Dictator is delivered on a loop? I really don’t get it. Last year Wikileeks revealed that the Arab League boycotted Steven Spielberg, not for beaming Islamphobic global blockbusters like Munich onto our screens, but for donating $1 million to Israel during their 2006 war with Lebanon. This is coherent. Indeed, too many Lefties in the West refuel their self-love by waving placards without ever asking themselves why. Given the war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan committed by my democratically elected government in the UK, shouldn’t Tony Greenstein et al also boycott British Artists who receive money from the Arts Counsel of Britain? Add to this the recent revelation that BDS hero Omar Barghouti is a student in Tel Aviv University, the very institution he encourages us to ban, and the ‘movement’ begins to resemble a tangled web of hypocrisy and redundant gestures. Barghouti’s attendance at TA University doesn’t exactly make Israel resemble the Apartheid State he tells us it is. The Apartheid 1959 ‘Extension of University Education Act’ bared non-whites from entering white Universities. This has not happened to Barghouti. His presence there reinforces TA Universities’ reputation as a tolerant and multicultural institution.
Interfering with freedom of thought and expression, academic exchange and artistic liberty is a sensitive Issue. Tolerance and pluralism are core and precious values within western discourse. We should boycott Israeli products, not art, spirit and ideas. Recently I read an article from Ben white in which he admits that the ”boycott is a strategy not a principle’. This is exactly my problem with the BDS Cultural and academic boycott. It is not principled, & it lacks integrity. By refusing to have the argument you have lost the argument.
———————————————
Sarah Gillespie’s critically acclaimed new project ‘The War on Trevor’ on Youtube and available at Amazon
———————————————–
Posted by Sarah Gillespie
on May 31, 2012. Filed under Activism.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
227 Responses to The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity
You must be logged in to post a comment Login
Blake
May 31, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Amen is all I have to say to your fabulous article.
Gilad Atzmon
June 1, 2012 at 7:25 am
Incredible article ya Sarah. I obviously agree with each and every point. Book burning is not the way forward..
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 8:19 am
“Incredible article ya Sarah. I obviously agree with each and every point.” Eh????? Overly laudative? All that’s missing is geeeeeenius!
Gilad, so you agree with this?
“We should boycott Israeli products, not art, spirit and ideas.” Why not?
We see the horror, deceit and arrogance perpetrated on the Palestinians for generations by israel and yet somehow we have to separate this from the art, spirit and ideas of israel. Do they not rest upon on one another?
Do you feel that you are representative of israeli art, spirit and ideas?
Art – musician – jazz is not israeli
Spirit – israeli?
Ideas – anti-israeli
I thought israel and everything it stands for was supposed to be a bag of shit, not, everything except it’s jewish art, jewish spirit and jewish ideas.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:33 pm
“yet somehow we have to separate this from the art, spirit and ideas of israel. Do they not rest upon on one another?”
You’re dead wrong. The culture of a society has nothing to do with it. That’s a silly idea that only a nincompoop like Abounimah can maintain. It’s very complex, I can’t do it justice. Gilas is going to write a book about it, he said.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Oh, noooooo! What did I do?! I meant… I meant to contradict you, that’s all…
As Emily Latella on SNL used to say: “Never mind”….
Jay Knott
June 1, 2012 at 1:03 pm
This is some of the best and most convincing writing yet to appear on this site.
Paul Eisen
June 1, 2012 at 5:14 pm
It is a very good piece, Sarah.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 8:39 am
Paul
“It is a very good piece, Sarah.” Does that mean that you agree with it? Freedom of speech and thought?
Are you thinking about answering my comment to you on the “You gotta love this Guy” or are “too far” comments only for the “special” jews?
Could you explain your thought process for censoring my freedom of expression. Cheers.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 8:24 am
You forgot this sarcasm symbol
. There’s a fundamental flaw in the piece, see if you can find it. The clue is… “SPECIAL”
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Hard to tell the way comments follow which on you replied to, fool me once
fool me once...
June 4, 2012 at 10:28 am
The “special” comment was for Jay.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 1:59 am
This is a very interesting article, whose statements seem to be deeply felt by the author, an artist herself. While I think I understand her point of view as an artists I disagree with almost everything she says. And thus also with all the commentators who preceded me…
Bulgakov is not a well-chosen comparison: his work survived not because it was not boycotted by the West but because it was great. He did create under a “repressive regime,” no sponsored reading tours in London for him, which cannot be said about the Israeli artists (except when they are Palestinians).
They are not propaganda pushers, not overtly or intentionally, but they are indeed cultural emissaries of the boycotted state: the State for Jews. It is a fact they need to think about and take home with them.
The author is perhaps too young to know that during the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa, the boycott extended to ALL cultural and scientific exchanges with South Africa. I recall quite a number of scientific meetings and conferences in Cape Town that Western scientists boycotted.
(I also recall that the only scientists I happened to know that broke the boycott were Jewish Americans. Their articulated rationale was along the same lines: you cannot ban or impede the exchange of ideas, science, etc.) That boycott had TEETH. It is also a fact that many South African scientists (in the biology sphere at least) who felt ostracized and shunned (unjustly from their personal point of view) simply for being nationals of the targeted state became a pressure front for change in South Africa. If you make an exception for the very people who are capable to speak up and educate the rest, why bother at all?
The actions of the activists who seek to boycott Israel’s cultural exports do not “abolish freedom of thought,” as the hyperbole has it here. They are not burning books. The book burning cry, incidentally, ought to get some rest. Even Israel is doing nothing of the sort: Grass’s books are not banned in Israel, only his physical person has been declared “non-grata.”
“Surely, if we are ‘humanists’ we cannot be lured into suppressing or vandalizing art or ideas…… Why interrupt a work of a genius like William Shakespeare” (not commonly known to have been a massive Netanyahu supporter)”
The author engages in hyperbole again and for good measure in metonymy as well: nobody is “suppressing” or “vandalizing” anything and a performance of a Shakespeare play (even by the best of the best) is not Shakespeare himself, or even that particular play for that matter.
The cute Netanyahu quip is also wrong: the boycott does not take into account the content of the cultural manifestation, nor should it, only the fact that it is an Israeli cultural export, and as such meant to put lipstick on Israel’s public face.
If we are humanists we should stick to boycotting oranges and olives because it is more pragmatic?
As for entering “the supremacist domain of those we claim to oppose,” by staking a separate domain for artists based on special rights one would have created exactly that: another little minority group of special interests, claiming dispensation. It is OK, I presume, to hurt the nasty Israelis who are in the canned or crated goods business but artists, they are different…By boycotting artists when touring abroad you are killing ART itself…?!
The arguments about Greestein, Spielberg, Sacha Cohen are off topic: when did the anti-Israel boycott suddenly become the anti-world wide zionism boycott, which is found deficient, so why do the former if the latter is not done? Would that grand boycott also exclude artists?
Boycotting ALL Israeli exports, whether oranges, olives or theater ensembles is not “interfering with freedom of thought and expression,” or with “artistic liberty” as the author grandly puts it–the Israeli artists can continue to enjoy them at home, but it does interfere with academic and cultural exchanges and the fact that this is “a sensitive Issue” is the whole point,
and the hope for effecting any change.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 2:52 am
I kind of agree with you, Ariadna.
I had the same feeling after reading Sarah’s article.
I just was not able to pinpoint it so eloquently and factually as you did it.
If we boycott Israel, then we boycott everything that is connected with apartheid, supremacist, racists etc State of Israel. No exceptions.
Why artists , academics , writers,musicians etc should be exluded??
Don’t they have any influence on shaping the spiritual/intellectual /emotional lives of Israelis??
I think they actually do, more than olivesm oranges or ahava creams.
Deadbeat
June 3, 2012 at 12:22 am
The author is perhaps too young to know that during the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa, the boycott extended to ALL cultural and scientific exchanges with South Africa.
I’m glad Ariadna wrote this because I was not familiar with the extent of the South African boycott however I heard Noam Chomsky on a Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman say that the South African boycott did NOT extend to cultural exchanges. Knowing what I know about Chomsky and his stance against BDS, I was inclined to dismiss his remarks. Unfortunately, since so many “activists” get their information from such “alternative” outlets they unquestionably accept anything that Chomsky says.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 1:21 am
Chomsky does not lie.
He just molds the truth… in the same way he claimed that zionist Jews who settled in kibbutzim on stolen Palestinian land but were “against the idea of Israel as a state” were …. anti-zionists.
So perhaps in this case he means that the South African boycott did not extend to cultural exchanges AS FAR AS HE WAS CONCERNED.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 8:46 am
Ariadna
Fair, sensitive, articulate and thought stimulating critique of the article – nice one.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Neah… I recanted later, as you can see if you scroll down far enough. The whole issue was far more complex and sensitive than I could handle
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 10:51 am
To start with I do not think that Sarah or anyone here opposes BDS in principle. but she opposes sabotage of concerts. The image of a dysfunctional Marxist hooligan shouting over a stings 4tet is not necessarily appealing unless you are dysfunctional Marxist
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Why not sabotage an Israeli concert? I would suggest they throw tomatoes as well.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:50 pm
No. That raises more ethical questions:
–is it appropriate to use tomatoes imported from Israel (if any)?
–throwing tomatoes is something a Marxist hooligan might do. Maybe it is better to do something an Arab would do: throw shoes.
But then again… should one throw Naot shoes (made in Israel) or not since it implies first buying them?
You see how complex it is, Jonathon?
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 8:34 am
And I thought it was a simple matter, no wonder the activist movement is like a chocolate fireguard. Its kind of depressing.
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 5:10 pm
sabotaging israeli “art” would work best if one did so dressed up as one of these:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_TyoBzT1DUxU/SvzUaNGYBpI/AAAAAAAAAAU/9iTkcj8m9Zo/s1600-h/WilliamsburgHasidicboy2.jpg
that will preclude the usual hysteria of “antisemitism” and add to the desired confusion such an act of sabotage is designed to achieve.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 10:50 pm
I guess you will make a good team with Greeny & Naomi
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Gilad, let’s not reduce the world to a Punch and Judy play whose characters are modeled after BDS.
It is easy to understand why, given your trials and tribulations, BDS seems larger than life, indeed the filter to see through but let not their gravitational force disturb your compass.
You must accept that the rest of the world, including the people who love you, don’t care about BDS. If BDS plans to do something I agree with I would not abstain on the grounds of considering it a BDS-stained action.
It is also perfectly acceptable to say “I opt out of this particular form of protest for personal reasons.” It is less acceptable to call those who choose to participate “hooligans”, whether or not some are associated with the much-hated BDS.
If there are other (personal or not) reasons I would try to be upfront about them but I would not make them into something larger than that.
You are digging a hole with no exit for yourself when you wrap it up in “Art is above it all, above Life itself” justifications given your convincing (and correct) excoriation of Abounimah on the subject of the ir/relevance of culture.
Roy Bard
June 4, 2012 at 6:54 pm
If BDS is going to work, its going to have to have a clear aim and its going to have to include a lot more people.
The fact that its keenest protagonists in the UK are also the keenest gatekeepers of the movement is no small co-incidence.
Remember this?
Having just watched Norman Finkelstein talk about BDS* to Amy Goodman and read Ali Abunimah’s critique of it, it does seem to me that the real issue is where it is meant to end.
Norman on the one hand tells us that the public perception of Israel has changed radically in the last 3 decades, partly as a result of the internet, and then he tells us that it is fixed and if you go beyond what the public is willing to accept you are in effect a cult.
BDS might raise Palestine’s profile, make a few activists feel good and even make the Israeli establishment concerned, but it isn’t ending the victimisation of the Palestinians and it isn’t bringing justice.
My gut feeling is that there needs to be a clear agenda and aim and to achieve that there needs to be an open discussion about what the aim really is.
There were no supporters of the Bantustans in the South African Boycott movement and yet the BDS movement has its hands tied by the idea that oranges from some stolen Palestinian land are ‘kosher’, whilst avocadoes from other stolen Palestinian land are not.
And instead of trying to resolve that problem, the self-proclaimed leadership is instead involved in trying to shut down the conversation.
*You’ll need to go to the whole show to see the end of the interview as it gets cut off
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 10:34 am
This is really the point: The arguments about Greestein, Spielberg, Sacha Cohen are off topic: when did the anti-Israel boycott suddenly become the anti-world wide zionism boycott, which is found deficient, so why do the former if the latter is not done? Would that grand boycott also exclude artists?
G: This is the question we really have to address: do we really want to boycott art and beauty. I believe that it is a very sensitive issue and worth deep consideration. However, i am firm about my opposition to sabotage of concerts, art and performances.. I do realize that the Greensteins of this world seek libidinal excitement but they will have to look somewhere else may even be something that involves intimacy..:)
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 11:22 am
Yes if it is Israeli or Pro Israel ART Boycott it I don’t care how good the art is, It is compromised by residing in a racist state. Good jews should leave Israel ASAP.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 10:52 pm
The good jews ve left already …
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 11:32 pm
good move bro ahead of your timeyou exiled yourself.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 2:30 pm
“i am firm about my opposition to sabotage of concerts, art and performances.. I do realize that the Greensteins of this world seek libidinal excitement but they will have to look somewhere else may even be something that involves intimacy..:)”
You must be tired, Gilad. This is below your arguing level.
You are able to come up with something better than the: I am firm whereas he is … flaccid.
searching
June 4, 2012 at 7:11 pm
G:”do we eally want to boycott art and beauty”
S:You seem to have some kind of wide,
self-defined, somewhat idealistic, unreal definition of art and beauty.
Beauty is not necessary an art ,and art is not necessaty about beauty.
What is art? What is beauty?
Do you relly think many of so-called artists are about showing, preserving, preaching beauty??
If you do, then you are grossly mistaken.
It is not. But it should Be??
Art is not some bigger than life phenomenon. It is created by people, and has the same faults as people have.
Artists are oftentimes very weak individuals as people.
I used to live in so- called “artsy” area of NYC for a while. I knew quite of few of so-called artitst.
Many of them were very intersting, creative, sensetive people, but ,at the same time, quite a few of them were very neurotic, vain, without too much of the integrity, self-involved, full of themselves, addicted to some substances etc.
But…they considered themselves the ARTISTS, and of course they should be forgiven all their “not-so-great” deeds.
They are the Chosen ones of every society, and they deserve a special treatment because they have a “mission” to accomplish.
A mission of enlightening the dark masses and show them the way. I think it kind of borderlines on tribal identity.
Do you consider our modern pop-artists the Artists”???
I don’t . I consider most of them the parasites of our societies ,employed by the power elite in order to demoralise people, especially young ones.
I don’t consider a majority of so-called pop art icons as anything valuable.
And if you call madonna, rihana, lady gaga , many writers, producers, actors tec. the “artists” ,
then I am lost with your logic or reasoning. So-called pop-artists, nowadays, do more damage than good to our societies.
They become portals through which every possible evil comes through.
Art and artists have the SAME obligation as everbody else to serve good, to promote goodness ,to be heralds of Good, not evil. Unfortunately, majority of art and artists forgot about it.
Many do quite the opposite.
David Holden
December 16, 2012 at 3:41 am
interesting point, Searching, which got lost in the slipstream of vigorous debate – as interesting points often seem to. btw where are you now?
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 9:34 am
BDS is a paper tiger… I have been here before. This week is like “Groundhog Day”. If you are going to boycott Israel, then boycott eveything even faintly Israeli. Habima, Madonna anyone who supports ISrael boycott them too. It should be hard. What we seem to have is reverse BDS, People talk about non violent BDS and do f**k all. “Somehow their is always an excuse to allow ISraelis to perform”
BDS must have teeth.
Gilad Atzmon
June 2, 2012 at 10:04 am
But if BDS is funded by Soros, directly or indirectly, it is bound to fit into liberal Zionist agenda and it does..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 10:39 am
Soros is the Rothschild’s Frontman http://www.soros.org/
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 11:07 am
IF BDS was to work it should apply to all with Israeli passports, they must not be allowed to perform at all. Also any non-israelis who work or perform in Israel should be boycotted for upto 5 years. That is what is needed. Not a boycott with exceptions to the rule, NO exceptions AT ALL.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 10:00 am
“Not a boycott with exceptions to the rule, NO exceptions AT ALL.” Agreed.
Paul Eisen
June 2, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Well I’ve heard you wear Marks and Spencers underpants and not only that, but in 2003 you were at a party where there were Israeli avocados
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Really.. LOL. TBH i dont shop on M&S i can’t afford the prices. Its down the market for me for some cheap nickers. The best anti Israel supermarkets are Morrisons, (Yorkshire owned), Coop and LIDL. This is where I try to shop.
But seriously there should be some stigma to the BDS campaign and what do we do in JUK. We invite Habima and any other Israeli national that suits.
There is no naming and shaming to the BDS its lame beyond belief.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 1:30 pm
it’s not rocket science.. 729.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Nifty graphics!
Sarah Gillespie
June 2, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Ariadna many of your observations and comments are invigorating. I will attempt to address some of them below.
AT: Bulgakov is not a well-chosen comparison: his work survived not because it was not boycotted by the West but because it was great. He did create under a “repressive regime,” no sponsored reading tours in London for him, which cannot be said about the Israeli artists (except when they are Palestinians).
SG: Correct – Bulgakov was not boycotted by the West or anyone else. Stalin objected to the counter revolutionary subtexts in Bulgakov’s work but he revered his talent & protected him, even appointing him to the Moscow Arts Theatre (who incidentally performed in Paris). Stalin famously stated that a writer of Bulgakov’s brilliance was above ‘party words’ like ‘left’ and ‘right’. Thus, unlike his ill-fated and perhaps equally ‘great’ contemporaries: playwrite – Mayakovsy, poet Mandestam, theatrical practicioner Meyerhold – who were arrested and shot, Bulgakov was spared the Gulag. Subsequently Bulgakov lived long enough to complete his grand masterpiece The Master and Margarita. His work survived because Stalin, in an uncharacteristic display of tolerance, allowed it to.
AT: They are not propaganda pushers, not overtly or intentionally, but they are indeed cultural emissaries of the boycotted state: the State for Jews. It is a fact they need to think about and take home with them.
SG: I disagree with you. I regard ‘unboycotted’ Sasha Baron Cohen a far more explicit and effective emissary to the Jewish State than the ‘boycotted’ Habima Theatre Company.
AT: The actions of the activists who seek to boycott Israel’s cultural exports do not “abolish freedom of thought,” as the hyperbole has it here. They are not burning books. The book burning cry, incidentally, ought to get some rest. Even Israel is doing nothing of the sort: Grass’s books are not banned in Israel, only his physical person has been declared “non-grata.”
SG: Perhaps the term ‘book burning’ is heavy handed. But I dont agree with you than banning human beings who write texts is ‘nothing of the sort.’ I think it is very much something ‘of the sort’, given that within the non-diplomatic application of ‘persona non grata’ the author is technically considered to be the personification of their (undesirable) ideas. The gesture, though merely symbolic (as I doubt Israel imagined Grass was planning a 2 week vacation in TA) implies that the contagion of the individual’s ideas is detrimental to the idealogical protocol of the state. In the case of Israel, PNG is exploited to ceremoniously stigmatise individuals for being legally ‘un kosher’.
AT: nobody is “suppressing” or “vandalizing” anything
SG: interrupting The Merchant of Venice or standing up and shouting over the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall is a blatant act of vandalism.
AT: As for entering “the supremacist domain of those we claim to oppose,” by staking a separate domain for artists based on special rights one would have created exactly that: another little minority group of special interests, claiming dispensation. It is OK, I presume, to hurt the nasty Israelis who are in the canned or crated goods business but artists, they are different.
SG What an excellent point. I am going to have think about this…
AT: The arguments about Greestein, Spielberg, Sacha Cohen are off topic: when did the anti-Israel boycott suddenly become the anti-world wide zionism boycott, which is found deficient
SG: Obviously it hasn’t become a global anti-Zionist boycott, except by the Arab League who are not hoodwinked by endless comparisons of Israel to SA or Northern Ireland. If the boycott were world wide it would make much more sense.
AT: Would that grand boycott also exclude artists?
SG: Its clear from my article that I passionately believe in free speech. However, this is the big question.
Roy Bard
June 2, 2012 at 2:50 pm
SG: I disagree with you. I regard ‘unboycotted’ Sasha Baron Cohen a far more explicit and effective emissary to the Jewish State than the ‘boycotted’ Habima Theatre Company.
The Israeli state has an investment in exporting ‘Israeli culture. as reported in the Jewish Chronicle
Habima play settlements and their performance was underwritten by the Apartheid state – I think this makes them fair game. Presumably the reason the state underwrites and exports culture is exactly to achieve normalisation. And I am opposed to normalisation.
AT: The actions of the activists who seek to boycott Israel’s cultural exports do not “abolish freedom of thought,” as the hyperbole has it here.
That would be more likely to be true if it wasn’t for the fact that the very same activists who do these actions turned up at Gilad’s booklaunch with the fraudulent quotes seeking to discourage people from entering. It also doesn’t help your case that the BDS guru Omar Barghouti is signature number 3 on the call for disavowal.
Roy Bard
June 2, 2012 at 3:26 pm
This article about the attempts to counter the cultural boycott inadvertantly helps to clarify the issues:
and this bit is great:
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Excellent quotes. It does seem so obvious but ti is good to see it confirmed by Israel’ s defenders.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 4:47 pm
You keep coming back to Bulgakov despite the fact that his life, his work and his circumstances bear no iota of resemblance to the Israeli actors playing in London. It must be because of Stalin’s statement of admiration for him.
Yes, Stalin liked his plays because they made him laugh. The Party officials were not equally amused and fired him from his job at the theater (subdirector or something) upon which he wrote a personal letter to Stalin pleading his case and asking him to intervene. Stalin ordered his reinstatement and allegedly said that B’s art was so great as to be above politics.
If you are so impressed with Stalin’s statement despite knowing–as I am sure you do–about Proletcultism and Social Realism–I have a whole bunch of statements about democracy in the ME and peace in the world made by Bush and Obama to sell you at a wholesale discount. And no, B’s art did not survive because Stalin protected him; the work of other Soviet artists you quote as not enjoying the same good fortune (Mayakovski, Mandelstam) and that of many others also survived. Incidentally The Master and Margareta was banned soon after publication and remained unavailable thereafter in the SU until Hrushchev’s time. It still survived.
None of this has anything to do with the case on hand. I think you cite it because in your mind it bolsters your case that it is wrong to boycott Israeli artists and in fact ANY and ALL artists, being the equivalent of an act of vandalism. In a Macbethian vein (by killing Duncan while he was asleep I have killed Sleep itself) you say that boycotting some artists one is boycotting Art.
An interesting quandary you create for yourself is when you change horses in midstream, and say that it is OK to boycott Israeli artists only if ALL zionist/pro-Israel artists are boycotted as well (what, kill/vandalize/gag more ART?!), but according to the degree of their being “explicit and effective emissaries of the Jewish State.” Sacha Cohen is more of one, you say, than the Habima Theater Company.
That is highly debatable. SBC offends many people through his crass vulgarity and racism. The Habima actors playing Shakespeare, THAT is is being excellent emissaries, marrying ‘kosher’ with ‘genteel.’
You say that interrupting a performance of Shakespeare by Israeli artists is blasphemy to art and freedom of expression. Yes, ACTIVE activism is rough. It SHOCKS. It is nowhere near as nice as just not buying oranges or avocados (unless you are having a party).
Nevertheless the same that does not apply in your view to a Spielberg or SBC movie. Why, then the boycotters will need art critics to rate the boycott worthiness of art, especially since not all cases will be as trenchant as Shakespeare vs SBC. But wait, should they even go by art experts’ opinions? Smack of elitism. How about box office success and popular vote? Cohen might trounce Shakespeare.
I agree with Jonathon: boycotting ALL Israel exports makes sense.
PS Nobody doubts that you passionately believe in the freedom of speech. The problem arises when in the lava of activism hard lumps start to coalesce separately: gays will be loath to boycott a troupe containing some gays, and feminists will feel kinship with their Israeli ‘sisters’ (those advocating emancipation for the muslim women) and artists’s previous ‘reluctant’ disapproval of the boycott movement for other reasons will congeal into solid rejection out of a sense identification and solidarity with fellow artists who are, after all, artists ‘above politics.’ So the lava stops flowing and all that’s left are a few oranges marked Jaffa encased in it like the scapati of Pompei.
fool me once...
December 15, 2012 at 9:53 pm
@AT
“SBC offends many people through his crass vulgarity and racism. ”
Here’s renowned Schindler’s List actor (Sir Ben Kingsley) presenting sasha baron cohen with the 2012 british comedy award this December.
Have a listen to sbc doing his topical dodgy “disruptive revolutionary” routine;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrmvjR9ETDQ
Ariadna Theokopoulos
December 16, 2012 at 1:12 am
There must have been, I’m sure, blackface comics at some point in the past who were funnier than he. It is not that his humor is vulgar–there is none. It is only his vulgarity that is vulgar. I would not mind it too much to hear some black guy caught him in a black alley and, saying: “I is a black brother” would proceed to rearrange his dentition.
Ben Kingsley saying this offensive racist imbecile is “above everyone else” stains him. Perhaps he is above anyone he associates with.
David Holden
December 16, 2012 at 4:24 am
thank you FMO, you are indeed our archiviste extraordinaire!
this visual joke was prescient??? or, as i prefer to think, a sign of guilt by association.
not watching “shopw-biz award ceremonies” (except for work reasons like this, or occasionally just as the exercise of a mild prurient itch) was a self-imposed ground rule for me even way back in the second millenium – simply a practical measure to prevent me projectile vomiting in friends’ drawing rooms.
but what a wonderful epiphany! the two distinguished and much-loved entertainers on stage toying with the naive and underdeveloped emotions of thousands of the suitably lubricated goyim great and good – an audience that sounds like hysterically delighted teenage preteen girls at a Bieber concert, and looks like a bloated middle-age slug squirming its credulous way through a pleasant but slightly uncomfortable orgasm.
this ghastly orgy of self-abasement says everything about the way pop culture has been successfully used to enslave the British, and how deeply mired in the doodoo this easily misled people has by now become.
fool me once...
April 19, 2013 at 8:18 am
@DH
“…like hysterically delighted teenage preteen girls at a Bieber concert”
That could’ve included Anne Frank herself, according to Justin Bieber;
“Justin Bieber has caused outrage with his message in a guestbook at the Anne Frank Museum, saying he hoped the Holocaust victim would have been a fan.
The 19-year-old pop idol wrote: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22146859
.
I don’t suppose Bieber’s manager had anything to do with this latest attention seeking fake faux pas;
“At every concert, just before going on stage, Justin, his mom Pattie who is born again Christian, and a close circle of friends join together in prayer. And what about Scooter the Jew? Well, he taught this inner circle the Shema, which is how every prayer circle concludes.”
http://www.jewcy.com/arts-and-culture/justin-bieber-jewish-father
David Holden
April 20, 2013 at 4:35 am
i’m sure Scooter cares as deeply about Ms Bieber as an angler cares for the maggots he impales on the hook at the end of his fishing line.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Sarah,
first of all I don’t understand your wild admiration of art and artists,writers, who,
in many cases, were alkoholics, drug-addicts,
sex-addicts, often times abusers, with mental problems, weak personalities, with strange inclinations towards masochism, sadism, pedophile etc.
Studying bioghraphies of so-called “great artists” proves that more than anything.
Why they should be exluded from boycotting??
I don’t understand.
Their influence is bigger on the public than green apples and orange oranges.
Second thing.
You are pretty inconsistent in your views.
First you say boycotting of the art, artists etc is a big no, no.
Then you say that if they boycott Israeli artists, academics etc., why they don’t boycott all pro-zionism artists, academics etc., including those who don’t live in Israel.
So are you against boycotting of the artists, academics etc, or not??
If you believe in the “free speech” than people have the right to excercise their right to a “free speech”, and speak AGAINST Israeli artists performing in their country.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 6:12 pm
You are trying to make art/artists into a some kind of a “holy cow” caste.
I don’t see any reason for that. Artists/writers/poets/intellectuals were oftentimes readily serving the worst of regimes, dictators etc.
They justified, praised, explained, exalted their actions.
Let’s not make teh “art” into some kind of bigger than life guru.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Boycott them all (Israeli nationals), Canned goods, artists musicians the lot.
Boycott Israel friendly companies as well.
If Israelis want free speech sort out Palestine otherwise STFU!
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Do you know i could do a better job of running BDS than “Omar Barghouti ” by a long shot. Get me George Soros on the phone…
;-S
The problem with BDS is it is a Paper Tiger, there is no stigma associated with it, and there are always exceptions to the rule. :Like “Omar Barghouti ” or Habima Theatre. So people don’t buy their underpants at Marks and Spencer big deal.
But disrupting Israeli Music or Plays should be encouraged. Humiliation and shaming is what is required, and lots of it.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 6:23 pm
I think you could do a better job even without Soros’ funding
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 6:45 pm
If I was running BDS, I would cause Madonna to regret to her decision to perform in Israel and all other artists to think twice as a result.
There are some things that one does not promote, because they are ethically wrong. Israel is a case in point, any artist/musician person from Israel with any ethics should leave Israel, and not promote it quite the opposite. We should shun Israel for the racist regime that it is. Good jews living there in Israel, should leave and exile themselves from its supremacist ways.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 6:53 pm
You are correct Jonathan.
If so, Israeli, pro-Zionism artists/intellectuals/musicians should be boycotted even more than Israeli underpants or ahava creams. Creams or underpants are one of many kinds. Very easily replaceable.
Art/music are one of the kind.
That’s why whatever serves supremacists/racists Israel and their agenda shoud be boycotted/shamed/humilated. It will probably hurt them more in the long run than not buying an expansive undies.
BTW the fact that Omar B studies on Isreali University while proclaming the BDS
is one , big joke. Not a funny one. Either you support it or not.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Boycotting Israeli cultural matters is way more important than whether or not you by your knickers from M&S or avocados at Sainsburys. But also Gentiles that go work in Israel should be punished too.
Looking back at the South Africa boycott, they hated being boycotted on sport and that I think more than anything else turned them away from their racist ways. Similarly Israel would hate a true harsh cultural boycott, but we have quite the opposite. We actively promote Israel excellence and invite Habima to perform.
http://www.deliberation.info/the-habima-globe-theatre-bds-scandal/
IN the end Habima came and got standing ovations…. they should not have even been invited. We can worry about Israeli human rights when they start behaving like Human Beings.
I am harsh but it is for their own good.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 8:05 pm
social/cultural boycott is even more painful than economical one.
Especially that economy is still run by the “big bosses”, and they make sure that Israel is not losing anything.
The social/cultural boycott is more up to
so-called regular people/citizens.
Nobody is forcing them to participate in concerts, performances, lectures done by
pro-Zionism Israeli.
By boycotting them they should get the sense they are treated like pariahs/underdogs by the rest of so-called civilised world, and they should feel like that.
Anybody, who supports supremacists State of Israel should be shunned from salons.
No exceptions.
searching
June 2, 2012 at 8:10 pm
errata.
“By boycotting them ,pro-zionism Israeli should get the sense that they are treated like pariahs/underdogs by the rest of so-called civilised world, and they should feel like that.”
Jonathon Blakeley
June 2, 2012 at 8:18 pm
YEP
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
@searching
“It will probably hurt them more in the long run than not buying an expansive undies.”
Are you suggesting Jonathon is putting on weight?
(expansive – meaning)
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 10:42 am
lol Ok I am little paunchy but im working on it.
ummyakoub
June 2, 2012 at 8:00 pm
to Gilad Atzmon (who posted this article on his site):
Art is a product. Zionist stores give a lot of legitimacy to Israel’s folk narrative by selling Israeli made handicrafts and clothes in Jewish gift stores. We make exceptions for those Jewish Israelis who are openly opposing Zionism, yet it would be ridiculous not to assume that all Israelis who are selling us products whether art or plastic storage boxes are participating in Zionism, just as all US Jews who do not oppose Zionism are participating in organized racist violence and I try to boycott them. In any case, they are paying taxes to the Israeli government and are at the very least in that way participating
in genocide.
Your claim that we should overlook an Israeli’s failure to denounce Zionism as long as they are artists really flies in the face of your usual premise that all Jews as a group are guilty of either participating in Zionism or letting it happen.
The issue of whether or not boycotting a theater would end the Israeli state needs to be looked at in context of the American Jewish lobby. Any Palestinian poet who tried to book a show in New Jersey would automatically find himself canceled and playing outside the cafe in the street, even if his poster had a picture of a dove on it. It would be wise for Americans to become similarly aggressive about getting Jewish stuff cancelled. That way, the theater will learn to either avoid all controversial performances OR they will be forced to adopt a more balanced approach (for example showing both Palestinian and Israeli art productions). What happens when only Jews protest, the Jews get what they want while others just stew.
It is impossible to boycott entirely a country in which you live, but you can still make wisest choices about how to spend your money. I would only encourage a foreigner to spend money on American artists if I knew for sure that this artist’s world view supported something that
person could morally accept. Paintings are a dime a dozen. You should buy a painting because you are supporting a revolutionary movement and you want to give money to a particular artist because you want them to continue in their struggle for truth and beauty. If all you want is a pretty picture, frame a calendar photo. Likewise, the main reason your supporters are supporting you is because you are anti Zionist. If you were some random Israeli musician I would not want you playing at my
children’s elementary school because that would be giving a public message that Israelis are cute and cuddly and we should bond with them and give them our tax dollars and feel sorry for them because they are such good musicians. There were a couple kids in my school whose parents forbade them to participate in Israeli folk dances and it made
long lasting impressions on their fellow students.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 9:40 am
to ummyakoub
Art is not a product, art can be a product!!!
Art is defined by its aesthetic value, it aims at beauty whether it is performed by a Jew, gentile,Black or Yellow!!! . But BDS is actually a new Jewish product!!! I was shocked to find out in the last few days that it is funded by Liberal Zionist Soros. We are dealing here with a new industry. At least it explains why BDS is politically lame, why it is dominated by liberal Jews (JVP, JBIG etc), It explains why Zionist JStreet leader Jeremy Ben Ami was caught saying “let’s leave the BDS as a Jewish matter”. . it is really a Jewish matter..this is why BDS doesn’t challenge the J state, its existence, its lobbies, J power and so on.
Ben White, an advocates for BDS foolishly admitted recently that “Boycott is a strategy, not a principle” (http://www.newstatesman.com/node/184551/) This is really my problem with it. I am a principled person (at least try to be).
If you boycott Israel then boycott everything. orange, El Al, Zabar Humus, Artist but also everything that is affiliate with Israel. Every Zionist academic and artist. You ll have to boycott 90% of Western Jews!!!. but being a principled person I would also offer to boycott every person who operate in a Jews only political cell, this would mean boycotting JVP, IJAN, JBIG and all the other Jewish racially Exclusive cells.
Do we really want to go there? Not really,,, so what we do instead, we take money from some liberal Zionist and we sabotage concerts and Habima performances… interestingly enough, all that time Israel/Britain trade rises by 34% and Madonna starts her world tour in Tel Aviv..
searching
June 2, 2012 at 8:21 pm
“Art is a product. ”
Precisley.
And the “product”, which has more lasting impression on people’s mind/hearts/soul than a mere oranges, creams or undies.
Orange is eaten and then is gone, out of sight, out of mind, out of body (soon).
A painting, a book, a performance, a lecture is watched, listened to, read,talked about, admired, makes an impression, stires a debate etc.
Why should I boycott an Israeli green olive,
yet participate in a show given by a pro-Zionist Israeli artist??
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 9:49 am
Who said you have to, the question here is whether you want to operate as a Jew implementing the Talmudic herem and participate in a campaign funded by liberal Zionist (Soros).. If this is what you want to do,,, go for it..
searching
June 3, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Personally, I think peole should boycott a lying, manipulating, distorting the Truth MSMedia on a mass scale.
I started mine about 6/7 years ago.
But I know it won’t happen.
People need their daily shot of brainwashing. They can’t imagine living without it.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:08 pm
“the question here is whether you want to operate as a Jew implementing the Talmudic herem and participate in a campaign funded by liberal Zionist (Soros)”
–Are all boycotts in essence manifestations of talmudic herem or only those in which Jews are involved?
–Whose funding would be acceptable, any other billionaire in particular, or should campaigns rely on individual donations carefully monitored to prevent “bundling”?
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 11:03 pm
AT: –Are all boycotts in essence manifestations of talmudic herem or only those in which Jews are involved?
G: The Talmudic herem is not driven by a universal ethical judgment, it is symptomatic to tribal operators as well as sabbath goyim.
AT: –Whose funding would be acceptable, any other billionaire in particular, or should campaigns rely on individual donations carefully monitored to prevent “bundling”?
G: The issue of the funding is indeed crucial. As it seems, the BDS has come short of challenging the Jewish State, its character and its existence, let alone the ROR. It is concerned mainly with OT just to appease the so called ‘good js’. It fits nicely into the Liberal Zionist ethos ala Soros & co.
In fact Naomi Wimborne who runs the UK J-BDS states it clearly in the film you reviewed…
searching
June 2, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Gilad, Sarah.
Sorry, but you are losing guys here, on this topic.
You’ll have to re-think your ideas.
who_me
June 2, 2012 at 11:09 pm
“Gilad, Sarah.
Sorry, but you are losing guys here, on this topic.
You’ll have to re-think your ideas.”
apparently god has spoken.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 2, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Not unelss it says so in l’Osservatore Romano
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 12:11 am
Ariadna Theokopoulos
are you saying searching is not directly connected to god and spreading god’s wishes to us satanly corrupted and wayward souls here?
searching
June 3, 2012 at 12:44 am
No unless it has endorsement of Ariadna Th., a person who was created before God created anything.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 9:52 am
“Gilad, Sarah.
Sorry, but you are losing guys here, on this topic.
G: this has never been my concern,,, I am a Jazz artist not a politician.. I make a living searching for my truth rather than support!!
searching
June 3, 2012 at 2:46 pm
but everybody needs some support
And since you are “searching for your truth” then it is good to re-think some of your ideas. Is it??
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Re thinking my ideas is always good, what we do here, in fact, is re thinking BDS, what it is, what it means, where it could go..and how..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 11:39 pm
This is good idea. Lets start with the Name get rid of it. It is a distraction. Lets form a new movement called…
STOP ISRAEL
That way everyone is really clear what the movement is about.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Brother is it more than just Israel… it is all about Jewish Power..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 12:05 am
I know its about J power but the epicentre of the problem is ISRAEL.
Gilad Atzmon
June 4, 2012 at 12:53 am
i am not so sure at all…Israel is a disaster but global zionism is a greater problem..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 12:19 am
Beside I don’t want it about Jews I want the movement to anti_ISrael not Anti Jew.
STOP ISRAEL
i can see the logo and everything.
and once we STOP ISRAEL
we can START PALESTINE…
Gilad Atzmon
June 4, 2012 at 12:55 am
but we don’t talk about jews, we criticise J power, a racially driven exceptionalist political philosophy.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 12:28 am
BDS. what a rubbish name. What “idiot’ thought of that, doesn’t even say who the target of the sanctions is. Deliberately vague and nebulous.
“BOYCOTT ISRAEL” would have been rejected as being too anti-semitic .. no doubt as a name for BDS. Hence that is the kind a name we should pick for a rival BDS organization.
Just so people are in no doubt.
Gilad Atzmon
June 4, 2012 at 12:58 am
the name BDS is indeed neutral, it is there to appeal to progressive Jews.
who_me
June 4, 2012 at 2:37 am
it’s probably time, past time, to stop worrying about what progressive jews want or think, or any jews, for that matter. the world doesn’t revolve around them. they are welcome to help out if they want, but they shouldn’t expect “special” treatment any more.
Somoe
June 2, 2012 at 9:43 pm
I agree with everyone who says the boycott should be total and include supporters of the illegitimate state of Israel, be they companies or individuals, (even artists). All promotion or endorsement of Israel allows them to continue without having pause for self-reflection, and should be stopped in order for the boycott to be effective.
If Israel were completely shunned worldwide and held accountable for their supremacist racist actions, they would be forced to change their behaviour and we would have a much healthier global condition. The false reality we inhabit at present is just perpetuating the misery for millions as Israel have bought sufficient people to delude everyone else they haven’t paid that they’re okay really. Boycotts should be complete without exceptions to be of any effect.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 9:57 am
Somoe, Israel is maintained by J power,, but the BDS wouldn’t touch J power, why? because the BDS is maintained by J power,, Dear friends, I am here to declare,,,, I am writing a book about it all,, and i think some people out there better take cover…
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Amen to that, Somoe
Sarah Gillespie
June 2, 2012 at 11:48 pm
@AT – Indeed Im am intrigued by Stalin’s statement and agree with it. More importantly, I am fascinated in who gets to say who boycotts who and what factors determine weather the popular imagination decrees a boycott to be either virtuous or dogmatic. It is a complex topic. I gather from your pointing to the fact I am a musician, that you sense I care about people who are artists, more than I care about people who are not artists. This is not the case. But it is true I am more concerned about art and intellectual freedom than I am about which side of the 1967 borders my guacamole comes from.
Regarding your hypothetical pantheon of ‘critics’ – I would say it is certainly the box office, not the critic, that shapes hegemony and the common understanding of narratives. Mass consumption of culture is in no way a binary opposite to so called ‘high art.’ There is frequently a concentric between the two. But still I maintain that SBC and Spielberg induce far greater Zionist sympathy in an apathetic public, than Habima’s Merchant of Venice. And because I believe that, I regard the cultural boycott of Israel a moot point.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 1:29 am
“It is a complex topic.”
Not really.
Earlier you said “I am going to have think about this…”
Maybe you should take a little more time and wait to see it become a lot less complex.
searching
June 3, 2012 at 2:34 pm
A tremendous inconsistency in your views, Sarah, and plenty of ignorance.
1.Art is not only about “spreading a beauty”. Yeah, maybe it was centuries ago ,but it is not now. But, that’s a long,seperate topic to discuss.
2. Artists/academic have the same obligation/choices like any other person.
They can serve either Good or Evil.
They can create good or evil. And they do.
I am from a post-communistic country, and I know how many artists served the Stalinists system willingy and wholeheartly.
example: Nobel Price winner a poet W. Szymborska, who is regarded by many with disgust and utter contempt for her early poems extoling Stalin, for signing letters demanding death of opponents of the regime etc. Her poetry maybe is beautiful, but she, as a human being, was wretched.
Art and artis are not above humans. There are not “holy cows”.
Where do you even get those ideas from???
3.”…But it is true I am more concerned about art and intellectual freedom than I am about which side of the 1967 borders my guacamole comes from…”
First you wrote ( in your artice above ) that you; “..whole-heartedly support BDS sanctioning of goods..” now you are telling us that you really don’t care ….here goes your consistency of views.
4. You say that You support free speech. Good. Then let people express their right to a free speech, and boycott evertyhing they think needs to be boycoted, INCLUDING art /academics etc.
Israeli artists/academis are NOT persecuted in their own country. There are NOT martyrs of 21 century. They support the Zionist regime, they live in it, off it.
Why they shoud be treated as the “holy cows”??? Why they should be given a special treatment??Because they are artists??
So you believe that all people are equal, but some are even more ….equal???
who_me
June 2, 2012 at 11:59 pm
i guess i should pile on.
on a personal level, i boycott anything and everything israeli and zionist when i can or know about it. that means products, people’s work and art, intellectuals and entertainers. israeli or non-israeli, if they support zionism, and i know about it, i boycott. if someone is israeli, or was, but is honestly anti-zionist, then i don’t boycott them. but i have to know this, or i will boycott them, since i treat israelis as “guilty until proven innocent”.
that works for me, but may not for someone else, and insisting others do as i do would be counterproductive and obnoxious. also the demand that others must boycott “x” or risk being boycotted themselves is counterproductive in my opinion. the “must” bit creates resistance in many people.
a better way is eduction. I’ll use an example of an israeli lecturer coming to one’s college. instead of picketing, set up an info table with accurate info on israeli criminality, the beliefs of the lecturer, and how the lecturer helps israelis continue their criminality. make the info readilly available to people and let them make their own decisions without trying to force your own views on them.
btw, i have nothing against a situation like in sports where a team, or players, refuse to play an israeli team. as long as it’s the players making personal decisions or agreeing to a vote. likewise, organising fan boycotts is a great tactic as long as it is done through sharing information and not by peer preasure.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 1:25 am
I subscribe to the statements in your first paragraph without reservations.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 10:45 am
exactly!
But I would be more harsh. more naming and shaming.
Laura Stuart
June 3, 2012 at 12:57 am
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/israel-is-new-south-africa-as-boycott-calls-increase-7813538.html
the boycott is growing and attracting attention – at least it spreads the message about what is happening in Palestine even if it doesn’t have a solution
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 1:15 am
Anti-boycott freshly minted Jews and Shakespeare-hating, suspicious boycotting Goyim:
“Leading pop star Bono, from U2, has discovered his Judaism after he approached an ultra-orthodox Chabad Jewish man on a street corner in New York this week.Bono, from Ireland, told him that he was “half Jewish on account of his Jewish mother.”He was then told that in that case he was completely Jewish. Bono left, after laying tefillin and taking a Chabad skullcap with him and the young Chabad man was told, by the hundreds of people who had gathered, who Bono was.” Zionist web site tomgrossmedia, September 21, 2007
Emma Thompson is among more than 30 actors, directors and playwrights who condemned the Globe Theatre for including Israel’s national theatre company in its Shakespeare festival last week.
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 1:52 am
bono is a good example of the damage zionists do in the name of liberal politics and activism. he’s a total hypocrite, he promotes the exploitation of the very poor by the very rich and calls it “relief” and “aide” and now it turns out he’s jewish. no doubt he’s been a zionist jew since birth.
on the other hand:
“Emma Thompson is among”
my faith in human nature has been renewed, i’ve been a fan of her since I first saw a film by her.
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 1:54 am
i should add that bono is a good example of the zionist jewish-catholic connection.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 6:47 am
“i should add that bono is a good example of the zionist jewish-catholic connection.”
http://www.bollyn.com/ignoring-israels-iron-wall/
(scroll down)
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 3:22 pm
“(scroll down)”
yeah, madonna is an even better example. i figured, given her lack of talent, she must of blew some mafia don to get her start. looks like the jewish mafia has selected her replacement (now that it’s getting too difficult to cover up her inate ugliness with face paint and photoshop):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWxTGJ3TK1U
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 10:50 am
Emma Thompson we salute you.. an ethical artist.
PS you dont have to be part of the Jew run BDS to boycott just ignore the BDS for the SHAM that it is and campaign in other more effective ways, that actually have teeth.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Heavy stuff. At first I mistook Gilad’s (and Sarah’s) explanations and rationales for prevarications. I chewed on them some more though and I think I got it now.
Principles are doggone complex devils. A rube taking it into his head to boycott Israeli exports finds himself trampling in a mine field, dumb as an ox and dangerously ignorant of the many footnotes that come with ethics.
‘To boycott or not to boycott Israel’ is a byzantine question indeed, not to be attempted without adult and expert supervision.
To make it simple for the ethically naive, the answer is Yes in principle but No in practice. I took some notes to guide me:
1. Any boycotting action whatsoever which BDS agrees with or is involved in is wrong ipso facto. For the Doubting Thomases out there, here are two reasons: (a) they are funded by Soros; and (b) they are Jewish run.
2. To be principled means to accept nothing less than a total and simultaneous boycott of everything (a) anti-Israel; (b) anti-”AZZ”; (c) against every organization and every single individual deemed to be supportive of Israel. Anything less is useless and wrong (proof: Madonna is in Israel).
3. “But do we really want to go there?” Of course not, so strike #2 above.
4. To boycott state-sponsored Israeli cultural exports that promote the State for Jews amounts to censoring/restraining/gagging/vandalizing Art and Culture.
No principled ethicist would want to be caught doing what only a dysfunctional marxist hooligan would do, like boycotting a concert (imagine a string quartet being boycotted–why, it’s like, you know, book burning).
Boycotting South Africa was apparently different because no ethicists and aesthetes were on hand to show that their art, culture or science resided in the immanent and sacred realm of inviolability, if indeed South African art did, as the Israeli art surely does.
All of this is such a headache that I am thinking of starting to take sax lessons to clear my head.
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Ariadna, It is actually pretty simple,, there is nothing too complicated with BDS’ principle. However the practicality of it is indeed vague because it is shaped by liberal Zionist pressure… Is it that really complicated?
Gilad Atzmon
June 3, 2012 at 11:39 pm
I actually think that it is all about integrity..
South Africa didn’t control the British Government via CFI and didn’t control America via AIPAC and didn’t have Madonnas, Sasha Borat Cohens and Hollywood in its disposal. The Boycott on South Africa offered a clear vision of the ‘day after’,,but what is the BDS’s vision of the future of the region? What does it offer 7 million displaced Palestinians?
If you want to put pressure on Israel you have to fight and dismantle Jewish power wherever it is or show its face!!!
The BDS in its current operative form is there to divert the attention from the real issues. The problem is not in the OT alone. The problem is everywhere in Palestine, Israel but also in London, Washington, Berlin and Paris.
Daniel Mabsout who joined us in the last few days opened my eyes. .. I suggest you read him and make up your mind.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 2:58 am
Note: My post of June 3, 3:18 PM was satirical. I should have put the emoticon for satire/sarcasm at the top. Apologies, Gilad for not being more transparent.
I don’t need convincing that it is “pretty simple.”
Gilad Atzmon
June 4, 2012 at 9:58 am
You are very funny and adorable…
the truth of the matter is that i am very troubled with the path I/we are taking. It is pretty painful for me to find out the level of duplicity at the heart of our discourse.
I am really learning the issue,, form that perspective at least, the campaign against me was very helpful… it mapped the division..
Roy Bard
June 4, 2012 at 1:27 pm
In this video we can hear Debby Fink trilling that
whilst in his blog Tony Greenstein writes:
Note how he sidesteps Sarah’s claim that Omar Barghouti’s attendance “reinforces TA Universities’ reputation as a tolerant and multicultural institution”
Judith Butler said this about doing business with Tel Aviv University:
As the public face of PACBI Barghouti also “cannot function in that public space without already being defined in the boycott debate” and his continued presence there does indeed reinforce “TA Universities’ reputation as a tolerant and multicultural institution”
Its like the head of the vegan movement conducting the AGM whilst chomping on a bacon roll…..
I wonder how many Palestinians can sense this imminent freedom that J-Big is bringing about for them…. and indeed what exactly the worldwide repercussions of the demo are?
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Great video! Thanks for posting it.
I couldn’t care less who organized it and can’t fathom why that becomes the main issue. What matters is that what they did at the theater was a RIGHTEOUS ACT.
It is encouraging to see and hear the young man (in the Sonic T-shirt) explaining what the world world should know by now and seeing him determined to do his bit to put an end to it.
Time to end the “no, because it is not enough,” “no, because it is organized by undesirables with ulterior motives,”"no, because you cannot disrupt art” excuses.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Great stuff. Anything really. pity they did not use stink-bombs, That would have been good.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 8:00 pm
The just so pathetic I worry about modern protestors, totally emasculated and without any sense of back bone.
“Excuse me MR policE Office Is It Ok If I protest in this way” – PATHETIC
The police are going to arrest you on a jumped up charge so you might as well do something worth while.
Instead they go on about how they were silent but had provocative banners. (Banners which look like they were lovingly hand-sewed at home from recycled materials) OO I am so scared I can’t contain myself.
But at least they do something to protest and for that I salute their feeble efforts.
who_me
June 4, 2012 at 8:14 pm
to get inside, didn’t those protestors have to buy tickets? wouldn’t part of that money from the tickets go towards paying the israelis doing the show?
if the above is true, how effective can such a protest be when one is buying the product being sold?
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Good point. It should have never have been allowed to get that far. Failing that one protester who covertly drops a few stink bombs to clear the place or all and sundry would be worth a ticket.
who_me
June 4, 2012 at 8:49 pm
“Failing that one protester who covertly drops a few stink bombs to clear the place”
http://www.emagicsupply.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=55
descrete, highly concentrated, simple to use, easy to conceal, long lasting….
fool me once...
June 5, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Gilad
“It is pretty painful for me to find out the level of duplicity at the heart of our discourse.”
What do you mean? Are you talking about the BDS etc discourse in general or what’s being said on this thread?
If the latter, where’s the duplicity?
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Whoa! I’ll be … boycotted if I didn’t have an epiphany right now!
Roy Bard’s quotes (cited for the wrong reasons, as I realize now) and Gilad’s thoughts on art and beauty combined explosively and led me to see the Truth:
Gilad: “do we really want to boycott art and beauty?”
What is art? What is beauty? Is beauty to be found only in concerts (with or without strings) or theater performances?
Can we turn our backs on architectural beauty, the beauty of old ruins or, most importantly, the beauty in nature, and the non-man-made art to be found there (objets trouvés anyone)?
Oh, but to walk upon a beach, pick up a shell and muse, not with the libidinal impulse of some but with the aesthete’s informed appreciation and the philosophical frisson of a e.e. cummings (finding a “me” in the sea)…
How then can we in good conscience boycott the beauty of the landscape we can appreciate by being tourists in Israel?
Stop all boycotts! Nip the suckers in the bud. The man is right (but not the way Roy thinks):
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in London said that the Foreign Ministry was the “biggest exporter of Israeli culture to the world” and would ensure that the performance went ahead.
Geffen-Lifshitz :“If you boycott Israel in art, the next thing is boycotting Israeli manufactured goods, then a boycott of Israel as a tourist destination. Then a boycott of anything that has anything to do with Israel. We have to nip this in the bud.”
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 2:59 am
June 3, 3:01 Pm–emoticon needed–satire again…
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 4:00 pm
and another thing.. the title of the article: The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity.
It should be edited to delete “Integrity”–it is overrated and inapplicable in complex issues.
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 4:51 pm
after reading daniel mabsout’s latest piece on israeli crimes against syria and lebanon, i’m wondering if boycotting israelis is too light. perhaps arresting any who venture out of their country and dropping them down abandoned mineshafts might get the message across better.
the question is what to do about a people so vile as israelis without doing the very things that make israelis so vile.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 4:55 pm
pssst who_me, hey, I’m not an intellectual person I admit, and you probably very quickly worked that out, but I’m struggling following what Ariadna’s saying. When she first wrote things here on deLib I could understand and found them well witty and learned stuff, but now it’s all getting a bit high brow (if that’s the right term).
I agreed with her opening critique of the article and would have written something similar myself but I’m just too slow on the keyboard
Now she’s saying she takes it all back. Is she joking on some kind of brainy level that I can’t understand or does she mean it. I think she’s joking and really thinks fuck israel and everything that’s associated with it, like what you said, which I fully endorse and live by (I have nothing to do with the BDS). But now I’m not so sure, do you think she’s been getting too close to the truth and has been scratched by the zionist claw?
Regarding what to do with the vile ones – what about “No hay protagonismo”, as Paul revealed they’re right attention seeking bastards and would hate losing the limelight?
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 7:16 pm
fool me once…
“do you think she’s been getting too close to the truth and has been scratched by the zionist claw?”
nah, i think searching nailed it, at has been possessed by satan.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 8:48 pm
“at has been possessed by satan”
And you haven’t? I was sitting next to you when you kept calling him “Belzie”
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 8:52 pm
“And you haven’t?”
of course i have.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Making them feel like pariahs when they venture out of their national, walled-in shtetl seems only fair and maybe then they’ll get it.
If they are “cultural ambassadors” of their vile, racist and criminal state they are still individuals who, in a country where military service is compulsory, are soldiers of their state. How can one lose sight of this picture of daily life of Palestinians:
Local sources reported that the army bombarded a chicken farm, and a farmland, located north of Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. The shelling led to excessive damage but no injuries among the residents.
Also, the air force fired at least one missile into an area located between Khan Younis and Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip; the target is reportedly a training camp for resistance fighters.
Soldiers also fired a missile into an area in Dir Al-Balah, in central Gaza; damage was reported, no injuries.
At least one missile was fired into the An-Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza but the missile did not explode after impact.
Israeli warplanes were heavily seen and heard flying over several parts of the Gaza Strip an issue that led to panic among the residents who feared further Israeli military escalation.
Earlier on Saturday, a Palestinian man succumbed to wounds sustained on Friday when the Israeli army fired two missiles a motorcycle in Khan Younis wounding three.
Naji Qudeih, 34, was one of four people injured when Israeli aircraft bombed an auto rickshaw east of Khan Younis
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 5:21 pm
I think we would have to go a long way to get that bad, but I take your point we don’t want to become monsters too, but we need to restrain the Israel monster.
Clearly there is no easy way.
Personally Madonna and Red Hot Chilli Peppers should become named and shamed virally all over the internet as supporters of RACISM. It’s not violent, it’s peaceful protest using computers. But it should be parter of larger more aggressive campaign of boycotting and humiliation of people who support or collaborate with ISRAEL in any form.
It matters little whether Israel is technically an “Apartheid State” we could argue this until “the cows come home”. WHo cares! Its WRONG, pure and simple. ISRAEL is WRONG. We can argue of the words it matters little.
Truth is what matters. ISRAEL is WRONG!
Madonna is WRONG.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers are WRONG.
ISRAEL is WRONG!
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 3:02 am
Jonathon, YOU ARE SO RIGHT!
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 7:02 pm
A rube – Hick, redneck, ‘an unsophisticated countryman’ in Canadian and US slang.
A Rube – A Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, invention, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task …
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 7:18 pm
that goldberg family sure has messed up a lot of things. very busy they are.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 7:49 pm
hey, fool me once,
I know, it’s confusing.
There is a phobia called Captain Cook’s syndrome- I have just defined and named it.
Captain Cook, the famous explorer, had a misunderstanding with the natives and in the ensuing scuffle he got nicked and bled. Upon seeing blood, the natives realized he was not the god they had believed him to be and ate him.
Captain Cook’s Syndrome is the fear of being eaten upon being discovered to be human.
Imagine if Captain Cook had tried to be upfront with the natives and said: “Look, I know you think I am the god of ethics and I often think so myself but nevertheless I am also human. No! Don’t come closer with the carving knives, hear me through. I am human and also an artist. When I think of hooligans disrupting somebody else’s concerts I bleed. No, strike that–bad choice of words. I suffer. I identify with them. I imagine my own concerts being heckled. Would I have felt the same if I had lived in the 30s and was faced with the choice of boycotting a a performance of Nazi German artists? I don’t know for sure. It’s too speculative. Maybe not because I have never been a Nazi German artist but I have been an Israeli artist. I just have this little bias, OK? I know I said that Abounimah was laughably wrong when he said “culture has nothing to do with it” but this is not exactly the same. Really it isn’t. He was talking about culture while I am talking about Kultur.”
What would the natives say to that?
“Blah, blah, blah, he is biased and slippery, put the big pot on the fire” or “Blah, blah, blah, if he has this bias what other biases might he have we don’t know about yet. Better put the big pot on fire.”
Captain Cook is afraid we will eat him.
fool me once...
June 3, 2012 at 8:28 pm
G-eeeeeeeee-nius!
Ha ha well good, sincere thanx for simplifying it – all makes sense now.
That’ll be why I was locked in Captain Cook’s brig for going “too far” when I sneaked a peak behind the rear admiral’s curtain.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 8:57 pm
“behind the rear admiral’s curtain.”
Is this the correct word order?
Or were you trying to indicate you were thinking of the admiral’s hamstrings stewed with a bit of curry?
fool me once...
June 4, 2012 at 12:18 am
“behind the rear admiral’s curtain.”
Is this the correct word order?” That’s right, it’s not the urban dictionary innuendo. Curtain as in wizard of oz, you knew that?
“Or were you trying to indicate you were thinking of the admiral’s hamstrings stewed with a bit of curry?”
Ha ha, nah not really, honest, what about you? I’ll just stick with a nice chianti.
Urgh it’s getting a bit creepy. I’m off to see if the fires gone out, I think the curry’ll keep if it’s kept cool.
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 8:49 pm
“Captain Cook, the famous explorer, had a misunderstanding with the natives and in the ensuing scuffle he got nicked and bled. Upon seeing blood, the natives realized he was not the god they had believed him to be and ate him.”
lol, that sounds like something right out of wikipedia.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 3, 2012 at 8:53 pm
I should write to the DSM committee and suggest they include Captain Cook’s Syndrome in their phobia classifications
http://allpsych.com/disorders/dsm.html
who_me
June 3, 2012 at 9:08 pm
i’ve never encountered any women with that fear of being eaten, perhaps it’s something only men fear?
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Jonathon Blakeley
June 3, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Captain Cook’s Syndrome is Worthy of a new article I reckon.
I can see many parallels.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Hey, Sarah, I got some bad news and some good news for you about Habima.
I got the bad news from Ha’aretz. It’s a shame you did not go to see Habima’s performance of Shakespeare before opining about the sacrilege of interrupting their freedom of expression. Well… not quite Shakespeare.
Ilan Ronen, the director, felt that the much-too-Goyish Bard needed some chosen artistic collaboration so he added to the script. In his version of zioShakespeare, he added a scene “in which young Venetians in masks degrade the Jew, stealing his yarmulke, tallit and tefillin, and beat him.”
Ha’aretz, with Wieselian and Dersh logic, thinks it is OK because “Shakespeare is not the author of this image; reality is.”
Nevertheless even Ha’aretz worries a bit that “in the framework of the rhetoric being heard on the world stage, the addition of such a scene is similar to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of the Holocaust to justify a possible Israeli strike on Iran.”
The London protests are not described by the Israeli newspaper as being anti-Israel but only a reaction to the fact that this theater company played in Ariel, in the OT. Had they refused to, the state of Israel might have cut their funding, Ha’aretz explains understandingly.
Apparently the funding is not sufficient as it is because the state of Israel is like Dickens’ Fagin (to stay with literary depictions of Jews): it teaches its young to steal and rob:
“The international theater community has another reason to protest Habima. Israel’s national theater owes – and isn’t paying – 160,000 dollars in royalties to American playwrights for using their work. Habima owes even higher sums to Israelis who have worked there. The Culture Ministry is “distressed that Habima is not fulfilling its obligations, which may harm Israel’s image.”
Oy, Israel’s image…
But I have good news too. You can retain the “art is above it all” pronouncement. You just have to enlarge the definition of “art” to include propaganda.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-habima-theater-at-london-s-globe-debt-trumps-politics-1.433011
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 9:07 pm
if this putrid piece of propaganda–ZioShakespeare– did not merit the use of the spray recommended by who_me, I don’t know what would:
http://www.emagicsupply.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=55
Gilad Atzmon
June 4, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Ariadna, the fact that the Israelis circumcised Shakespeare makes the appearance of Habima in the festival into a significant cultural even, it is our opportunity to review the level of Hebraic morbidity …
There is no doubt that Israeli Art is recruited… Yet, beauty doesn’t. It is either there or not..By the way the Hasbara culture is something that was planted by ‘Marxist’ Zionists.. it is foreign to liberal thought. Liberal Zionists don’t think in terms of indoctrination, the just indoctrinate (Borat Cohen, Spielberg, Larry David etc’)
Here is another one, if an Israeli scientist comes tomorrow with a genius pill that cures liver cancer in just a week, will you boycott him or her. Let us assume that our scientist is also a WB settler and the Israeli propaganda office are funding his world tour,,, Should we let million of cancer patients die in the name of Palestine..
I am not suggesting what we should do, but I insist that the BDS must be cleverly managed. these ethical issues are pretty complicated…
searching
June 4, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Let’s assume that it turns us that green avocados ,from WB settler’s area ,have some unheard of potential of curing a stomach cancer.
Should we stop exporting those non-existing yet, miracle green avocados to a potential patients worldwide, or should we let million of them to die in the name of Palestine???
searching
June 4, 2012 at 11:29 pm
Let’s also assume that this not-invented-yet miracle pill that cures a liver cancer works ONLY in combination with green avocados grown in WB settler’s area.
Should we stop BDS all together ,( at least temporarily) in the name of a higher cause??
Let’s go even further.
Lets assume that Habima theatre actors are the only ones, who have been Chosen to deliver those green avocados (combined with a miracle pill) to the patients.
Should we treat them as messangers of hope and surrvival??
Those are very complex ethical issues.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 11:43 pm
Yes boycott the genius ISraeli Scientist too, boycott the lot of them.
But Primary focus ISRAELI nationals. Then Israelis companies. WOrk out a list from 1-10. If you get low score then no boyoctt. ie. M&S is a Jewish company but based n Britain, lower score. Point based Boycotting. We work out the scores.
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 12:54 am
Jonathon, not that i am that impressed with Israeli academia or science, what you are saying here is yes, let us let people die in the name of Palestinians,,,, i wonder how many people in Gaza would support this line of thought…
fool me once...
June 5, 2012 at 11:19 pm
“Israeli academia or science, what you are saying here is yes, let us let people die in the name of Palestinians,”
What you appear to be saying is, let the Palestinians die for the sake of art, “i wonder how many people in Gaza would support this line of thought…”
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 1:32 am
He’s bleeding heavily. Put the big pot on fire.
Neah, let him play some more. Love that sax. We can always eat him later.
Are you hungry? I am. We could eat… Jay? I have no idea how old Jay is but he may be a bit tough and dry. Suitable for soup only. Still and all, you can rarely dine on a gentleman of such superior intellect.
Don’t mind me. When I am hungry I get like this, mumbling pastiches of Mark Twain (“Cannibalism in the Cars”). Besides I am not talking on this thread’s subject any more. Done, over and out.
So… are you steak and potato man?
fool me once...
June 6, 2012 at 2:56 am
Ha ha, so, Daedalus Theokopolous you’re jumping out the window and leaving the one horned Minotaur to walk the labyrinth with David “I love israel” Bowie astride his back?
http://www.sixtiescollection.com/israel/
I do get hungry, and although I’m a veggie, I wouldn’t say no to a bit of Jay Jerky dipped in that curry you so quickly rustle up.
“…you can rarely dine on a gentleman of such superior intellect.” too true, so I’ll leave the slicing and dicing to you, whilst I fetch the pot and tend the fire.
“So… are you steak and potato man?” There are certain similarities….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlbwaGdNEYI
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 3:54 am
It’s not a genre I know much.
There is one song that always appealed to me (maybe because it’s got more rhythm than the genre usually has) and I also like Randy Travis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2H8DcUbFKI
and also I moved a lot…
although not strung out on “no pool, no phone, no pets, I aint got no cigarettes.”
who_me
June 6, 2012 at 4:05 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlbwaGdNEYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2H8DcUbFKI
how come they all have the same voice?
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 4:57 am
Who_me: how come they all have the same voice?
——-
Maybe it’s the diet–catfish and chitlins.
No, that was mean. I take that back.
Nevertheless in the defense of my prejudice I have to say that whenever I went to Arkansas (Little Rock mostly) I never saw anything other than catfish on the menus or indistinguishable deep fried organic matter.
But don’t say anything bad about Travis.
The country music that I find very hard to take is the “Operator Give Me Jesus” type
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 5:04 am
here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKqyLdnA5gs
who_me
June 6, 2012 at 6:14 am
“Maybe it’s the diet–catfish and chitlins.”
i love catfish, could do without chitlins, though. never liked country music much, but there are a few that i like. such as:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cAChVVVZaM
with the way she snuck that antiwar message into the song, i’m certain she must be a closet marxist. marxists will trick you like that.
speaking of dem country commies (usually known a cc’s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdszkckn6T0
those bolshies sneak their way into everything, don’t they. not even america’s sacred music is free of their influence.
who_me
June 6, 2012 at 6:33 am
anyway, there is corporate country and there is
http://www.youtube.com/user/corporatecountrysuck/videos
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 11:56 pm
“these ethical issues are pretty complicated…”
Sorry, I continue to disagree with you. They are complicated only if you obfuscate the issue of freedom of speech/expression vs censorship.
To paraphrase an old American TV commercial for Sarah Lee pies, “Nobody doesn’t like freedom of speech/expression.” What’s not to like? Your devil though is as tiny as Maxwell’s demon, hiding in the details and sneakily opening and closing those trap doors…
–Are individual hecklers disrupting a concert because they hate the pianist’s political opinions suppressing his freedom of expression? Not really. They are the true “hooligans” to be removed by the police.
They are not there to exercise any free speech themselves, only to harass, but they have no real Power.
They are a fly in the milk bowl, not a mastectomy performed on the cow.
–Is banning a book by the state or preventing a person to speak his mind by official power (Vanunu) a violation of freedom of speech? Definitely.
–How about a state-subsidized and -regulated theater company representing a foreign state known to practice apartheid and ethnic cleansing? Does it have any inherent right to free speech in another country and would protests at its performances constitute infringements of the alleged right? Not at all. No way.
They can go back home or wherever else they are still welcome and exercise it to their hearts’ content.
Not essentially different from, say, my “right to free speech” on this site. I could be banned and just go to other sites to post my annoying opinions. Nobody owes me the “right” to exercise it on their private location.
–What about the freedom of speech and expression of the protesters? Don’t they have it? Or does it not count because they are not reciting theirs in iambic pentameter of bastardized Shakespeare?
“Art is recruited… Yet, beauty doesn’t. It is either there or not..”
Gilad, paleeease, do ease off on “beauty.” Except for non-man-made things like the Nautilus shell, it is in the eye of the beholder: societal, historical, individual, protean anyway, and it is not the subject of ANY of this. The right to free speech covers ugly speech as well. ESPECIALLY ugly speech, I would submit.
The performance the protesters put a crimp in could have been Shakespeare like he has never been played before (instead of the the shameful zionized bastardization of it), and it still would not matter.
If Netanyahu, other than a war criminal, would turn out to be also a virtuoso Mozart player, a protest against his gig would not be a violation of his freedom of expression or an insult to Mozart (whether played straight or with Hava Nagila in between movements).
The example you give in the recently posted video of your interview, of the musician with whom you enjoy playing irrespective of the fact that he has a Magen David around his neck shows best where the confusion is.
It doesn’t matter what a person’s religion is. He may well be a lover of Israel too–that’s his business. But he is not a member of a state-subsidized propaganda art group employed to humanize Israel’s image abroad.
The example with the scientist is worse. I wouldn’t use it again.
During the anti-apartheid boycott against South Africa, all scientific exchanges were boycotted. Not a day, a week or a year but FOR THE DURATION. Science survived. Your example leaves two possible conclusions:
— you believe that Israeli scientists are special, superior and worthy of special dispensation. Is that YOU?
— if there is something to be gained/lost by the boycott, that trumps the much ballyhooed “principles” we like to fan ourselves with. is that YOU?
“I am not suggesting what we should do, but I insist that the BDS must be cleverly managed.”
I could not care less about BDS and how they are managed.
What counts is how we manage ourselves.
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 1:40 am
Ariadna,, here is the Q again,, do we boycott our fictional settler genius scientist even if he/she can save lives? Do we really do it in the name of Palestine?
The fact that a horrid state support a theatre company or an orchestra doesn’t bother me at all.. , i must admit- I would go to see the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1944!!! And i would also go to see the IPO if they could play well (apparently they aren’t any good )
In the last decade i have been fighting for the right of revisionists to operate in an open and tolerant enviornment. I would fight for the same right for anyone, even a Judeo Nazis such as Greeny and settlers.
similarly, I would obviously fight for BDS advocates because their argument must be heard, explored and discussed.
This site was founded by Palestinians who were expelled by the UK PSC. This site was initially their platform to explore their ideas. This site is all about Freedom of Expression. This site will give a platform to a Zionist if he/she has something to say. We are called deliberation because we want to deliberate. We believe that the act of free deliberation may lead towards reconciliation.
As far as culture and academia are concerned, (for me) the red lines are very clear. I say NO to verbal violence,
NO to sabotage of performances, no to vandalism of beauty.
I do not have any problem with any form of protest against Israeli representatives. I actually support it. But vandalism really bothers me.
In Israel today they stopped a concert of Wagner Music. Last month Gunter Grass was declared persona non grata (as if he cares) , 6 months ago the BOD attempted to stop my concert. They have lost because FOS is still a precious value out of the Zionised cultural zone. If the Pls solidarity insists to adopt some Talmudic strategies, I wish them luck.
I guess aiming at integrity is something political activists are not used to. I can understand it all, but I am not an activist, i am just active
searching
June 5, 2012 at 2:41 am
so….
you are willing to unleash all demons of the world and give them a “rightful”place in the modern world under a pretext of “freedom of speech”??
Sort of, an opressor has a right to oppress, a thief has a right to steal???
As long they come in a disguise of an ARTIST??
searching
June 5, 2012 at 2:42 am
In a way they all are…ARTISTS.
Con-artists I may add.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 2:57 am
“no to vandalism of beauty”
…
You insist on calling all art “a beauty”.
The truth could not be further.
Majority of so called art is not about “beauty”. It is selling the ideas, promoting the other, interpreting different ones ,( ofentimes to the wish of the sponsor). Art and artists can be a big sellouts. They oftentime try to please their sponsors. Please, stop idolizing “the art” .
Art in modern days is rarely about pure beauty. No offence, but it is not.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 3:12 am
“In Israel today they stopped a concert of Wagner Music.”
Good, maybe that will stop all international “artists” from coming to Israel and perform there.
This reaction also maybe a proof that some Israeli do feel shunned from the rest of the world ,( like they should feel), and they try to show that they can do the same, what was done to them. Sort of en eye for an eye talmudic strategy.
Roy Bard
June 5, 2012 at 8:24 am
GA: “Ariadna,, here is the Q again,, do we boycott our fictional settler genius scientist even if he/she can save lives? Do we really do it in the name of Palestine?”
This question reminded me of an article by Naomi Klein which suggested that after the decline of the dot.com boom, Israel’s economy was re-invigorated by the export of “defense” products such as “high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems – precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock-in the occupied territories.”
As she noted:
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 8:42 am
Boycott all Israeli products, cultural or otherwise, Work out a point based system to sort out the tricky ones.
fool me once...
June 6, 2012 at 12:38 am
Gilad
“I say NO to verbal violence,”
What do you mean by verbal violence? Do you mean verbally threatening physical violence, swearing, bullying, shouting aggressively, a combination of, or something else?
“NO to sabotage of performances,”
Excuse only to be used for getting out of having to play sax at the kids school christmas concert.
“no to vandalism of beauty.”
Does that include for example, shelling walnuts for the festive nibbles, the destruction of nature for the vanity of art? Would you refuse to tickle the ivory’s of a pre 1940′s piano?
What about vandalism to “ugly” things, is that ok? Did you mean you’re against all vandalism?
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 1:52 am
Ariadna, The comparison to south Africa is meaningless and you should know it. SA didn’t dominate American and British foreign affairs, it didn’t have Hollywood working for it 24/7 If you are after the SA boycott impact, you would have to boycott every Zionist around the world. It is possible and it may happen, the impact of such a boycott would be immediate. However, this is not going to happen soon because the BDS movement is funded and managed (in the west) by liberal Zionists. You quoted Naomi in your review she said it all…. (it was all about the Jews, she said)
AT: — you believe that Israeli scientists are special, superior and worthy of special dispensation. Is that YOU?
G: Not at all, for me an Israeli historian and David Irving are equal in terms of FOE. Don’t you agree?
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 3:21 am
“The comparison to south Africa is meaningless and you should know it. SA didn’t dominate American and British foreign affairs, it didn’t have Hollywood working for it 24/7″
You are shifting the argument to suit you, G.
I asked you why it is wrong, nay downright dangerous for mankind, to boycott an Israeli scientist but OK to have done it to South Africans. The fact that the latter had no significant lobby help (except the covert Israeli support, as twin souls) could not diminish the putative value of their scientific work as compared to the miraculous science that you think now might come out of a settlement.
“for me an Israeli historian and David Irving are equal in terms of FOE.”
If Irving problems had been the same as those an Israeli historian coming to lecture in London might potentially face (booing and banners), yes.
It is quite a sleight of hand to place an equal sign between STATE-sponsored propaganda beamed internationally and a handful of ruthlessly persecuted individuals, hunted down, destroyed and jailed for their beliefs.
Judging by the noise in the Israeli press and the increased hasbara efforts of the state, the boycott bothers them quite a good bit. An awareness of world opinion is seeping that would not have occurred had it not been for the cultural boycott. Are you suggesting that absent a total boycott on every living and breathing zionist in the world none of these efforts are even worthy of consideration?
“I do not have any problem with any form of protest against Israeli representatives. I actually support it. But vandalism really bothers me.”
Who are the “Israeli representatives?” The Knesset only?
Hasbara itself is moral and intellectual vandalism. It is not “beauty”–should it not be protested against?
Or should the protesters carefully avoid interrupting it and only write about it later on their open and tolerant blogs because “free deliberation will lead to reconciliation”?
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 11:15 am
AT: I asked you why it is wrong, nay downright dangerous for mankind, to boycott an Israeli scientist but OK to have done it to South Africans. The fact that the latter had no significant lobby help (except the covert Israeli support, as twin souls) could not diminish the putative value of their scientific work as compared to the miraculous science that you think now might come out of a settlement.
G: Ariadna, 1. i do not say that it is wrong or right… i just present you with some problematic issue to deliberate on, reminding you again, this site is called deliberation.
2. we employ boycott towards an aim. we are attempting to kick the Israelis in the ‘right direction’ to think ethically. But the fact that Jewish lobbies dominate Western political world and culture industry make these efforts meaningless. So simple,, you protest against 2 Habima performances while Borat Cohen appears on every cinema in each Western city… is it that really that complicated?
I think English people call it ‘to piss against the wind’ I tried it once,, no good..
AT: “for me an Israeli historian and David Irving are equal in terms of FOE.”
If Irving problems had been the same as those an Israeli historian coming to lecture in London might potentially face (booing and banners), yes.
G: You must be joking, Irving is arrested as soon as he lands in Austria…Try to buy his books in the UK..
AT: Judging by the noise in the Israeli press and the increased hasbara efforts of the state, the boycott bothers them quite a good bit. An awareness of world opinion is seeping that would not have occurred had it not been for the cultural boycott.
G: Actually I do not agree,,, recent polls suggest that 85% of us do regard Israel as NO1 horrid place,, yet, only a dozen would appear to protest against Habima… we are now ready to move on and to identify J power as the biggest threat to world peace.. Sadly enough, the BDS cannot go there,, it is actually set to stop such a move.. this is why they concentrate on OT…they never challenge the J only state’s right to exist… their leader study in a Zionist university and funded by a liberal Zionist and Jews only political cells (JVP, JBIG etc’)
AT: Are you suggesting that absent a total boycott on every living and breathing zionist in the world none of these efforts are even worthy of consideration?
G: Everything is worthy of consideration,,,and indeed, integrity would mean considering this option right now..and the debate should really be,, do we boycott every Zionist on this planet or following the notion of FOE.. this is the only meaningful debate for me. I can see how a blanket boycott of every Z would change the J world within a week…
AT: Who are the “Israeli representatives?” The Knesset only?
G: This is easy, anyone who represent the State. the BDS actually deals with this topic profoundly.
AT: Hasbara itself is moral and intellectual vandalism. It is not “beauty”–should it not be protested against?
G: Ariadna, Hasbara is a complicated term… on the one hand you have Mark Regev who fits into your definition , on the other hand you see utilization of artists or academics who actually produce beauty and intellectual content… it is really a complicated issue.. and it is not studied.. A jazz group touring with Israeli funds do not see themselves as representatives of Israeli imperialism, they, in their eyes are not different from a British group touring with British Council money..And i guess you know how many people died in Iraq in the last decade..
In fact, I am one of the few, may even be the only British artists who do not use government art funding (directly)… if you are correct, every British artist should be stopped for being complicit in crimes committed by the Government here..
Once again, we see that integrity makes thing slightly complicated..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 8:48 am
Agreed its nothing with South Africa. although I still maintain apartheid stopped because of the Sports boycott on SOuth Africa.
And it is nothing to do whether Israel is an Apartheid state or not. Nothing at all. WHo cares, its just a distraction from Palestinian Suffering.
Instead we have Israel in the Eurovision song contest and they are not even in Europe.
We are no boycotting Israeli culture we are actively promoting it and it stinks/.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
who_me
June 4, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Ilan Ronen, the director, felt that the much-too-Goyish Bard needed some chosen artistic collaboration so he added to the script. In his version of zioShakespeare, he added a scene “in which young Venetians in masks degrade the Jew, stealing his yarmulke, tallit and tefillin, and beat him.”
maybe my idea about arresting any and all israelis that visit one’s country and then dropping them down abandoned mineshafts isn’t such a bad idea after all. granted, it may not be possible to do in all countries, the maldives, for example, but a suitable alternative could surely be found?
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Stuff them in those tunnels the Gazans have dug out to be able to smuggle food from Egypt would also work
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 4, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Best of all, dismantle Israel and let them beg the forgiveness of Palestinians
searching
June 4, 2012 at 9:32 pm
“Had they refused to, the state of Israel might have cut their funding, Ha’aretz explains understandingly.”
…
of course, “artists” can not live off of the art and air alone. They need moolah/money/shekels to survive .
Not like the producer of avocados , or a manufacturer of ahava creams.
They are made of a different, not a very “special”, art-Chosen clay. They are not a part of an “artsy” club/tribe, so it’s OK to boycott them.
After all, after eating green avocados, made in Israel ,one can instantly become a pro-Zionism supporter of Israel.
After watching “zioShakespeare’s” version of a play “in which young Venetians in masks degrade the Jew, stealing his yarmulke, tallit and tefillin, and beat him”, an average viewer is not fed with an “artsy” propaganda images of bigger-then-life anti-Semitism that spreads like a cancer through our civilisation, and it has to be stopped.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 11:37 pm
Amazing that Habima inserted they own anti-Semitic crime into Shakespeare. Now that’s Chutzpah.
searching
June 4, 2012 at 11:44 pm
“Amazing that Habima inserted they own anti-Semitic crime into Shakespeare. Now that’s Chutzpah”
They are artists. They are allowed.
Art is about beauty, beauty is about art.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 4, 2012 at 11:56 pm
But you know what is next.
They will declare William Shakespeare anti-Semitic and start re-writing it to suit.
The Merchant of Venice will be completely re-written to portray him as a mis-undertood Jewish trader picked on by people who envied him.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 12:09 am
or they will proclaim that Shakespeare was a “white race” supremacist, whose intention was to conquer the world with his work ,
and make all people forcefully to watch his plays.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 12:15 am
Good point searching … got any good viking videos…? You know the sort.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 12:33 am
I do, but I am not going to promote a neo-paganism.
Don’t try to direct me on the wrong roads.
Here is a song that I love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrssTGF21l8
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 1:57 am
A. they already declared Shakespearanti semitic
B. they already decided he was a Jewish woman, hence a self hating Jew like Atzmon and Eisen..
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 1:55 am
It is not Chtzpah, this is exactly why they have a festival…to see different interpretations and creative minds at work… The representative of the J state were there to exhibit their Jewish phobias,,, it is wonderful actually..
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 9:11 am
IMO its is Tragic really, I would say that they have changed the essential character of the original by their blatant attempt to insert their own Hasbara into a classic of literature.
I would feel equally affronted if some-one re-released Oliver Twist re-written to free itself of anti-semitic characters. In this “Jew friendly” version Fagin could run a charity for Lost boys in London. Instead of stealing the boys are sent out to do good deed in return for a penny or two.
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 11:19 am
By then Fagin would be a Goy…:)
searching
June 4, 2012 at 9:40 pm
“You just have to enlarge the definition of “art” to include propaganda.”
Unfortunately , majority or art and artists have become a propaganda ,or a tool of indoctrnation.
Sponsors have their demands.
The bigger sponsors, the bigger demands.
If you add to it a big Ego that usually resides in many of artists, one can have an easy prescription for a nice and fruitfull cooperation.
Selling a soul for a bit of money and fame is not restricted only to politicians.
Many artists like/-ed this deal as well.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 12:02 am
and here what MR Finkelstein had to say about BDS and some other things.
So many people pulling the strings in different directions ,and a knot gets even tighter.
Isreal has NO intentions of resolving the problem peacefully. It never had.
Talk is cheap , distracting, and it can be deceiving, actions confirm what is truly in your heart and mind.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/finkelstein-stands-by-bds-cult-accusation-says-its-historically-criminal-to-not-support-the-two-state-solution.html
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 2:07 am
Finki was obviously 100% correct about the cult accusation but he is wrong about (almost) everything else (in spite of being a clever boy)..
The BDS must be a cult because it is not principled.,, it is stuck with a zig zag strategy that is shaped to appease the Jewish liberal crowd.
The more i read the comments here, the more i am convinced, Integrity is what it is all about. One simple principle. A State of Its Citizens (as opposed to Jews only State) …
Deadbeat
June 5, 2012 at 5:54 am
While Finkelstein was essentially thinking of BDS his “cult” remark was not directly solely to BDS but against all forms of radicalism that falls outside his own definition of “mainstream”. In other words Gilad, it was directed at YOU and most participants on this forum inclusively.
His argument against BDS is cleaver Zionist rhetoric because BDS takes an unprincipled middle ground. His rhetoric is even more effective than Chomsky who just merely stands against BDS.
What I found ironic about the Democracy Now interview is that Finkelstein was on the show promoting his new book that claim Jews support for Israel is softening. However there was NO mention either by him or host, Amy Goodman, about the event in New York City the day before, where both resides — The 5th Avenue Israel Day Parade. This parade right in the heart of New York City, supported and attended by thousands, featured such power luminaries as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Charles Schumer. In addition it was also reported in Harretz that domination from American Jews to Israel is actually on the rise.
My impression of the interview is that the pseudo-Left is trying to get in front of the “backlash” (Jewish or Israeli I’m not sure) as even Finkelstein admits the ability of the Internet to circumvent the “mainstream” information sources as defined by him.
Roy Bard
June 5, 2012 at 8:38 am
GA: “The more i read the comments here, the more i am convinced, Integrity is what it is all about. One simple principle. A State of Its Citizens (as opposed to Jews only State)”
Adam Horowitz discusses this in his reaction to NF’s interview on Democracy Now:
Also worth noting is that, despite Barghouti’s claims that BDS has the overwhelming consensus of Palestinian civil society, the report on that National BDS Conference states that:
Those numbers seem low for a movement claiming consensus on BDS – and the claim that an overwhelming number of the supporting organisations that support BDS also support two states is mind-boggling.
I wonder if a poll of people in the refugee camps would find that ‘an overwhelming number’ support two states – or whether the vast majority would be clear that they wish to return to the land from which their families were evicted or forced to flee in 1948.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 3:52 am
Gilad, I’m going to drink to Integrity tonight (I’m already four sheets to the wind on Beauty).
In a “Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (if I’m not mistaken and conflate Soljenitzyn’s writings), the zeks are gathered in the courtyard to listen to a sad announcement, solemnly read to them, about the demise of the Beloved Leader, Comrade Iosif Visarionovich Stalin.
The man reading it is exercising his state-appointed right to freedom of expression. He should not be interrupted by vandals. But before he could finish reading, Ivan Denisovich — probably at heart an activist without integrity– does just that: he violently throws his hat up in the air as high as he can to express his glee at the sad news. Hundreds of other fellow hooligans immediately follow suit shouting Hooray!
Acitivists… Unable to perceive that the state and the individual have equal rights of freedom of speech, just like corporations have personhood.
As you noted, on a par with activists boycotting an Israeli propaganda performance are these:
“In Israel today they stopped a concert of Wagner Music. Last month Gunter Grass was declared persona non grata (as if he cares) , 6 months ago the BOD attempted to stop my concert.”
(Emoticon optional)
searching
June 5, 2012 at 4:48 am
“As you noted, on a par with activists boycotting an Israeli propaganda performance are these”
..
But nobody, under any circumstances has a right to violate/boycott an ART.
WE can boycott, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, underwear or shoes, but never, ever the art/academics. They “always” symbolise a “BEAUTY”.
And the world in such a shortness of “beauty” that art ALWAYS expresses, that we may not vandalise it. Even if it comes from a racists, supremacist, opressive, violataing all human right state.
In the name of STATE given freedom, and State controlled rights of free expressions, and State controlled tolerance, we must never,nada, under no circumstances “vandalise” the beauty of all ART. Becasue art is always about beauty and beauty is always about art.
And those who dare to vandalise it are just plain, nasty hoolignas, whose photos need to be plastered all over cites.
So… next time they don’t try to use and abuse their State given rights to free gatherings and freedom of speech.
The rights that get shrinked day by day as we speak. Soon ,very soon, like in the Stalinists times , the State will be in a full, total, global control of our freedom of speech , freedom of thoughts , freedom to make decision about our lives for us etc.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 4:52 am
Does the name Emily Litella ring a bell to you?
searching
June 5, 2012 at 5:19 am
it does now
“..Emily Litella: What’s all this FUSS I hear… about saving Soviet jewelry? Now… what makes Soviet jewelry so special? Will it be worth more in a few years? Why… prices what they are today… ALL jewelry will be worth more! now, if I recall correctly, Mrs. Kruschev didn’t wear very much jewelry… and her husband, the Premier, didn’t even wear a watch! Not the mickey mouse watch, anyway. Why, they wouldn’t even let him into Disney Land! And now he’s DEAD!! Well, I’m infuriated! Save Soviet jewelry?! Where are we going to put it? I say keep it over THERE, with all their ballet dancers! Let them keep their own jewelry AND their own ballet dancers! As a matter of fact, why don’t get the ballet dancers to save the jewelry?! Americans have more important things to save! And electricity! And what about our fuel? Now, THAT’S important! Not jewelry!
Chevy Chase: Miss Litella. Miss Litella.
Emily Litella: What?!
Chevy Chase: It’s Jewry. Jewry. Not jewelry.
Emily Litella: It’s what?
Chevy Chase: Soviet Jewry. The editorial was about Jewry, not jewelry.
Emily Litella: Oh! Well, that’s very important.
Chevy Chase: Yes.
Emily Litella: [ she smiles ] Never mind! ..”
searching
June 5, 2012 at 5:23 am
“…Americans have more important things to save!
)
And electricity! And what about our fuel?
Now, THAT’S important! Not Jewelry..”
Deadbeat
June 5, 2012 at 5:28 am
IF there is going to be a serious boycott of Israel there must be a complete repeal of the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement that has been on the books since 1984.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 8:30 am
Good suggestion.. Punitive, Harsh & Deterrent that is what a boycotts should be not a half-arsed flag of convenience that one sticks on whatever is kosher enough to boycott.
who_me
June 5, 2012 at 8:35 am
Gilad Atzmon
i cant see a loyal zionist israeli scientist ever creating something like a cure for cancer. instead, i see them creating new diseases that can be used as biological warfare, and in fact are.
if a zionist israeli scientist ever did create something like a cure for cancer, one can be damn sure that cure would not be generally available if the israelis could prevent it. it would be applied like their organ trafficking. the cure would be available for the ziofascist rich, at high profit, and to select “special people” who had connections or who were otherwise considered “extra special” above the normal “special”.
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 10:33 am
Hello Who Me, you are obviously wrong here.. Israel loves to pretend to be compassionate and clever. They will spread the news around but you are right on one thing, treatment may not be available for Palestinians or black foreign labour…
who_me
June 5, 2012 at 10:41 am
“treatment may not be available for Palestinians or black foreign labour…”
well, there you go. my example is a worst case scenario, yours is probably the best one could expect from israel. any cure israel did “spread around” would by done by zionist jewish companies (and probably companies with substantial israeli interest in) for great profit. they would try and make it so they had an exclusive monopoly.
Gilad Atzmon
June 5, 2012 at 10:31 pm
probably..
happeh
June 7, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Ahhhh……The old “You are obviously wrong……But I will not explain why” trick.
Please explain why his statements about Israelis being likely to use health cures for biowarfare or limiting life saving techniques to only Israelis and their sychophants is wrong.
Don’t forget we know that Israelis experiment on their own people.
who_me
June 5, 2012 at 10:36 am
there is also another reason to be suspicious of israeli scientists, and any other israeli professionals. mossad often uses these people in their criminal acts. as agents (use as a front, espionage, disease and toxin planting, etc.), go betweens between mossad and experts in the target country mossad wants access to (to recruit, assassinate, etc.) and also as “experts with handles” (an expert “carried in” by mossad to perform a specific purpose for mossad). very little of israeli government sponsored interchanges with the outside world happens without some mossad involvement.
because of the uses mossad makes of these people, this makes them potentially very dangerous to people in the victim countries. many assassinations mossad carried out were aided by these professionals helping to set the stage for the kidon teams.
israeli entertainers and cultural exchanges are also a threat, since mossad uses these as cover for its criminal acts. remember the israeli “students” selling art in the usa as a cover for their work setting the stage for 9/11, for example?
it should be assumed any israeli individual or group is a threat, unless proven very conclusively otherwise. how much a threat is relative to what they could be potentially involved in. the israeli “shakespeare” hasbara troup (or troops) were not likely doing much beyond hasbara. but were they to perform in a theater next to some other building of interest to the israeli government, say the offices or home of an important anti-israeli, for example, one can bet in that example, that anti-israeli would potentially be in a lot of danger.
these facts about israeli behaviour in foreign countries should be weighed when considering how to deal with israelis at things like cultural events. one can bet that governments in the west would not hinder the israelis, they usually help them all they can. ordinary citizens opposed to israel are up against not just israel, bad publicity from the israel loyal media and an apathetic public, they are also up against their own governments and local authorities, who are mostly in the zionazi pocket. the fact that these israeli professional and cultural exchanges are potentially dangerous to people in the host countries, in addition to being hasbara for israel and all the rest of the good reasons to boycott israelis, makes opposing these israelis and making their work impossible, or at least more difficult, a personal thing for those in the host countries.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 9:17 am
The problems here I think… is that Gilad and Sarah are artists, and feel a sense of tribal loyalty to all artists be they Israeli or otherwise.
who_me
June 5, 2012 at 9:46 am
they’ve also been targets of boycotts and disruptions. when one looks at who the victims in the artistic world to boycotts, career blocking, shutouts, bannings, etc., it is those who criticise israel or jews.
Jay Knott
June 5, 2012 at 1:34 pm
I feel the same way about academics Sarah does about artists. When London BDS wanted to stop Israeli historian Benny Morris from speaking, they compared him to David Irving. I said “quite right – one should defend the freedom of speech of both of them”. There is something distasteful about a lefties shouting down their intellectual superiors. I guess it’s the same with theater and music, though Roy Bard argues convincingly that art IS an emissary for Israel:
http://www.deliberation.info/the-bds-cultural-boycott-and-integrity/comment-page-1/#comment-6880
The international sport boycott was arguably the most effective strategy of anti-apartheid (watch the movie ‘Invictus’ to understand how rugby is in the DNA of white South Africans). But that was a boycott of directly racist practices.
It’s easy to boycott Zionist products, and stores like Marks & Spencer in the UK. It’s harder in the USA – when Rainbow Co-op in San Francisco boycotted Israeli goods, they stirred up a hornet’s nest, and had to back down. It’s even harder to argue against seeing Sacha Cohen’s movies, but easy to explain why one shouldn’t see the Habima Theater or the Israel Philharmonic. I wouldn’t go to see them, because there’s a boycott, but I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt them.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 3:24 pm
“There is something distasteful about a lefties shouting down their intellectual superiors. ”
Looks like a bait trap. I like them more subtle. I’ll pass.
Jay Knott
June 5, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Ariadna – I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Ignorant activists shout at scientists and historians, and I don’t like it. Is that OK?
searching
June 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Yea ,because scientists or historians are always morally more superior.
They only think about what is good for humanity.
So who then manipulated history so much, who created the most modern weaponery.
An ignorant mass??
The mass is usually ignorant, that’s why need good, honest, decent leaders.
What we have right now is quite the opposite.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 4:03 pm
“Is that OK?”
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Define “OK.”
Jay Knott
June 5, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Ariadna – you’re too labyrinthine for me, so I’ll answer ‘searching’, whose sarcasm is at least understandable. I’m referring to students who shouted ‘fascist’ at scientists like E.O. Wilson, and ‘Nazi’ at David Irving. I said nothing about the ‘masses’, nor about ‘leaders’ being ‘honest’.
I don’t think Benny Morris should be shut up either. He exposed the ‘David and Goliath’ myth about the foundation of Israel. Having realized that the existence of Israel depended on ethnic cleansing, and that he himself is an Israeli nationalist, he argued that murder is justified. He is a living example of the impossibility of being a Zionist and an anti-racist, and that’s why so many hypocritical Jews don’t like him.
I wouldn’t break an academic boycott of Israel, but I’d argue against it.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 12:02 am
Also, students should be free to shout ‘Nazi’ at Irving and whatever (you did not note) at Benny Morris.
It does irritate me though to see them put in the same boat, as it does when I read someone equate “both sides of the violence in Palestine.” It is just as wrong.
BM (they are his initials, I am not going for a cheap shot here), is not a historian, he is an attitudinist. He had NOTHING new to tell the world about Israel’s genocidal crimes, least of all to the Palestinians, he only wished to announce that as far as he was concerned they were necessary for the ‘birth of the nation.” He wished to encourage his co-citizens with full rights in the State for Jews to feel justified.
The fact that some zionists criticize him does not elevate him in any way, and surely not as a historian who must be heard reciting his mantra again.
Irving is a whole other story–he did some heavy lifting and serious spade work as a HISTORIAN and really uncovered FACTS unknown to anyone except the perpetrators of the big lie of the Holocaust™. Even some of his worst enemies admit he is a historian of note. What he had to say is still unknown to a huge number of people.
Nevertheless I am Ok with students/protesters booing, protesting both of them although they are no in the same class.
But BM has not had his life made into a living hell, hounded all over the globe, he has not been imprisoned for anything other than speaking the unwelcome truth.
So let’s not pretend (a) they are in any way comparable; (b) they suffered the same fate because.
Let them both be published, let them both speak AND be booed, but do not hound, persecute and imprison EITHER.
who_me
June 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm
“It’s even harder to argue against seeing Sacha Cohen’s movies, but easy to explain why one shouldn’t see the Habima Theater”
lol, that is some of the dumbest logic on this thread. besides all the political reasons, in which there is equal reason to boycott both, sasha cohen films have zero cultural and entertainment value going for them. at least one could make a weak argument for the habina hasbara troop being art.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 5, 2012 at 11:45 pm
Jay, I’ll try to less labyrinthine:
“There is something distasteful about a lefties shouting down their intellectual superiors.”
I saw a lot of young people on that video explaining their protest in front of the theater and I liked what I heard.
I don’t know if they are ‘lefties,’ nor do I care, and I don’t know who their “intellectual superiors” are.
I think ALL young people, students and other “intellectual inferiors” should be free to protest everything they disagree with, even encouraged to do it.
If they don’t do it now, when they are old they feel so intellectually superior they will not dare to breathe for fear of offending someone. It is their world to shape, we made a nasty mess of it.
Jay Knott
June 6, 2012 at 9:01 am
Ariadna – I didn’t mention ‘protesting’. I criticized censorship. I agree one should be free to ‘protest’ anything. When people in Eugene, Oregon, protested David Irving, that was OK – completely pointless, but OK. ‘Protesting’ amounted to saying ‘we disagree with you’. If Irving had come out and said ‘I disagree with you’ would he be protesting too? When he spoke in Portland, lefties tried to stop him, and issued veiled threats against people wanting to see him. It’s the same with Wilson and other sociobiologists – they used violence to try to stop them speaking. Universities give in to this violence (eg. U of O banned Pacifica Forum).
Benny Morris did help expose the ethnic cleansing involved in the creation of Israel. But our opinions about Irving and Morris are beside the point. Lefties (like London BDS and Oregon Antifa) don’t just ‘protest’, they want to stop them speaking – http://bit.ly/nBfO8O
Roy Bard
June 6, 2012 at 9:58 am
“Lefties (like London BDS and Oregon Antifa) don’t just ‘protest’, they want to stop them speaking”
Yet your own source contradicts this:
In the video which appears at the top of the article you refer to, just before 5:50 this is again made clear.
The man works for Ben Gurion, was a guest of the Anglo Israel Association who “boast that their most fruitful work is as propagandists for Israel bringing ‘opinion formers’ to the UK on speaking tours in partnership with British think-tanks and universities to push the Israeli perspective.”
He is quoted as saying of the Palestinians:
Personally I support the decision that the Cambridge University Israel Society took when the cancelled his speech.
Are you seriously suggesting that Israeli academics who advocate such dehumanising measures for Palestinians should not be confronted and challenged? That they should be given a platform to advocate such disgusting measures against the Palestinians?
Jay Knott
June 6, 2012 at 10:48 am
Roy – my source begins “On Tuesday 14th June 2011 human rights activists came together to oppose the visit of Israeli historian Benny Morris to the London School of Economics.” – http://bit.ly/nBfO8O
‘Oppose the visit’ is pretty clear, even if it’s contradicted further down.
‘ X is a racist’ is I think one of the dumbest slogans I’ve heard. I’ve listened to people the left call ‘racist’, and learned something from them. ‘Confronted and challenged’ is another mealy-mouthed leftist phrase. You are either saying “I strongly disagree with you” or “I want to stop you speaking”. Decide which… oh, I see that you have.
The ISRAEL society denied a platform to a ‘racist’? It would be more honest for it to welcome the guy. I don’t care what Morris (or Irving) ‘advocate’. I’m interested in their historical expertise.
Roy Bard
June 6, 2012 at 11:00 am
“‘Oppose the visit’ is pretty clear, even if it’s contradicted further down.”
Ahem – “Lefties (like London BDS and Oregon Antifa) don’t just ‘protest’, they want to stop them speaking”
They DID oppose the visit without attempting to STOP him speaking.
” I don’t care what Morris (or Irving) ‘advocate’. I’m interested in their historical expertise.”
Okay so you oppose BDS – and you rank FOE as the most important thing for you.
We can agree to disagree on that one – I think he is clearly complicit in the Israeli genocide programme and that therefor any platform for him should be vigorously opposed.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 5, 2012 at 11:49 am
Israel is new South Africa as boycott calls increase
Roy Bard
June 5, 2012 at 12:42 pm
They were both created in 1948 and yet Palestinian BDS calls only started 2 decades after the South African regime had already fallen…….. that is surely an indication that there is something sustaining the Israeli regime which didn’t exist for the South Africans (the majority of whom weren’t recent arrivals) and South Africans resisting Apartheid never even entertained the idea that they should be confined to a small part of their stolen land whilst the oppressor got to keep the lions share.
So, there are similarities and differences.
The BDS movement really needs to think about why it only started up 45 years after the ANC called for sanctions against the Nationalist Regime.
Jay Knott
June 5, 2012 at 1:39 pm
The difference between the treatment of Israel and South Africa is a test of the dominant ‘anti-racist’ view of the nature of Western society since 1945, promoted by Jewish academics such as Franz Boas, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould. It shows this view is wrong. Jewish supremacy is more powerful than white racism. People STILL criticize Israel for co-operation with South Africa, but not the other way round.
searching
June 5, 2012 at 2:14 pm
In a way all of it, all this BDS is just a smoke screen that is being used as a cover of a more serious stuff that is going on.
Let the public debate, argue, jump at each other eye, think like they are the only ones right.
The truth is , something more serious, more deadly , more bloody is going on.
Syria is being surrounded like a herd of lambs by Zionists wolves, who excercise all their efforts and money amd propaganda to conquer this country the way they recently conquered Libya.
The ignornat public as always buys a lovely image of The people fighting against bad, bad regime. In Europe they villify Eastern countries
( the ones that somewhat preseved their identity) who don’t seem to fall completely in their nets. They villify Hungary (wonderful Orban), Bielarus ,(with a great leader LUkaszenko–let God protect him), they don’t full trust Putin as well.
There is an “interent” talk about a high possiblity of False flag attacks during Soccer games in POland and Ukraine and later dufing Olympics in LOndon. Something big will happen there, no doubt. We are living on a big volcano that’s shaking and trembling already.
Who or what is able to stop it???
I don’t know.
Our global, Illuminati/luciferian, members leaders??
searching
June 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Gilad , you seem to be pretty naive about where the current “art” and “artists” are heading to..
Like millions of others, so don’t worry you have a pretty crowded company.
What is going on in our so-called pop-culture is impossible to understand without reading extensively about Illuminati, freemasonery, new age, luciferiansim etc about their goals and tactics.
You alsoo have to become familiar with symbols they are using. Those symbols are everywhere.
All logs of big and smaller corporations carry those symbols. Like a cat marks its territory , the same way they mark “their” territories with “their” symbols. Without knowing (or pretending like it doesn’t exists) all of it, one is not able to understand what is going on in the world,
and what is going on in pop-culture.
Majority of people prefer to stay ignorant, many willingly admire what they see.
Ignorance is a bliss, but it doesn’t guarantee anything.
There is a tremendous, invisble war that already is taking place for many years.
Soon we will see it , with out own eyes, the results of it. And we are losing.
So far big time. Is there hope??
I don’t know, but we must believe there is.
Or at least we must put up a good fight before many of us will go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaVy5w7YggY&feature=channel&list=UL
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 6, 2012 at 1:13 am
I opened the salvos against Sarah’s (and Gilad’s) stance on this and have already posted a large number of posts thereafter. This will be my last on the topic.
Gilad, I accept that you draw your own “red line” at boycotting/protesting any art event/artifact. That is your stance, you are an artist yourself.
I do not accept:
–that for some reason you call this part of “integrity”–I don’t see where integrity comes into this issue. Besides you still have to finesse somehow the part about your contradicting Abounimah on whether culture is part and parcel of the society/state or not. If you cut it out by some legerdemain now, you have to do so without spilling any blood.
–that you stretch the label of art to cover propaganda, especially state-sponsored and promoted propaganda, claiming it is all “beauty.” I guess the Department of Homeland Security would be artists if they published the Patriot Act on velum, with moiré endpapers, and gilded spine. It could be a thing of “beauty.”
You excuse in effect it saying: (a) it shows their ‘creativity’ and (b) it illustrates their mentality therefore it’s great because it gives us the opportunity to criticize it.
I need to emphasize what I said before: even if Habima had produced a superb Shakespeare play I would still consider it eminently boycottable because it is by open admission of Israeli official a propaganda ploy to ‘humanize’ the criminal state. When I am arguing it is NOT art, I am doing it only following your “red line.”
Here’s why it is not art:
–”Rosencranz and Guilderstern Are Dead” is a imaginative takeoff on “Hamlet” but it was not staged as a Shakespeare play.
–”Chimes at Midnight” by Orson Welles combines several of Shakespeare’s plays, adds some new scenes and creates a Falstaff character that is different than Shakespeare’s. Fascinating. CREATIVE. By Orson Welles, not Shakespeare.
If Habima had presented their play as “The Merchant of Minsk — by Ronin after an idea by Shakespeare,” then and only then it could have been judged as art, albeit mediocre. As it is, it is dishonest and kitschy propaganda.
So, by your red line, what will you do? Separate art from propaganda, let alone from kitsch, or will you say that anything that is presented as art is art, whether it is a portrait of Elvis on velvet holding a machine gun on sale from the NRA, or Habima’s Hasbarspeare?
You may think it is useless to focus on Israel because the JP is worldwide. Others disagree, not because they deny J Power but because they think Israel is the best focus: that’s where Palestine is, that’s where visible and gory crimes can be seen by everyone (it’s harder to explain fractional reserve banking), and that’s what would ultimately hurt JP most directly and immediately. Israel is after all the icon JP shows to its sayanim worldwide, as a hypnotist holding the shiny dangling object to put them into a trance.
You make a serious confusion to equate a British group receiving British Council money with an Israeli state-sponsored group.
The Brits are not required to spew British propaganda, are they?
You may be “attempting to kick the Israelis in the right direction to think ethically.” It’s your job and your inclination. You can hamletize the issue.
Protesters have the “native hue of resolution” and they do not think Israel can be made to think ethically by being talked to and explained what their “syndromes” are. Boycotts are meant to PINCH, to make it inconvenient, costly and painful for Israel to continue to behave as it does.
Despite all the previous banter about what to do with the visiting Israelis I don’t agree to banning or inconveniencing in any way Israeli citizens traveling outside Israel as PRIVATE CITIZENS. That would be unfair and absurd. Would anyone want to do that your parents?
I do advocate boycotting any and ALL Israel exports, NO exceptions.
I do advocate banning and even arresting (in any countries where that is possible and they may be foolish to travel) any Israeli officials connected in any way with human rights violations by the Geneva Conventions, let alone crimes.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 6, 2012 at 9:24 am
~ Gilad ATzmon
I am not sure what you mean by verbal violence, if you mean shouting at Habima performers or Israeli Philharmonic, then I disagree and I fail to see how it is violent.. Vigorous emphatic protest yes Violent NO.
Actually I don’t agree with what you have said or the way you have said it.
It is not violent, it is not sabotage it is not vandalism.
It is protest and totally justifiable.
Jay Knott
June 7, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Sarah’s article is close to becoming the most commented on this site so far. Although she and Gilad have mostly ‘lost’ the argument about artists being special, this discussion has been useful to all concerned. I want to thank the creators of deliberation.info for hosting the liveliest platform for critics of war and racial and economic oppression on the web.
Roy Bard
June 12, 2012 at 2:24 am
Another useful quote:
Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry.
Ariadna Theokopoulos
June 12, 2012 at 2:51 am
You are the go-to guy for devastating quotes.
Jonathon Blakeley
June 12, 2012 at 8:29 am
It was a very interesting thread. I would venture the best on deliberation yet.