Harry’s Place

These people are protesting against artists on the basis of their national/religious identity.

Yet more evidence of “peace” activists edging closer to the moral abyss of open and unashamed racism.

This article seems to be implying that as long as you have peace now-type credentials your shouldn’t be boycotted. What if the quartet was made up of people who voted Likud? Would a protest be justified? What if they lived in Hebron?

This article seems to be implying that as long as you have peace now-type credentials your shouldn’t be boycotted. What if the quartet was made up of people who voted Likud? Would a protest be justified? What if they lived in Hebron?

No more than a protest would be justified if the quartet came from Iran or Syria. And I would oppose those protests too.

Isn’t this akin to Nazism, where Jewish musicians and composers were banned?

The International Festival is also hosting Palestinian National Theatre performing ‘Jidariyya’:

http://www.eif.co.uk/event/jidariyya.html

Readers in Edinburgh and vicinity take note: the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee

Campaign, shurely?

Twats, though, whatever they call themselves.

Campaign, shurely?

Indeed. Thanks.

Words fail me.

You can catch the East-West Diwan Orchestra at the Proms on 14th of August (Royal Albert Hall).

I wonder if two leading members of the Scottish PSC will be there?

I assume that John Wight will be ranting on about “international Jewry”, one of his favourite themes?

maybe Mick Napier will justify the murder of Jewish kids again?

could it be that Wight and Napier’s racist rants will be music to the ears of the Scottish PSC membership?

This concert shouldn’t be boycotted even if all the musicians lived in the West Bank. The boycott is wrong in principle, and it is wrong to even explain that these musicians in the Jerusalem Quartet are the “best Jews” Israel has.
Or we are again distinguishing between bad Jews and good Jews in the field of music based on their real or imagined political opinions.

They really are scum, and should reaquaint themselves with the reason the Festivals started. After that thick thug Wight pissed over the film festival and Ron Prosser’s visit, this should be the final straw. I should be in town that day, so anyone want to help man the barricades?

And you can fuck right off, Yak. No-one would be that vindictive to protest one of the many Palestinian shows each year.

Mick Napier, if you’re reading, the steely glare in Bruntsfield, about 6pm yesterday, came from me.

I first saw members of the quartet play at the International Chamber Music festival in Jerusalem (run by Barenboim’s wife), and have since seen them in the UK. They are a truly superb, world class ensemble and the news of this boycott call is absolutely disgusting. The PSC involved in this are just thugs. This is indeed cultural nazism and something must be done about it. However if this boycott works it just means Edinburgh will be deprived of some superb music; the quartet will continue to tour the rest of the world to great acclaim.

Perhaps Wight and Napier will relent were the Jerusalem Quarter to play wearing yellow Stars of David?

And incidentally why do you expect them to have any sympathy to Daniel Barnboim or the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra? For these two it is a collaboration with enemy that should be exterminated, or at the very least expelled. This is what this scum is all about and, make no mistake: with such “friends” Palestinians need no enemies.

Maybe, just for the PSC photographers, the anti semitic racist John Wight can wear a brownshirt.
If he plans on kicking a Jewish musician, he may as well get himself a nice retro momento.

The boycott is wrong in principle, and it is wrong to even explain that these musicians in the Jerusalem Quartet are the “best Jews” Israel has.
Or we are again distinguishing between bad Jews and good Jews in the field of music based on their real or imagined political opinions.

I don’t think that’s what Gene was suggesting, Fabian.

I would guess he was attempting to demonstrate that the PSC’s villification and persecution of Israel is not grounded on the behaviour of Israel or Israelis, but instead on simple-minded bigotry and fanaticism.

This Reminds me of something i saw on the news in the late 80s or early 90s, A white anti aparthied theatre group from South Africa performed in London and were picketed by a small group of lefty loon’s.

The reporter asked a young female protester why she was protesting about a group which shared identical aim’s, She just looked at him with a stupid expression on her face unable to think of anything to say.

After what seemed a long time some skinny nerdy type bloke said ”Can i answer that question”, When the reporter turned to him he said ”If they cared about it that much they wouldnt have come in the first place” !!!.

Does anyone else remember this?, who were these protester’s and what party did they come from?

“I don’t think that’s what Gene was suggesting, Fabian.” (Mark T)

I agree, but I made the point just in case not everybody here got it.

Incidentially, anyone got a screen dump of the Scottish NSDAP webpage? We don’t want typos to go unnoticed.

“Does anyone else remember this?, who were these protester’s and what party did they come from?”

No, but I’d hazard a guess it was the Revolutionary Communist Group: the trots who ran the non-stop picket of the SA embassy.

They eventually got chucked out of the Anti Apartheid movement, because Trots weren’t particularly popular with the SA leadership.

How pathetic can you get. What a shower.

I hate Smetana. Its just a Jewish version of sour lumpy cream. Euughhh!

Isn’t this what Dave Dudley was refering to…

http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/content/view/2519/455/

They have a full house, even at £26 - all the seats for this performance have been sold.

They have a full house, even at £26 - all the seats for this performance have been sold.

Looks like there’s still standing room for £5.

David T

Thank’s for that, It’s a pity it’s not on YouTube.

My first thoughts on reading this was ‘what a bunch of fucking loons’ then I thought I bet Galloway backs their point of view.

so muffin said:”Perhaps Wight and Napier will relent were the Jerusalem Quarter to play wearing yellow Stars of David?”

Sadly the way things are going with the trot and fraggle left you may not be too far from the truth.

so muffin said:” This is what this scum is all about and, make no mistake: with such “friends” Palestinians need no enemies.”

Too true too true sadly. It is a moral priority to back the sides that are working towards a just peace.

Boy, their website is a cesspool! Such lies they peddle….

Rebecca said:”Boy, their website is a cesspool! Such lies they peddle….”

I know. I’ve just commented on there and am awaiting a flaming :-)

I’m so glad I won’t be in Edinburgh next month. I had a ticket for the Prossnor lecture and when the uni cancelled it they didn’t even give an explanation. Was the cancellation really because of the PSC? I so passionately dislike them, any time I see their posters on the recycling bins on George Square I just want to write all over them with the thickest marker pen available. There’s enough antisemitism where I come from (Central Europe) so I recognise it when I see it.

Good news. Gotmy ticket. Only 40 left! Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Oh, fuck ewes, Wight and Napier.

Fuck the PSC. Fuck their souls.

That wasn’t yoof speak. I’d sooner fuck ewes. I also warned staff about the Edinburgh Nazi branch.

Alex Macpherson said:”. I also warned staff about the Edinburgh Nazi branch.”

Sadly indistinguishable from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

SPSC picketed the hotel of Maccabi Haifa a couple of years back, when they were over to play rangers in the uefa cup iirc.
The haifa squad contained Jewish and Arab footballers.

The game was disrupted by a goalmouth protester waving a palestinian flag. Napier disowned this but high jinx is going to be a possibility when spsc start whipping up the hatred I guess.

Fwiw I was listening to the match on radio 5, the BBC commentator (unsuprisingly) didn’t recognise the palestinian flag, he took a guess at South Africa. The Israeli commentator helped him out.

John d said:”The haifa squad contained Jewish and Arab footballers.”

Yet more stupidity from the SPSC. If they genuinely did believe in peace and justice they would be backing cross national and cross communal groupings that are working to bring people together in very difficult circumstances. However they don’t do this they just trot out the same old dubious bollocks that skirts very close to anti semitism rather than anti zionism (not that I see anything other than extremist zionism as being much of a problem personally), gesture politics, association with iffy individuals and groups etc etc.

The SPSC are part of the problem in the region not in any sense part of the solution.

It looks like the SPSC have a moderation policy on their site that blocks any comment that says that Israel has a right to a secure existence alongside a secure Palestine in a two state solution situation. I posted a comment on there last night and whaddya know it hasn’t appeared.

I think that from this and other activities the SPSC have no interest in the situation of the Palestinians and are just another load of Jew haters masquarading behind the mask of anti zionism.

“If they genuinely did believe in peace and justice they would be backing cross national and cross communal groupings that are working to bring people together in very difficult circumstances.”

But they don’t. The whole purpose of that crowd, inclusive of assorted boycotters and their ilk, is to delegitimise and dehumanise one of the people concerned. To this end that don’t want to bring people together, they want to separate them. They don’t want bridges, they want fire-breaks.

so muffin said:”But they don’t. The whole purpose of that crowd, inclusive of assorted boycotters and their ilk, is to delegitimise and dehumanise one of the people concerned.”

Spot on. What worries me (and I’ve said this on a *spit* Galloway thread) is this constant delegitimisation and dehumanising of Jews/Israelis would be abhored if the target was different. This leads me to conclude that there is - because they never seem to look at worse regimes than Israel - a significant pool of antisemitism in the Pro Pal groups in the UK and in the Trot left as a whole.

If you don’t believe me pay a visit to Urban75.com and have a look at their boards. There are posters on there who have tried to discuss the issues in a equitiable way but have been shouted down by the anti zionist/antisemitic fraggles and accused of being supporters of zionist genocide and similar comments etc etc etc

Okay, we know the dishonesty in saying “Palestinians have asked for the boycott”, but what about this poet?

s.o.muffin
24 July 2008, 6:14 pm

Perhaps Wight and Napier will relent were the Jerusalem Quarter to play wearing yellow Stars of David?

Hardly. Wight and Napier would merely accuse the J Quartet of using the Holocaust as an excuse to do worse to the Palestinians than the Nazis did to the Jews of Europe.

What bloody nonsense. You go Sacha, Sergei, Amichai and Kyril - play your hearts out as you always do!

Any chance of a cultural boycott of the Palestinians?

Ex SWP said:”Any chance of a cultural boycott of the Palestinians?”

I don’t think that would be at all helpful or positive. Boycotting and exposign the loons of groups like SPSC is a totally different matter. Friends like these are an enemy of the Palestinians, like the Arab govts who kept them in penury for decades just to use as a stick to beat Israel with. There is enough oil money sloshing round the region to give every Palestinian who claims displacement a four bedroom house and a car and much more. Would have been cheaper and more sensible than all this bloodshed.

Surely the whole point of supporting this cultural event is to show equal support for both Israelis and Palestinians, rather than friendship to the one and enmity to the other?

Why blame Palestinians or their supporters for what a bunch of totalitarian wankers masking as “leftists” do? The best solution would be to get as many Palestinians and Arabs as possible to attend the event and show the boycott brigade for the racist scum they are.

Albert said:”Why blame Palestinians or their supporters for what a bunch of totalitarian wankers masking as “leftists” do?

Couldn’t agree more there. Sometimes the actions of the Palestinians western supporters is causing them more not less problems.

Albert said: “The best solution would be to get as many Palestinians and Arabs as possible to attend the event and show the boycott brigade for the racist scum they are.”

Spot on. There is no doubt now going by some of the utterances of racist scum like the SPSC etc that they are racist scum. Some of the shit they are coming out with wouldn’t be out of place in Der Sturmer except for the slight changing in wording replceing ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’.

JIWON: Just in case… Daniel Barenboim does NOT participate in Bashkirova’s West-Eastern-Divan-Orchestra 2008, and therefore, will NOT appear in Prom 38-39. If you want to know WHY, please visit my blogs. I’ve been running two blogs since January: http://theartofcriticism.wordpress.com/ (Music-blog) and http://barenboimlovesknesset.wordpress.com/ (Knesset-blog)
If you click http://theartofcriticism.wordpress.com/my-request-to-barenboim/ (My Request to Barenboim), you will find anything you want to know; about what has been happening to Barenboim since mid-90s. These blogs are now open to public, so if you think it’s valuable enough, please tell all your friends to visit these places.
I am not a normal spammer. If anyone spreads false information about me, without finishing reading ALL my writings, I will take everything into the legal case. Thanks.

Trundlemaster: some of the antisemitic shit Salmond’s rants are virtually verbatim copies from the Stuermer.

I went to this concert - I had no idea anything like these protests was happening. When I got there, there were the protestors outside handing out leaflets. So I just kindof shrugged that off and went inside. Then, during the concert, I believe it was 5 TIMES the music was interrupted by idiots shouting out propaganda. Each time the individual was forcibly removed, but each time there was another waiting to interrupt the next movement of music. I was absolutely disgusted. However, the quartet persevered and managed to get through the last 3 movements and the encore without any interruptions (presumably all the idiots had been removed at that point) so that was good. Truly fantastic playing. I’ll see the Jerusalem Quartet again…if they ever come back here…

I was at the concert as well. The Queens Hall acted well in removing each
of the protesters. But the audience deserves a great deal of credit. Not only
was it a full house with standing room left only, each protester was shouted
down with “out-out-out” (meaning throw the protester out). The violist later commented it was the strong support of the audience that kept them going.
It was gratifying to see. As my neighbour commented, the PSC did themselves a great disservice by antagonizing so many festival goers:
whatever the private views of members in the audience, the rude tactics of the PSC were shifting them to being more supportive of Israel.

Yeah, I’d definitely agree with you there. I admit I joined in with the ‘out out out’ in addition to the standing ovation (then again, I didn’t have a seat - I was standing all the way through. But, the thought still counted.) I admire that the quartet played all the way through as opposed to canceling; I think the majority of the audience did too. The playing was superb - it would be a pleasure to see them again, providing there weren’t any interruptions next time. I got the impression the musicians get this kind of thing fairly often, which is a shame. Really, a concert hall is for concerts, not politics.

If Hitler played a violin would you protest or boycott all IDF child killers should be boycotted All of racist Israel should be boycotted until they stop their ethnic cleansing !

Hitler did ethnic cleansing, Israel does ethnic cleansing the difference whats the difference: Hitler didn’t pretend to be a viable peace partner, Hitler didn’t try and justify murder with “God gave me that land” so it must be mine