Harry's Place

Fantastic article Jonathan.

This play reminds me a bit of the hideous My Name Is Rachel Corrie, which was at the Royal Court too, I believe.

“tell her that she has written a play which reinforces false stereotypes and demonises Israelis”

But it’s not “Seven Israeli children”, it’s “Seven Jewish children”. That sets the agenda from the beginning: telling Jews what they think, why they think it and, paradoxically, what they should think.

The premiss of the play is that a) Jews in general can, should be or are responsible for Israel and its actions.

The play is not a sermon to Israeli Jews: it’s a sermon to British Jews. But I think it’s also, to some degree, a sermon to anti-Zionist and Israeli cultural Christians and Muslims why they are entitled to hold Jews in general i.e. British Jews responsible, to some degree, for Israel.

It’s an anti-Zionist and Israeli polemical screed placed in the mouths of Jewish personae for sundry political reasons, then performed by Jews to give it the stamp of authority.

And then to be performed, over and over again, by sundry cultural Christians and Muslims to re-inforce the ‘message’.

It’s a new little mystery play.

“tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.”

That looks very familiar. High art indeed. It’s extraordinary how some poets and dramatists feel that reproducing Christian prejudice constitutes the height of European culture.

And of course, more than likely,The Royal Court Theatre wouldn’t put on anything critical of the Islamic world for fear of the inevitable threats to its security that would follow.

Jonathan, how did you hear or read the play? Is there any chance of publishing more of it in advance? It really should be scrutinized by academic Jewish historians, journalists and writers, and not merely the usual suspects.

The tickets are free so how about going along and heckling?

Anyone fancy joining me?

The pattern of the play looks like seven generations of Jewish crimes and lies, culminating in the worst abomination, the ‘crucifixion’, as it were. The church fathers would have approved.

I have spare hardcopies of the script. I cannot scan it in and publish it here because that would infringe copyright.

Oh, sorry, I didn’t see it begins in Nazi Germany, so scrub the ’seven generations of Jewish crimes and lies’.

And of course, more than likely,The Royal Court Theatre wouldn’t put on anything critical of the Islamic world for fear of the inevitable threats to its security that would follow.

After the publisihing of the book I feel we should be treated to “Mohammed & Aisha – A Love Story” except the content would get the play closed down.

How about “Apes & Pigs” – a story of The People of The Book.

I REALISE that the opposite of this play is not to make plays about Muslims but it simply illustrates the point that is “Open Season” on demonising Jews in a way that no other people/religion would be demonised. And such demonisation feeds Islamist Hate Fever against Jews.

The play was touted elsewhere as ‘a history of Israel in 10 minutes’, which is why I made that mistake. ’should have read more closely.

But it’s also interesting how for such as Churchill, Jewish history, connection with and attachment to the land of Israel begins with the Holocaust. But it’s also a kind of appropriation of Jewish history, also a very culturally Christian thing.

The tickets are free so how about going along and heckling?

Anyone fancy joining me?

You just beat me to it. I am in. When?

Cast: Ben Caplan, Jack Chissick, David Horovitch, Daisy Lewis, Ruth Posner, Samuel Roukin, Jennie Stoller, Susannah Wise, Alexis Zegerman

If any of you are Jewish – shame on you!

I understand, Jonathan. But surely it could be subject to legal scrutiny. The play after all portrays itself as the words and thoughts of ‘Jewish’, not ‘Israeli’ children and adults. It is intended to be a widely published sermon about Jews in general. Surely it falls into a different category for that?

Can’t you pass them on to academics like David Caesarani, or Colin Shindler at SOAS?

I think potentially the work could fall into the category of ‘incitement to hatred’.

Actually, Jonathan, I think the best critic of the play would be Howard Jacobson.

Heckling party – how about this Tuesday or Wednesday?

From the castlist:

“The Royal Court would like to thank Keith Pattison, Professor Jacqueline Rose, FBA (Queen Mary University of London, Founder of Independent Jewish Voices) and Professor Avi Shlaim, PhD, FBA”

Excellent post Jonathan.
The very fact that someone thinks they can write a history of the Jewish people’s journey over the last 70 years in a ten minute play shows the precise mind set of the author. Another stunning example of the simplistic anti-Semitic propoganda so rife in the UK today. And they even have the gall to call this Art!

Excellent post Jonathan.
The very fact that someone thinks they can write a history of the Jewish people’s journey over the last 70 years in a ten minute play shows the precise mind set of the author. Another stunning example of the simplistic anti-Semitic propoganda so rife in the UK today. And they even have the gall to call this Art!

Zkharya

I will email Colin and offer it. The ‘incitement’ laws are very specific and it is extremely hard to get a result. Bad as it is, I’m sure this doesn’t fall foul of them. With the exception of the libel law, ‘free speech’ is strongly protected in the UK.

“The tickets are free so how about going along and heckling?”

Much more useful would be published critiques by mainstream Jewish academics, historians and writers. That is why Jonathan Hoffman should get them out asap.

Understandable that it is free.

I doubt that may would actually pay to see that kind of rubbish.

I understand, Jonathan. But academic Jewish opinion is important on this matter, I think.

Also, re. ‘incitement to hatred’, surely a similar work, published and performed in like circumstances, called, ‘Seven Muslim children’ would easily fall into the category of ‘incitement to hatred’?

If any critic or academic reading this feels moved to write a critical review, they can get a copy of the script by emailing DavidT who will forward the request to me.

If you live near I can get it to you today.

From Tuesday it will be freely available on the Royal Court website.

Or you can go and see the thing tonight (there is no performance tomorrow night).

David Caesarani read and critiqued ‘Perdition’, years ago. Here’s his email, at Royal Holloway and Bedford:

email: david.cesarani@rhul.ac.uk

You’re planning to do a Jewish “Behzti”?

I don’t think so!!!

Zkharya

Do you have a contact for Howard Jacobson?

Jonathan, I’d love to read it, but I live in Cardiff and I’m disabled and extremely mobility restricted.

Well, if it’s tonight, hopefully someone like Linda Grant will see it.

I see that although the play is free, there is to be a collection at the end of it for ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians’ -yet another charity with some rather suspect links on the ground in the ME.

PlumStupid – have you heard anything more about the Lord Ahmed thing you mentioned the other day? I see it was reported in the JC. That is something I really feel must be stopped before it gathers any momentum.

Zkharya

I would offer to post it to you but it will be Tuesday b4 it arrives and it will be on the RC website by then

If you do want me to post it pl send your address to DavidT to forward to me.

I can’t find one, Jonathan, but here’s one for Linda Grant: info@littlebrown.co.uk.

However, I’m sure David Hirsh has contacts, since he invited Jacobson to the Engage meeting a few years ago: david_hirsh@yahoo.co.uk

’sorry, I’m not being very helpful. It’s easy for me to tell you what to do with the scripts.

The event was announced in the Jewish Chronicle, so they are probably sending a reviewer.

Zkharya

Well, if it’s tonight, hopefully someone like Linda Grant will see it.

And Georgina too.

If you are there and hear some dumb female screeching loudly from some dark recess then it will probably be her in a fit of orgasms.

PlumStupid: Re “2000 Years” by Mike Leigh: He was at Jewish Book Week two years ago. In the Q and A I put it to him that Jewish grandfathers do not use “f*ck” as their every second word and that as a playright who prides himself on realism, he had not been very faithful to true life here.

His response was “f*ck off” – to gales of laughter from the audience.

While I don’t think it is necessarily fair or reasonable to imply that someone who writes this sort of stuff is an incipient propagandist-in -waiting on behalf of the Iranian regime, goodness, this is so facile and one-sided that it’s the sort of thing that reminds me why I stopped reading the LRB

Re Mike Leigh @ Jewish Book Week: It was three years ago (2006) not two.

Mike Leigh also said he could not wait to have a bacon sandwich when he was young. He said he would not make a film in Israel – but refused to say why.

What a bunch of sh*ts these playwrights are.

I’ve never liked Mike Leigh with his patronising of the working classes, clearly a product of his condescending unearned superiority as a doctor’s son down the East End.

As for Caryl Churchill she’s hardly been on my radar but she sounds just as bad.

Loads of them are totalitarian trots. Pinter was a two faced po faced turncoat who used the Kurds when it suited him and deserted them when it didn’t.

The theatre is a lovely place but it has been turned into a kiddies playground where low powered luvvie lefties indulge their fantasies. Usually this is relatively harmless or at least goes unnoticed but then we get this sort of dangerous drivel which fuels anti-semitism.

Behind all bad art lurks a state subsidy. That goes triple for British drama.

Jonathan, well written. How many attended the event?

You see, I have a confession to make: I ordered five tickets, never intending to go, on the premise that there would be at least five empty seats and five less ISM-types champing at the bit. Upon reflection I should have ordered ten… I hope that I was right.

And for honesty’s (???) sake, shouldn’t the collection have been for “medical” aid for Hamas? (Claphammer the “We are all Hamas” loons would pay to see it if it were advertised as a charity “do” in aid of “poor Palestinians”).

Zhkarya you have hit the nail on the head. The too-ready conflation of “Jewish” with “Israeli” as if all the former influence the actions of the latter.

It’s always worth looking at the counter example to see what’s going on, to see if causes any eyebrows to head North… in a sort of ‘National White Policemen’s Association’ sort of a way.

In this case, just imagine if this technique and treatement had been proffered with a different antecedent ‘Seven Muslim Children – A play for Gaza’.

‘Tell her they are apes and pigs’

‘Tell her her brave brother’s in heavenly bliss enjoying the carnal delights of 72 dark eyed virgins and boys pretty as pearls’

‘Tell her not to look at the rockets stored in the Mosque or fired from the school yard’

‘Tell her to turn her head away from the brothers shooting the traitors in the legs’

‘Tell her these are all Muslim lands’

‘Tell her we are duty bound to kill Jews wherever we find them’ …etcetera

I may be wrong, but somehow, I can’t see this sort of stuff getting a look-in at the Royal Court.

Nick, very good!

The issue is who the media will give it to to review. I bet it gets featured on Radio 4 Front Row by some gushing fan or other–and the London Review of Books will probably ask Jacqueline Rose to do it. They’ll get Eva Figes on, featured as a Holocaust survivor singing its praises, saying it’s just what she feels about the crimes of Israel. They’ll endlessly point out that all the cast are Jewish–probably have some of them on saying how the play gives a voice to the Jews silenced by the Board of Deputies.

In my view, it would be highly counter-productive to organize a heckling protest inside the theatre– and especially publicizing an intent to do so on this blog. In fact, totally barmy. Can’t you see the hay that the anti-Israel brigade will be making of that as an attempt to silence criticism of Israel and keep the Jewish community from getting out of the Board of Deputies-decreed line.

Much better in my view to keep pointing out the attempt to subject Jews to the requirement ritually to denounce Israel, and put their own anti-zionist sentiments into the mouths of straw Jew-figures of their own invention. The play as a modern version of the Passion Play tradition is about it.

I agree with Judy. It would be wrong to disrupt the performance. Those tactics are used by others:

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/09/01/psc-disrupts-jerusalem-quartet-concert/

SayWhat??

It was pretty full, maybe 80%. Maybe 750.

But it’s also a kind of appropriation of Jewish history, also a very culturally Christian thing.

Well, we keep hearing that Adam and Eve is a ‘Christian story’ …

If any of you are Jewish – shame on you!

I am, and I am telling you to fuck off. Being Jewish has not stopped quite a few people spouting antisemitic hatred. Indeed, you are being racist in claiming that one’s ethnicity makes the message better or worse.

Well, I disagree with Judy and Jonathan. If anything, nowadays Jews are too frightened to criticise public antisemitism. This is a slippery slope. The more we accept it without loud protest, the more it will gain hold. Imo, it is absolutely vital to go and protest and heckle very loudly, to show that Jews are not scared to stand up against racism – and that this IS racist.

Some of the others have raised a valid point. In America we do have a history of works dedicated to raising the points of the cruel treatment of slaves and to a lesser degree American Indians. To the best of my knowledge there has not ever been a single play or movie highlighting the cruel treatment of Jews, Christians and other minorities under Islam. Maybe it is time for an Uncle Tom’s Cabin book on the subject.

The amazing part is the denial of history when talking to Muslims or the communist apologists.

In my view, it would be highly counter-productive to organize a heckling protest inside the theatre

Yup, I think it would be stupid and childish, like an Israel bashing protest. But a silent protest might be effective. I was once part of a silent protest against Jacqueline Rose, when she stepped out of Quaker Meeting House, we all silently turned our backs on her. Anyway, if anyone was to organise a protest against this clearly racist play, I would probably go along.

A protest outside may happen

I went to see “Two Thousand Years” about a family of Guardian reading Jews of bacon eating persuasion and a son who decides to be more Jewish. At the point where one of the characters said “Look at the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians”, 15 mins into the play, a few people walked out one shouting “I’m not standing for this”.

How about taking a bowl of pancakes and syrup to the Rachel Corrie play?

I totally saw that Two Thousand Years shit, I don’t remember that particular line, but do remember that I didn’t enjoy a second of the play. Also, that pancake joke was just gross, seriously.

I think Nick (ex South Africa) is on to something, The best way to refute this rubbish is a line by line rewrite, Somebody did something similar with the Rachel Corrie play substituting the names of murdered Israeli women who shared her first name.

Will google it and see if i can find it again.

I agree with Judy and Jonathan. Totally counter-productive – it might not be what some people want to hear, but that’s free speech.

Parody is a much better approach – see Nick’s post.

Judy has it dead right. I’ll be ticking her points off, one by one, as the coverage comes in.

Hmmm…yes.

Interesting stuff.

Watching Valkyrie yesterday, I was struck by the contrast with the previous 60 years’ worth of films featuring Germans in some way: one could actually perceive some humanity there; not the stereotypical, two dimensional ‘we’re all Nazis now!’ of old. Yes, the old cliches were there, but confined to minor characters.

Then it dawned on me as to why Hollywood should deign to portray some Germans in a different light: the main protagonists other than Cruise were British actors in the main and one can almost picture the conundrum the director and his cohorts were in: how do we introduce a semblance of gravity to the script? Damn, we can only use Yanks to portray Nazis sparingly as the public’ll never go for it…got it! We’ve demonised Britons (mainly the English) incessantly for the past 60 odd years, so let’s give them a small break whilst using them as the Nazis…hooraah!

Hmmmm…

I hear Cruse’s next project is a Tariq bin Ziyad biopic…I wonder who’ll portray those all important…A’rabs (think Ahab)?

Found it on Tom Gross, Mideast Dispatch Archive, April 14 2005

Sorry no linky I’m computer illiterate.

Has anyone seen another review? I googled but can’t find one yet.

If there are any actors who refused to be in this play, maybe they could say so here

I totally saw that Two Thousand Years shit, I don’t remember that particular line, but do remember that I didn’t enjoy a second of the play

I can confirm that the line was in the play. I ONLY went to see it because a good friend had produced it. Frankly it was a terrible play and stereotypical with its smattering of yiddish to make it seem authentic to the non-Jews.

I saw “2000 Years” and then shortly after “Chicken Soup with Barley”. I loved the second as much as I loathed the first.

Maven, I’m sure it was, I just don’t remember it..I was probably too busy trying to eat my own fist, or something.

The amazing part is the denial of history when talking to Muslims or the communist apologists.

Just like those honest portrayals of the ‘Reds’ of both hues in American cinema, then?

Come to think of it, neither Braveheart nor the Patriot (Gibson not Segal) were even close to being historically accurate…and my favourite is U571 where Yanks get to indulge 3 fantasies in one sitting: watching ‘Nazis’ (…blame it on the Germans) massacre the imperial enemy (Brit sailors) and carry out spectacularly fictionalised feats of derring-do.

Nope. No denial of history there…move along, nothing to see here.

it might not be what some people want to hear, but that’s free speech

Hmm … so, free speech for antisemitic propaganda trumps the rights of the attacked minority.
Would you support the right of a playright to put on a production that is racist against blacks?

Sorry no linky I’m computer illiterate

Just select the line at the top of your browser window starting with something like http://www…., cope it (control-c) and paste it into your post (control-v).

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson_reviews.asp?play=548

The Royal Court posts reviews of its plays on its website. There is none for this play. I have suggested they post my review. Let’s see if ‘free speech’ is sauce for the goose as well as the gander….

Come to think of it, neither Braveheart nor the Patriot (Gibson not Segal) were even close to being historically accurate…and my favourite is U571 where Yanks get to indulge 3 fantasies in one sitting: watching ‘Nazis’ (…blame it on the Germans) massacre the imperial enemy (Brit sailors) and carry out spectacularly fictionalised feats of derring-do.

:D

There’s usually a disclaimer at the beginning or end of these fictionalized accounts stating that they are, indeed, fictionalised accounts.

Templeton

The movie Braveheart or the Patriot were not shown as history. As far as the Patriot goes there were war crimes committed by the English. There was also the murky part played by their Indian allies. Some of it was wartime propaganda, but not all of it.

The movies like the Front, Reds and all the Che movies create a Disney version of communism. However, this Disney version of Communism extends to the classroom. I am reading an alleged history of social work
that even my apolitical girlfriend is annoyed by. What does Reagan’s alleged paranoia over Communists in Unions have to do with social work? FYI The Communists were Stalinists dedicated to seeking global
hegemony on behalf of history’s second largest mass murderer. The history of Communist treason in the USA is quite evident and starts with the Venonna Project.

I can not recall a single moment on film that has ever dealt with the cruel treatment of Jews and Christians under Islamic rule.

It’s pretty clear that when the next pogrom comes it will come to Britain and it won’t look precisely like what you expect. But come it will. I would say that if we all pretend that moving 150,000 out of the west bank is even plausible then moving 150,000 out of England is equally plausible.

There’s usually a disclaimer at the beginning or end of these fictionalized accounts stating that they are, indeed, fictionalised accounts.

You could be onto something there…

As far as the Patriot goes there were war crimes committed by the English[...]

…didn’t the Scots, Irish or Welsh play a part in any of this? George III was effectively a member of the Bosch, was he not?

I can not recall a single moment on film that has ever dealt with the cruel treatment of Jews and Christians under Islamic rule.

You’re right. The same goes for a humane portrayal of an Arab…they’re pretty scarce.

A couple of points:-

“The full text can be downloaded from 10 February from http://www.royalcourttheatre.com”

So no-one has read the full text but everyone is commenting on it –from a read of the review above. Which reminds me of those blokes in Bradford burning The Satanic Verses on second hand, third hand, and fourth hand accounts of it, exactly 20 years ago. Read the whole thing, understand it, and then you may be angry with full information on your side. Anyone from Christian Voice or wherever that starts jumping up and down, saying this is offensive, though I haven’t read it/seen it as yet, does not look good.

“And of course, more than likely,The Royal Court Theatre wouldn’t put on anything critical of the Islamic world for fear of the inevitable threats to its security that would follow.”

OK, here’s something I’ve read on those lines:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/11/salman-rushdie-satanic-verses

“Nor is this self-censorship restricted to literature. Ramin Gray, associate director of the Royal Court Theatre, recently admitted that he would be reluctant to stage a play that was critical of Islam. “You would think twice,” he said. “You’d have to take the play on its merits but given the time we’re in, it’s very hard because you’d worry that if you cause offence then the whole enterprise would become buried in a sea of controversy. It does make you tread carefully.”

http://www.oyvagoy.com/

Chas Newkey-Burden on his new blog:

“Had to laugh at the publicity blurb for Seven Jewish Children. It reads: “Angry? Sad? Confused? Come and spend ten minutes with us.”

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson01.asp?play=548

“Perhaps a more accurate one would be: “Anti-semitic? Disappointed? Gullible? Come and spend ten minutes with us.” “

KB Player

“no-one has read the full text”

Er … I have – and I wrote the review

it might not be what some people want to hear, but that’s free speech

Tell her that this play enacts the dhimmi tragedy: that of cultural relativity undermining itself.

Tell her we’re entitled to prevent her clitoridectomy.

The same goes for a humane portrayal of an Arab…they’re pretty scarce.

Really? You don’t seem to watch many films.
Have a shufti at Lawrence of Arabia, a mega-glamorising of Arab brigandry if there ever was one.
There are a great many more.

So no-one has read the full text but everyone is commenting on it

We have read the extensive quotes above. Do you dispute that they are a litany of anti-Jewish propaganda?

You even admit that criticising Islam – which is a philosophy – is pretty much banned in the United Dhimmi Kingdom. But antisemitic propaganda is allowed.

You’re right. The same goes for a humane portrayal of an Arab…they’re pretty scarce.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but weren’t Arabs the good guys in Lawrence of Arabia?

Beat me to it, N.O. :)

He did say scarce though. Not non-existent.

KB Player

Actually there is a lot more I could have said. Like how the Jewish female characters in the play (which is all of them) are portrayed as fixated on the welfare of their daugher/granddaughter, to the exclusion of any other thoughts – let alone any humanitarian feelings for the Palestinians or Israeli Arabs – and how all the male characters are portrayed as the most hardline of settlers.

It really is a play that degrades Jews.

Come Tuesday you will be able to judge for yourself as the text will be posted on the RC website. In the meantime – see my offer above to get a copy of it to you.

I meant no-one but you, Jonathan. Haven’t you ever read a review of a play, film or book and then gone to see the play, film or read the book, and thought, that reviewer was talking garbage?

“If you should meet Caryl Churchill (maybe at meetings of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign where she is a Patron) please tell her that she has written a play which reinforces false stereotypes and demonises Israelis. ”

And she’ll say, have you read it or seen it? And you – the you who is being addressed here, not Jonathan – will say no. And she will say, then how can you have an opinion of a play that you haven’t read or seen? And she’d be quite right too.

Ignore KBPlayer, she reckons she’s an expert on English literature and wrote that the character of Herod, ‘kinge of the Jewes’, in mediaeval passion plays, was scarcely regarded as Jewish at all!

The play before Churchill’s is The Stone. Guess why that is?

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson01.asp?play=535

The Stone

“This is our house underneath all this mildew and junk. I know every stone.”

1935: A young couple buys the house from a Jewish family, and so the myth begins

1953: The couple’s daughter discovers the stone

1978: The family returns to claim what’s rightfully theirs

1993: The house is back in their possession

As a house passes from owner to owner, and from generation to generation, the secrets buried in the garden and seeping from the walls reveal themselves.

Marius von Mayenburg’s (The Ugly One, Fireface) new play examines the reverberations created by 60 years of German history.

HP is never tired of repeating Zionist propaganda which is understandable for an Zionist site, but they could read others view about their beloved Israel and Israel history.
For instance:
instead
“The truth is that far from the triumphalism with which Caryl Churchill imbues her Israeli characters, Israel never wanted the land gained in 1967 and offered to return it all in exchange for peace and normal relations. The offer was rejected in August 1967, when Arab leaders met in Khartoum and adopted a formula that became known as the “three noes”: no peace with Israel , no negotiation with Israel , and no recognition of Israel .”
maybe this
“These books give the lie to the carefully cultivated narrative that has sustained the occupation. According to that narrative, the government of Israel offered peace to the Palestinians and to its Arab neighbours in the aftermath of the war of 1967 if they would agree to recognise the Jewish state. But at a meeting of the Arab League in Khartoum on 1 September 1967, the Arab world responded with ‘the three “no”s of Khartoum’: no peace, no recognition and no negotiations. This left Israel no choice but to continue to occupy Palestinian lands. Had Palestinians not resorted to violence in resisting the occupation, the story goes, they would have had a state of their own a long time ago.

The story is a lie. Israel’s military and political leaders never had any intention of returning the West Bank and Gaza to their Arab residents. The cabinet’s offer to withdraw from Arab land was addressed specifically to Egypt and Syria, not to Jordan or the Palestinians in the territories. The cabinet’s formal resolution to return the Sinai and the Golan in June 1967 said nothing about the West Bank, and referred to Gaza as ‘fully within the territory of the state of Israel’. With only a murmur of dissent, the cabinet, led by Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, and the then prime minister, Levi Eshkol, committed itself to policies that would allow only local forms of autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, an arrangement they believed would in time allow them to establish the Jordan River as not only Israel’s security border but as its internationally recognised political border as well.

The decision to retain control of the territories was taken days after the end of the 1967 war, and was not a response to Palestinian terrorism, or even to Palestinian rejection of Israel’s legitimacy. Zertal and Eldar cite a report by Mossad officials, prepared at the request of the IDF’s intelligence division and presented to the IDF on 14 June 1967, which found that ‘the vast majority of West Bank leaders, including the most extreme among them, are prepared at this time to reach a permanent peace agreement’ on the basis of ‘an independent existence of Palestine’ without an army. The report was marked top secret, and buried.

Security was the reason offered by Israel to justify the founding of the settlements. But the overwhelming majority of them actually created new security problems, if only because vast military and intelligence resources had to be diverted to their defence. The settlements have also enraged the Palestinians, whose land has been stolen to make room for them – this, too, has done nothing to increase Israel’s security.”
from “Grab more hills, expand the territory”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n07/sieg01_.html
or tell them this tale:
“The tale of two apartheids”
“Column: Paul D’AmatoPrint E-mail Share Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Propeller Reddit Magnolia Newsvine Furl Facebook Google Yahoo TechnoratiRespond

“The tale of two apartheids”

“Israeli leaders are usually loath to admit that Israel is an apartheid-style state. Yet there have been moments of candor.”

IN APRIL 1976, John Vorster, president of the then-racist apartheid regime of South Africa, paid an official state visit to Israel, where he was given the red-carpet treatment.

Israeli television showed him on his first day, visiting the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. At an official state banquet held for Vorster, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin toasted the “ideals shared by Israel and South Africa.”

“Why was an outspoken member of a Nazi militia in South Africa during the Second World War and a leading member of the party that crafted official apartheid policies in South Africa being feted in Israel?”
the rest in
http://socialistworker.org/2009/01/29/tale-of-two-apartheids

Ignore Z, he reckons he’s an expert on a play he hasn’t seen or read.

“Ignore Z, he reckons he’s an expert on a play he hasn’t seen or read.”

Howso an ‘expert’?

Are you saying, KB, that one may not comment on the fragments of play reproduced by Jonathan? And, if not, why are you here?

“The premiss of the play is that a) Jews in general can, should be or are responsible for Israel and its actions.

The play is not a sermon to Israeli Jews: it’s a sermon to British Jews. But I think it’s also, to some degree, a sermon to anti-Zionist and Israeli cultural Christians and Muslims why they are entitled to hold Jews in general i.e. British Jews responsible, to some degree, for Israel.

It’s an anti-Zionist and Israeli polemical screed placed in the mouths of Jewish personae for sundry political reasons, then performed by Jews to give it the stamp of authority.”

That looks like a close description of a play, written by someone who has read it or seen it. Have you read it or seen it Z?

http://www.acpr.org.il/madorim/0811-bikoret-mdannE.pdf

Yugoslav

Zertal and Eldar have been thoroughly discredited – as you know.

It’s based on what Jonathan has told us, including the title.

KBP

Please remember that the play is only 10 minutes long. It is only 6 pages of A5. The extracts I posted are therefore a significant proportion of it.

It’s an opinion, expert or not, upon what I have read of the play.

Or are you the only person entitled to venture opinions on this thread?

What is it about extraordinarily long posts and people who have f**k all of interest to say?

I mean ‘yugoslav’, the latest sixth form village idiot to copy and paste a load of garbage here in an attempt to derail the thread.

Moving on, Im not sure what KBPlayers point is really. Ive never read Mein Kampf. In fact I havent read or seen lots of things that I despise. A few quotes from the book/film is usually (tho not always) enough.

Anyway KB..I have just taken ten minutes to read your blog (10 mins I’ll never get back) and its really not very good is it. Which probably explains why you spend a lot of your time here telling people how wrong they are ;-0

You are not the first, nor will you be the last.

Great thing about this blog tho, I find. The more people that are on here telling davidT/Gene etc how wrong they are….the more right about things they gradually seem to be.

Heck, even the Observer, which has done a great deal to incite its readership to anti-jewish hatred, seems in its editorial a little bit uneasy about where things are going for the UKs jews.

MattG

Zkharya has not, as far as I’ve seen, postulated on anything other than undisputed facts of the play and its author. Furthermore, he is an academically trained individual who is highly versed in the theological arguments he uses and manifestations of European and Islamic antisemitism. I suppose he may be making rash judgements; then again, John Littledick may be capable of producing Tolstoyian masterpieces if only we give him a chance.

On the matter of protests in the theatre, I agree with everyone who’s said it’d be a mind-numbingly stupid ploy; just as the pro-Israel brigade didn’t loose the highground over the islands of Dr. Moreau who appear at every protest.

Zkharya
8 February 2009, 2:10 pm

“Are you saying, KB, that one may not comment on the fragments of play reproduced by Jonathan? And, if not, why are you here?”

In an attempt to get gullible souls like me to waste ten minutes on her blog I expect.

MattG

Well, I was making a point about first hand and second hand information. With most news we rely on second hand information, about eg what’s happening in Gaza or wherever, we follow the authorities we most trust to bring us the facts and give us the analysis. When it comes to a play or a book or a song, the first hand information is available, and it’s always better to base your opinions on first hand rather than second hand information. Jonathan may be totally accurate and reliable, and I don’t mean to diss him, but I would read something myself, or listen to a piece of music myself, before making large claims about it.

All those people protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.

I mean – were they actually there?

Were they?

Or did they base their anger and protests on a few eye-witness accounts and a few choice quotes.

Just like those bloody anti-apartheid types. I mean…have they ever been to Africa? Have they?

etc etc etc etc

KB Player

The play is around 720 words (6 pages of A5). I have posted 396 of them.

Do you think then that the remaining 324 words are a peon of praise to Israel?

I said in my review that it was only 10 minutes long, and you could have deduced that the extracts I posted accounted for at least 50% of the total.

I wonder why you did not deduce that …

And to think that this crap is subsidised by the British Taxpayer.

I can and chose not to contribute to the Hamas Benevolent Fund (aka “Aid for Gaza) – But I have no choice in subsidising “Livies”.

GW

To be fair to K.B, she has been unmistakably aghast at the attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in this country as well as Starbucks.

KB Logic – I think I’ve answered the point you are making before you made it.

I don’t know if you remember those guys burning Rushdie’s book, but one point made at the time was that they objected to a book that they hadn’t read. Khomeini was supposed not to have read it before submitting his fatwa. So how could they judge it? They hadn’t given it anything like a hearing. And as well as looking menacing, they looked a bit ridiculous.

Templeton

What on earth are you talking about. Lets see Lawrence of Arabia, The Wind and the Lion are just off the top of my head. Then there is the standard farce presented in anthropology classes where religious minorities under Islam are non persons. Sorry but that is as obscene as a portrayal of American history with happy slaves and American Indians waiting to have their land stolen.

When one talks to Muslims and their communist apologists one gets denials and rationalizations. Sorry but the fact that crimes occurred elsewhere does not justify Muslim crimes or their denial of history.

K.B, your interjection was based on a entirely honest misunderstanding – the length of the play, and maybe lack of knowledge of Zkharya’s qualifications. However, this has been explained; and I agree with others that the opinions expressed on this thread are more sound than those reflexively expressed on a book in excess of 500 pages.

The same goes for a humane portrayal of an Arab…they’re pretty scarce.

Really? You don’t seem to watch many films.
Have a shufti at Lawrence of Arabia, a mega-glamorising of Arab brigandry if there ever was one.
There are a great many more.

Come now Hugh. If it weren’t for the rest of the Obscurant King of Opacity’s ludicrously one-sided thesis (Said – Orientalism), he might just have had something when it came to ole Lawrence.

Lawrence of Arabia, whilst being superb cinema, hardly captured the Bedouin character let alone the role of Wahhabism in the Revolt. I mean, Jaysus wept, Coptic Omar Sherif, that oh-so authentic Arabian from suburban Alex…and for all Guinness’ talent, becoming a Sayyed was not one of them.

I could start on about the portrayal of Essexmen in cinema and on TV…but this is not the time not the place.

Speaking as a pleb, the play just looks like dross…albeit Judaism-demonising dross. It would probably compare favourably to an Orient nil-all draw with Shrewsbury Town that I watched about 15 years ago. As others have said, banning it is not the answer: parodying it, highlighting the egregious anti-Semitism that it shovels and investigating the origins of the prejudice are the way forward.

On the matter of protests in the theatre, I agree with everyone who’s said it’d be a mind-numbingly stupid ploy; just as the pro-Israel brigade didn’t loose the highground over the islands of Dr. Moreau who appear at every protest.

Oooohohohoho! Hehe! :D

Churchill clearly sees Israel’s birth as essentially in the holocaust, reducing the complex to the polemically simplistic, ignoring the fact that Jewish nationality is actually rooted in centuries of experience in Christian and Islamic culture, whose cultural Christian and Islamic members are likely to disproportionately represent the play’s audience and future performers (not to mention its author).

It is a truncated and morally as as well as aesthetically deficient approach to an issue that is literally soaked in history, a history of which a poet who pronounces forth so authoritatively has no right to be ignorant, and for which ‘creativity’, indignantly righteous or otherwise, is no substitute.

Beakerkin

What on earth are you talking about. Lets see Lawrence of Arabia, The Wind and the Lion…

…are just off the top of my head.

Oh…I’m surprised you didn’t mention The Message (English version) [truly awful stereotypical depiction of Arabs by a Syrian (God rest his soul) Alawite)]…The Message (Arabic version) is much better.

That the first films that come to your mind featuring Arabs are LoA and the Umar Mukhtar biopic is telling. Neither are convincing and Umar is egregiously reduced to a Pancho Villa caricature.

When one talks to Muslims and their communist apologists one gets denials and rationalizations. Sorry but the fact that crimes occurred elsewhere does not justify Muslim crimes or their denial of history.

Muslims, communists, A’rabs, Baghdad (stress is on the second syllable by the way), Reds…it’s all the same to you by the sound of it. Are you Bill ‘The Weatherman’ Ayers?

“I was once part of a silent protest against Jacqueline Rose. ”
It doesn’t take much to rattle Rose. She is so used to an adoring audience that even slight probing reduces her to near tears. During Q & A after her talk a few years ago at Limmud, I called her analysis (her Freudian shtick) of Israel’s tortured psyche Eurocentric, as it totally ignored the Jews driven out of Arab countries who make up a large part of the population, and the effect of 1000 years of dhimmitude on them. Her eyes darted helplessly as it became apparent she had never heard the term dhimmi or the conditions it related to, before she launched a screaming attack on me and the audience for applauding something I said.

After the talk, when a reporter from JC wanted to interview her, she quavered tremulously, hand to brow, that she couldn’t interview coherently as she was too distraught.

And here is another delicate rose:
A complaint about a story in the JC by the organiser of an “alternative” carol concert has been rejected by the Press Complaints Commission.

Deborah Fink, of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, had complained that she was quoted out of context, but the PCC ruled against her. It said she had been aware she was speaking to a journalist.

Does anyone know what this particular complaint was about exactly?

Templeton

I am a classic liberal in the American tradition of JFK not John Gomer Kerry. Classic liberals were anti communist but believed in government regulation.

Bill Ayers is a criminal who should be pushing up daisies for his crimes. His presence in a University is probably directly related to large donations made by his father.

Lets not pretend that most of the anti-zionists are ordinary political turnips. Take for example their most famous spokesperson Norman Finkelstein who mentions his parents were Holocaust Survivors every
third paragraph or so. Does he ever get around to telling the audience he was a Maoist and he currently calls himself a Green.

What has happened in the UK and to a lesser extent the USA is a political monoculture has kept out all dissenting views. The remaining views compete to see who is the shrillest.With the exception of the fool who used some material from David Duke when and where are their rants ever held up to any scrutiny.

Artists on the left really do not get held up to any scrutiny. There were a couple of critical articles of Michael Moore’s stupidity but that was about it. Did anyone ever hold Arthur Miller’s feet to the fire? Did Norman Mailer ever have do deal with scrutiny of his politics? How much scrutiny does Gore Vidal get?

Thanks Jonathan, it really is depressing how antisemitism has spread into almost every facet of British society today. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that if this play had been written by an Israeli, then Caryl Churchill might be calling for people to boycott it.

Well, one way to counter Caryl Churchill’s play as described by Jonathan would be to get someone to write one in exactly the same format as this one of Caryl Churchill’s, using actual Hamas words from MEMRI videos, interviews, charter etc, and then submit it to the Royal Court. At 10 minutes long it wouldn’t take much work. The Royal Court would turn it down of course saying “this is not suitable” but it might embarrass them. Possibly the play could be put on somewhere else.

I get the impression that “political theatre” in this country means only one kind of politics, but I haven’t seen any for ages.

Well KBP – the Royal Court has not yet posted this Review which was offered to them some hours ago, see above

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson_reviews.asp?play=548

Dunno how these reviews work, Jonathan, but maybe some paid employee has to vet them before they go on for swearing, libel etc, and it is a Sunday.

Politics aside, the Royal Court Theatre building itself looks charming (from the one photo I saw on their Wiki page).

Can someone post a link to a “video tour” or something similar; perhaps a photo essay?

Templeton

Nope. No denial of history there…move along, nothing to see here.

Don’t confuse Hollywood (whose purpose is simple-minded profit) with any serious history, journalism, or drama, all of which do exist in Ameirca.

Z/KB

please can I suggest that taking lumps out of each other is not helping matters?

Nick (ex)

Why counterpoise Muslim kids against Churchill’s crude rendition of history? Having not too subtle digs at Muslims is wrong, just what Churchill is doing, essentalising them.

Surely it would be far better to have a 10 minute play on “the Angst Off-Spring of a Guilt Ridden English Class System”? Maybe “Seven Pith Helmets for Seven Chap/Chapesses”?

Or “7 Bits of Colonial Thinking & How Not to Pander to Anti-Jewish Racism in the Modern Age”?

The decision to retain control of the territories was taken days after the end of the 1967 war…Security was the reason offered by Israel to justify the founding of the settlements

Do you even know WHEN the first settlements were founded, or what their nature was to begin with?
Of course not. You are simply creating a mythical narrative out of whole cloth, and screeching ‘lies’ about things you know nothing about.

On the matter of protests in the theatre, I agree with everyone who’s said it’d be a mind-numbingly stupid ploy

Yes, everything you disagree with is ’stupid’, right?

I don’t know if you remember those guys burning Rushdie’s book, but one point made at the time was that they objected to a book that they hadn’t read.

Which part of ‘Jonathan posted 50% of the text’ did you find too hard to follow?

beakerkin -
and we are currently being swamped by adoring and hmm … somewhat inaccurate depictions of ‘Islamic culture saving science and civilisation’.

Templeton -
are you a party hack or a shyster, by any chance?
LoA springs to mind simply because it was a mega-expensive film, using mega-stars (most of them absurdly miscast), with mega-publicity, by a mega-director.

Come now Hugh

Why is this idiot calling me Hugh?

Lawrence of Arabia, whilst being superb cinema

Well, I happen to think it’s a crap film.

As others have said, banning it is not the answer

Err … nobody has suggested banning it.

phil

The best way to refute this rubbish is a line by line rewrite,

Tell her nothing is ever ’simple’.

Caryl Churchill has one of those ’simplified’ minds. Black is white and whte is black.

QED

Well, Barely Oxbrain, I could point out, for instance, how 50% of the following lyrics by Brecht:-

The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife

What was sent to the soldier`s wife,
fron the ancient city of Prague ?
From Prague came a pair of high heeled shoes,
with a kiss or two, came the high heeled shoes,
from the ancient city of Prague.

What was sent to the soldier`s wife,
from Oslo over the Sound ?
From Oslo he sent her a collar of fur,
how it pleases her, the little collar of fur,
from Oslo over the Sound.

What was sent to the soldier`s wife
from the wealth of Amsterdam ?
From Amsterdam, he got her a hat,
she looked sweet in that, in the little dutch hat,
from the wealth of Amsterdam.

What was sent to the soldier`s wife,
from Brussels in Belgium land ?
From Brussels, he sent her the laces so rare . .

would demonstrate the triumphant march of the Germany army over Europe. But that would be very misleading because the real thrust of the song which ends in the 50% I left out is this:-

What was sent to the soldier`s wife,
from the far off Russian land ?
From Russia he sent her a widows-veil,
for a dead to be…. in her widows-veil.
From the far off Russian land,
from the far off Russian land.

50% may be a very reasonable sample for assessing some things. I can drink 2% of a pint of beer and know the rest is not worth pursuing. But 50% can be a very unreasonable sample for assessing a play.

I am really fascinated as to how Churchill can sit idly by for 7 years while crypto-fascists fire missiles and mortars into a separate and legally constituted nation without a murmur of concern for the innocent victims, let alone a play! What is the spark? What dark forces stimulate her outrage and deafen her to the truth?!

It is ironic/poetic that the play was put on at the Royal Court – the home of the abortive showing of another piece of gibberish, Perdition, which was pulled at the last minute when Stafford Clarke finally realised that they were collaborating with an anti-semitic production.

Johnathan’s critique illustrates just how illiterate the “left” are when it comes to an objective understanding of events. Tragically, they have got it wrong on most occasions and have often made egregious mistakes – e.g. supporting the Iranian “revolution” – and it is clear that Churchill’s passionate/emotional outburst against a just and legal response to outrageous and insane acts of genocidal intent is yet another ridiculous example of the left’s dysfunctional thinking.

Critique is sufficient. The play should’t be banned. Churchill should debate the facts and emotions with a Zionist. This would be the preferred option.

Nearly Oxfordian,

I agree with Alec that it would be stupid to heckle and disrupt the performance. That’s the same kind of shit scumbag Islamist outfits like the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Muslim Student’s Association pulls. It’s fucking disgusting.

Give it up KB. You’re boring the tits off me.

If it looks like shit, smells like shit etc, then chances are …

I’m sorry KB Player is it really your contention that Churchill’s 10 minute screed is analogous to Brecht’s ballad because like Brecht’s ballad, Churchill was disguising the “real thrust” of the play until the last part? Give me a break.

Nick you’re right – but I’d still like to see that play about Gaza!

Nearly Oxfordian

Thank’s for the link advice, Afraid it’s a bit too techy for me had to scratch my head a bit and still couldn’t pull it off, Don’t suppose you could come round and show me could you i’ll put the kettle on :)

Lbnaz, like everyone else on this thread except Jonathan I haven’t read or seen Churchill’s play, so I can’t say if it’s like Brecht’s ballad or anyone else’s ballad. I was just replying to a point made by NO, that half knowledge is as good as full knowledge, which I don’t think is true. A lot of threads on this blog deal with half knowledge about eg Israel/Palestine, and people get rightly very indignant about the half knowledge, quarter knowledge etc on which other people base their opinions.

However, I’ll stop arguing this point as I can see there is a consensus that I’m being annoying.

I have sat through a great many plays but never have I been so tempted to walk out as I was while watching 2000 years. Never mind the politics, the characterisation and the writing were so bloody awful.

However, I’ll stop arguing this point as I can see there is a consensus that I’m being annoying.

What’s the use of paying for Internet access if we can’t annoy the crap outta each other? :D

I’m gonna get my money’s worth! :)

To be honest I think KB Player (alongside a couple of others, but most decidely excluding those who are attacking her) is being here the voice of sanity and reason.

And to be frank the obnoxious way that her posts are being responded to….does not say something positive

Well, Barely Oxbrain

When a screeching, mouth-foaming poster who has demonstrated her ignorance and stupidity on countless previous occasions starts a post with such personal abuse, you know the remaining 99% are crap not worth spending time on. It’s called common sense, which we know already you are devoid of.

Beakerkin

What has happened in the UK and to a lesser extent the USA is a political monoculture has kept out all dissenting views. The remaining views compete to see who is the shrillest.With the exception of the fool who used some material from David Duke when and where are their rants ever held up to any scrutiny.

Artists on the left really do not get held up to any scrutiny. There were a couple of critical articles of Michael Moore’s stupidity but that was about it. Did anyone ever hold Arthur Miller’s feet to the fire? Did Norman Mailer ever have do deal with scrutiny of his politics? How much scrutiny does Gore Vidal get?

Hear, hear! Quite! Good for you: liberal but not libertarian is my motto. I always thought Ray ‘who’s the daddy?’ Winstone would make a good Michael Moore in a biopic (you’ve probably never heard of him…).

As regards political monocultures and dissenting views, wait until you’ve suffered 4 years or so of Barry and some old-fashioned Gramscian hegemony before you reassess your statement…by then, Britain will have effectively ceased to exist ;-) all the best!

Philo-semite

Nope. No denial of history there…move along, nothing to see here.

Don’t confuse Hollywood (whose purpose is simple-minded profit) with any serious history, journalism, or drama, all of which do exist in Ameirca.

Sorry old thing. Damned impertinent of me, what? Note to self: must stop being obstropalopdo…opstrepods…oh, damn bloody-minded! Please accept my contrition…sincerely ;-)

Nearly Oxfordian

are you a party hack or a shyster, by any chance?
LoA springs to mind simply because it was a mega-expensive film, using mega-stars (most of them absurdly miscast), with mega-publicity, by a mega-director.

Guilty as charged. Monster Raving Loony Party, Cairo branch…but back to the issue: aside from LoA and the Umar Mukhtar biopic [sic] can you think of any other accurate and/or positive portrayals of Arabs in the cinema or on TV?

Come now Hugh

Why is this idiot calling me Hugh?

Sorry old thing. Thought you were Hugh Oxford…haven’t seen him lately…do pass on my regards and that sort of thing…

Come now Nearly Oxfordian….

Lawrence of Arabia, whilst being superb cinema

Well, I happen to think it’s a crap film.

Hear, hear!

As others have said, banning it is not the answer

Err … nobody has suggested banning it.

You’re a bugger for spotting straw men (or ‘mans’ – c.f. Steven Pinker)…dreadfully sorry, old chap!

Boogski, we’ll have to differ. Heckling has a perfectly honourable history in Britain as a legitimate method of countering fascism. I am sorry you are ignorant of this.

This play sounds very good and it also appears to be spot on. It could almost be be based on direct evidence from psychological research recently carried out in Israel.

A pioneering research study dealing with Israeli Jews’ memory of the conflict with the Arabs, from its inception to the present, came into the world together with the war in Gaza. The sweeping support for Operation Cast Lead confirmed the main diagnosis that arises from the study, conducted by Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world’s leading political psychologists, and Rafi Nets-Zehngut, a doctoral student: Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.

The analysis is so spot on its uncanny. You won’t like to hear its a perfect analysis of the dominant attitudes at Harry’s Place.

Fair enough, T.P.

However, I don’t know H.O. and for all I know he may live in the Outer Hebrides, while I really do live in Oxfordshire.

Yes, Venichka, I can see how calling me ‘Barely Oxbrain’ is the voice of sanity and reason … we seem to be looking up those terms in different dictionaries.

It doesn’t take much to rattle Rose.

You’re right ami, from my experience, and from your own story there, she does seem like a woman on edge.

Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering

Of course, Israel has not actually been besieged for decades by neighbours publicly intent on annihilating her and murdering all her citizens … it was just one of those well-known Jewish conspiracies … despite the fact that those neighbours have been trumpeting this as loudly as possible, and actually launched several expicitly genocidal wars on several occasions … maybe it was a mass hallucination …

Phil,
Thanks for the offer, but depends on where you are ;-)

“This play sounds very good and it also appears to be spot on. It could almost be be based on direct evidence from psychological research recently carried out in Israel.”

Except the play isn’t even called ‘Seven Israeli children’, and it certainly isn’t written in hebrew for Israelis, by an Israeli Jew.

Would J.R. be John Rose’s wife?

Zkharya -
I think we could pull it apart on much more fundamental points ;-)
(and that’s just the ‘research’, never mind the scurrilous nonsense pretending to be a play).

The case for the prosecution.

Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.

Exhibit One.

Of course, Israel has not actually been besieged for decades by neighbours publicly intent on annihilating her and murdering all her citizens … it was just one of those well-known Jewish conspiracies … despite the fact that those neighbours have been trumpeting this as loudly as possible, and actually launched several expicitly genocidal wars on several occasions … maybe it was a mass hallucination …

The great mistake one can make with theatre – that should strictly always be written as Theatre! – is to take it seriously.

Professional ‘Theatre’ in Britain has produced in recent years only one or two playrights who are entertainers and a great many more lecturers in semi-politics, of which Ms Churchill is one. (To say one goes to the theatre to be ‘entertained’ is like confessing to liking blood sports, but there you go.) I would not pay to be preached at whatever the cause.

My favourite moment in the wonderful television series “League of Gentlemen” came when avant garde Theatre group ‘Leg’s Akimbo’ were turned back at the road blocks around ‘plague stricken’ Royston Vasey.

Mark Gatiss (indigently) “Tell them to move aside! They can’t stop Theatre!”

souled out, well done, you’ve just illustrated the point of that quote to perfection.

Nearly Oxfordian

I see the refugees from Islam and Socialist so called paradises every day.The Mickey Marxist historical denial doesn’t work here. At a certain point the deception of how Muslims treated Jews, Christians and others under their misrule is close to Holocaust denial or 9-11 conspiracy freaks who almost to a man are Marxists.

Templeton

I am not quite made of the stuff genteel types are made of. Communists and Jihadis are all offense and do not know what to do when their own tactics are used against them. All one has to do is state actual history and then one is a Red Basher or an Islamophobe.

Now one can have a factual conversation with an American patriot who will never deny or rationalize slavery or the crimes committed against Indians. One could probably talk with someone from the UK and get a similar response. Few Germans would ever deny the Holocaust and I never met one. The few Holocaust deniers I have have met are on the far left. Of course Norman Finkelstein merely echoes 90% Nazi propaganda and sees grand conspiracies of Holocaust Industries.

Try having a similar conversation with Muslims or Communists and you will get denial after denial.

Boogski, we’ll have to differ. Heckling has a perfectly honourable history in Britain as a legitimate method of countering fascism

N.O. To be fair, this is hardly fascism, and it’s nothing new at the Royal Court. Just overgrown student-politics for people with short attention-spans. For what it’s worth, Jim Allen’s “Perdition” was significantly more offensive

Yes, Venichka, I can see how calling me ‘Barely Oxbrain’ is the voice of sanity and reason

So can we dear boy, so can we!

souled out,
You have never actually been to Israel, have you? You are really a spotty 14-year old using your mummy’s computer behind her back, and have no clue what you are dribbling about, right?
I was in Israel during 2 of those wars, one of them in uniform. So just fuck off.

Great post Jonathan. Fascinating insight into modern anti-semitism.

Tevya,
Well, it depends on definitions, and of course I am not arguing that no other ‘play’ ever has been more offensive (mind you, that’s also a question of definition and of personal perspective). But nobody is claiming that it is the most offensive ever – only that it is very offensive.
As for me, I do call hysterical attacks like this one on Jews and/or Israelis antisemitic and fascist.
For me, the pragmatic test (not the intellectual one – that’s a different matter) is whether a similar ‘play’ about blacks or Muslims or Arabs would have a chance of being shown in this country. I think we probably agree that it would not, and the reason put forward would be that it is racist etc.

Given that Ms Churchill has “dallied” with postmodernism in the past and given that the director Dominic Cooke has said:

“It might be provocative. I’m not sure. My job is to get inside the meaning of the play; and you never really know how it might be received, to be honest.”

Don’t you think that audience reactions might end up influencing how the whole thing is interpreted?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jan/24/theatre-gaza-caryl-churchill-royal-court-seven-jewish-children

The case for the prosecution.

Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.

Exhibit Two.

You have never actually been to Israel, have you? You are really a spotty 14-year old using your mummy’s computer behind her back, and have no clue what you are dribbling about, right?
I was in Israel during 2 of those wars, one of them in uniform. So just fuck off.

This has inspired me to write a ten minute play called ‘Seven so-called Leftists’. It will trace the evolution of the Guardianista mindset on Iraq from the late 1970s to late 1980s (when they criticised Saddam) to the mid-1990s (where they became apologists for him) to post-2003 (when they decided to call ex-Baathist thugs and jihadi maniacs ‘the resistance’).

secateurs, anyone?

More of the case for the prosecution

Although there are accessible sources, where it is possible to find the answers to those questions, the public practices self-censorship and accepts the establishment version, out of an unwillingness to open up to alternative information – they don’t want to be confused with the facts. We are a nation that lives in the past, suffused with anxiety and suffering from chronic closed-mindedness.

Exhibit three

secateurs, anyone?

For a more interesting perspective on the last 50 years, see here for clips from the last six decades’ Panoramas.

The beeb evolves …

Boogski, we’ll have to differ. Heckling has a perfectly honourable history in Britain as a legitimate method of countering fascism. I am sorry you are ignorant of this.

You kiddin’ me? I love PM’s Question Time! :D

It’s probably because I’ve managed a Cinema that I despise hecklers. It pisses off the other customers. :)

To the HP admins,

please could you have a word with Nearly Oxfordian? his aggressive attitudes, invective and general bile are turning otherwise interesting threads into rubbish.

In the past, the comment pages were often full of diverse views, interesting insights and intelligent views, but nowadays, thanks to NO and pals a lot of posters simply can’t be trouble to post anymore.

It’s not free. It’s paid for by the taxpayer via the Arts Council.
Like the BBC these people think that it is “Left Wing” and good
to hate Jews. 40 years ago theythought it was “Right Wing” to hate Jews, so they didn’t.
The subsidised arts are the most corrupt & corrupting influence on
the country, & its artists are lickspittles.

I saw an art show called “Secret England” which was toured in several countries by the Arts Council. The “secret” was that we bought fruit from Israel. The “art” was charts & maps of trade routes.

Martin

The case for the prosecution.

Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.

Like the BBC these people think that it is “Left Wing” and good
to hate Jews. 40 years ago theythought it was “Right Wing” to hate Jews, so they didn’t.
The subsidised arts are the most corrupt & corrupting influence on
the country, & its artists are lickspittles.

Any and everything you say just goes to prove how closed minded you are and how open minded I am.

Exhibit Five

The sun rises in the east. Islamophobia!

The Case for the Prosecution:

There simply is no case for the defence, period, and the least appropriate place for it is in a play alongside the case for the prosecution.

Plays aren’t supposed to be forums for fair and representational debate: they are for professional authors to dress up their personal prejudices and polemics in artistic and dramatic guise.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

But you must surely recognise all the qualities that Daniel Bar-Tal identifies. They are some of the dominant attitudes in much of the commentary on this blog. The one-sided and simplistic narratives particularly relating to the history of the conflict. The closed mindedness, the self-righteousness and the sense of victimhood.

Do you think that the Professor just makes up his research findings?

The Case for the Defence:
Exhibit A:
There simply is no case for the defence, period

Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world’s leading political psychologists

Eh? Isn’t he a known moonbat?

Ziss, is most interesting, no?
Ze British, as ve know are somevat cold-natured; ze French, of course, are great loverz, no? ze Italians are somewaht hot-bloodied, as we zay. Now, ze Germans; zey are militaristic, paranoid and hate all Jews. Ze Israelis, are self-righteous and delusional, vile ze Americans are brash and somevat loud. In short, ideas of national character in general and pshycoanalysis in particular, is, how ve say, complete and utter bollocks (see: “The Question of Zion”, by J. Rose)

a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Other/Enemy and insensitivity to their suffering

… is a very hackneyed stereotype. It isn’t like we haven’t seen it before, earth-shattering “research” or no. That it applies equally well to the other side of this particular conflict only shows how unenlightening it is. Big effin’ deal.

Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by…

This intro in itself is racist and essentializing. I wonder how souled out would react to a statement that began with “English Christians’ consciousness is characterized by…” , or “Palestinian Arabs’ consciousness is characterized by…”

I wonder why souled out would promote such essentializing bigotry?

Interesting that Modernity is focusing exclusively on me, and saying nothing about B.P., Muffin (who calls me ‘pondlife’), those calling me ‘cockroach’, assorted shrill antisemites etc etc.
And of course, Modernity himself has also posted abusive attacks on me.
There are extremely diverse opinions posted here all the time. Shame that he cannot see them.
Coming from this source, self-righteous whining is simply evidence of biased thinking and personal hatred. And of course, inability to accept opinions that run counter to his. Very grown-up.

Any and everything you say just goes to prove how closed minded you are and how open minded I am.

ROFLMAO. You need to book a session with Mitnaged.

Who has called you a cockroach? I said you were nearly as intelligent as a cockroach,one that had been dropped on its head as a baby.

I wonder why souled out would promote such essentializing bigotry?

To troll a blog on a slow Sunday?

Who has called you a cockroach? I said you were nearly as intelligent as a cockroach,one that had been dropped on its head as a baby.

I rest my case. Modernity doesn’t demand that the sick posters of such filthy abuse – and the ones that call me ‘pondlife’, ‘nearly ox-brain’ – be disciplined. He mentions me, and me only.

Nearly, cut down on the sunny delight, there’s a good boy.

Souled Out, the synopsis of the research is hardly surprising in such a conflict. At end it states that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs studied lean similarly to opposing narrative.

And, as others have said, this is not a play about *Israeli* children. The article opens with:

A new study of Jewish Israelis shows that most accept the ‘official version’ of the history of the conflict with the Palestinians.

Then it appears to contradict this:

However, his study shows that a larger percentage of the Jewish population in Israel believes that in 1948, the refugees were expelled (47.2 percent of respondents), than those who still retain the old Zionist version (40.8 percent), according to which the refugees left on their own initiative. On this point, not only do almost all the history books provide up-to-date information, but some local school textbooks do as well. Even on the television program “Tekuma” (”Rebirth,” a 1998 documentary series about Israel’s first 50 years), the expulsion of the Arabs was mentioned.

Nets-Zehngut also finds a degree of self-criticism in the answers relating to the question of overall responsibility for the conflict. Of those surveyed, 46 percent think that the responsibility is more or less evenly divided between Jews and Arabs, 4.3 percent think that the Jews are mainly to blame, and 43 percent think that the Arabs and the Palestinians are mainly to blame for the outbreak and continuation of the conflict. It turns out, therefore, that when the country’s education system and media are willing to deal with distorted narratives, even a collective memory that has been etched into people’s minds for years can be changed.

Nearly, cut down on the sunny delight, there’s a good boy

Err … go fuck yourself.

Secateurs, anyone?

NO,

I comment on YOUR behaviour, because you are consistently aggressive, show a very poor attitude and ruin threads. It is what you do.

You won’t see that, because you seem to think that your own behaviour is acceptable, I am saying that it is not, threads become littered with your petty abuse and the quality of otherwise interesting discussions declines as a result.

You are not unintelligent, but your attitude is not conducive to pluralistic debate, IMO.

Yes of course these kinds of attitudes are common in long term conflict scenarios. They are abundent on the Palestinian side as well.

I comment on YOUR behaviour, because you are consistently aggressive, show a very poor attitude and ruin threads. It is what you do.

Would that mean detenshun miss?

You won’t see that, because you seem to think that your own behaviour is acceptable, I am saying that it is not, threads become littered with your petty abuse and the quality of otherwise interesting discussions declines as a result.

Double-detenshun and call his parents in for a chat!

You are not unintelligent,

Do you mean NO is intelligent? If so, say so.

but your attitude is not conducive to pluralistic debate, IMO.

“In Your Opinion” is absolutely fine and it should stay as your opinion.

I only butted-in because I happen to like Nearly Oxfordian’s passion. Arguments amongst pseuds sometimes need a bit or reality.
(Wots “pluralistic debate”?)

Wait wait:

Any and everything you say just goes to prove how closed minded you are and how open minded I am.

I think I’ve been had! :D

Modernityblog, are you even aware of the irony in your comment?
“I comment on YOUR behaviour, because you are consistently aggressive, show a very poor attitude and ruin threads. It is what you do.”

This is what YOU do – this is not the first thread where you’re constantly attacking Nearly Oxfordian. You call him aggresive, yet you’re the angry person here. I suggest you write him a long, detailed e-mail with all your complaints and settle the matter privately.

Nearly Oxfordian – חזק ואמץ
(I can’t translate that in English, it’d loose it’s meaning).

(I can’t translate that in English, it’d loose it’s meaning).

Oh fuck me! Where have I heard that before. :D

Melanie Phillips reports on this play. Apparently she’s seen the text and says

(In the typescript I have, the word ‘jews’ is presented in lower case throughout while Arabs, God, Jerusalem and Hamas get capital letters).

……..

It is open incitement to hatred. In the Middle Ages, ‘mystery plays’ which portrayed the Jews as the demonic killers of Christ helped fuel the murderous pogroms against the Jews of Europe. With this piece by Caryl Churchill, the Royal Court is staging a modern ‘mystery play’. It is a despicable act.

She also has more quotes on the contents

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3334851/the-royal-courts-mystery-play.thtml

Templeton:

I can think of a fairly recent Hollywood film that hygienically sympathizes with suicide murderers and westernized Arab autocrats. It’s called “Syriana” and it is the product of the political narcissism of the actor George Clooney.

I think UK’s jews should do something about this play – and I don’t mean just a demo outside the theatre. This whole “we are all Hamas/save Gaza” trend is getting creepier every day.

I thought Syriana was good. It was loosely based on Behr’s See No Evil.

I seem to recall that Nietzsche puts the words “better haters” into one of his characters in, I think, “The Genealogy of Morals”; I think also that it is meant to refer to the Jews.
Can anyone confirm this?

I’ve some idea about the main interests of contemporary intellectuals in a number of places: Western and Eastern Europe, the US, Latin America. However, I’ve the impression that, for two, maybe three decades now, the most Jew-and/or-Israel obsessed intelligentsia in the world is the British (and Irish) one.

English, Scottish and Irish intellectuals seem to devote to the Jews and Israel a larger part of their time and passion than even their Arab counterparts do. Why should this be so?

I’ve lived for three years in France and visited Spain, Italy and Hungary (among other countries) regularly, but the Englsih (and Irish etc.) writers, poets, dramatists, movie-makers etc. seem to be at least ten times more obsessively fixed on the Middle East than those from the countries I’ve mentioned, including the French.

Could this be that the whole thing has less to do with Israel and the Jews than with the Americans?

French intelectualls, for instance, in spite of their very open anti-Americanism, don’t feel compelled to prove time and again that they themselves are not Americans, while this seems precisely to be the trouble with so many Brits (and Irish etc.).

What I mean is the following: the English see a pro-Israeli (and pro-Jewish or, at least, anti-anti-Semitic) atitude as defining the Americans in general and thus, to prove they are different from their cousins, they adopt the opposite atitude.

But this is just a hypothesis. Actually I cannot understand why the English would be so more passionate about the Palestinians (but actually the Jews) than even the French are.

Did find this though,

“Against this, imagine “the enemy” as conceived by the man of ressentiment – and here we have his deed, his creation: he has conceived of this “evil enemy”, “the evil one” as a basic idea to which he now thinks up a copy and counterpart, the “good one” – himself.”

Sums up Churchill quite well I think.

Well spotted, Ignorance, but it was ‘greatest’ rather than ‘best haters’:

“As we all know, priests are the most evil enemies to have — why should this be so? Because they are the most impotent. It is their impotence which makes their hate so violent and sinister, so cerebral and poisonous. The greatest haters in history — but also the most intelligent haters — have been priests. Beside the brilliance of priestly vengeance all other brilliance fades. Human history would be a dull and stupid thing without the intelligence furnished by its impotents. Let us begin with the most striking example. Whatever else has been done to damage the powerful and great of this earth seems trivial compared with what the Jews have done, that priestly people who succeeded in avenging themselves on their enemies and oppressors by radically inverting all their values, that is, by an act of the most spiritual vengeance. This was a strategy entirely appropriate to a priestly people in whom vindictiveness had gone most deeply underground. It was the Jew who, with frightening consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value equations good/noble/powerful/beautiful/ happy/favored-of-the-gods and maintain, with the furious hatred of the underprivileged and impotent, that “only the poor, the powerless, are good; only the suffering, sick, and ugly, truly blessed. But you noble and mighty ones of the earth will be, to all eternity, the evil, the cruel, the avaricious, the godless, and thus the cursed and damned!” … We know who has fallen heir to this Jewish inversion of values…. In reference to the grand and unspeakably disastrous initiative which the Jews have launched by this most radical of all declarations of war, I wish to repeat a statement I made in a different context (Beyond Good and Evil), to wit, that it was the Jews who started the slave revolt in morals; a revolt with two millennia of history behind it, which we have lost sight of today simply because it has triumphed so competely. [pp.167-168, boldface added]”

http://www.friesian.com/nietzsch.htm

There are too many comments here to read but I can’t agree that this is an anti-semitic play. For me the fault is that she presents too sympathetic a view of the fanaticism that led to Gaza. You can’t read that final speech literally. What she seems to me to be saying is look at the history – the fear, the lies, the contradictions and the terrible, painful choices. She is not saying that Israeli’s are murderous monsters – she is saying this is the bravado and desperation that comes out of that history. For me this is the problem because I think Gaza was a particular political choice and there are plenty of Jews both inside and outside Israel who don’t support what the Israeli government has done. Someone in an earlier comment said that Jews tell their children the truth – but what is that? This is what this play is about in part. It’s a good play – well structured and thoughtful and she’s asking for understanding which can’t be a bad thing. She isn’t demonising, she’s doing the opposite.

“You can’t read that final speech literally.”

Ah, exegesis. In that case the play should come with the proviso: None of the play you are about see should be taken literally. Please interpret all words figuratively (especially when literal interpretation would prove detrimental to the author’s reputation).

None of the play you are about see should be taken literally.

If you take any play literally then you would have fallen foul of the logical fallacy of generalizing from fictional evidence.

“If you take any play literally then you would have fallen foul of the logical fallacy of generalizing from fictional evidence.”

Well, if all Julia meant by ‘not taking it literally’ was ‘willingly suspending disbelief’, because it’s a play, then I must confess I did fall foul of that because I thought it was so obvious it was taken as read (figuratively -or is it literally?- and except, of course, this piece of fiction professes to be fact).

Seven Jewish Children: an Allegory. None of the individuals represented are meant to be Jewish, none of what they say represents anything the author claims real Jews to have said, let alone generally say, about real events, since those events are not represented either.

Zkhara.
Thanks.
Ignorance is bliss

“She isn’t demonising, she’s doing the opposite”

Yeah right … it’s those pesky oversensitive Joooos again … who do they think they are anyway, deciding what is and what is not antisemitic?

I am deeply disturbed by this play and shame on the Royal Court for allowing this to take place.

If there was play that had some anti-Muslim feeling then there would be death threats, demonstrations across the Arab world and fatwa’s issued. Noone has put a play on regarding the London Tube Bombers or the countless islamic extremist plots that have been uncovered by the British Police – plots that could have seen thousands of innocent British people killed. Unfortunately the Uk is fast becoming a politically correct, liberal leaning society which is naive and ill informed – in turn will encourage anti semitism.

Of the course the tickets are free – who would pay to watch this rubbish?

Beakerkin, excellent comments, particularly:

I see the refugees from Islam and Socialist so called paradises every day.The Mickey Marxist historical denial doesn’t work here. At a certain point the deception of how Muslims treated Jews, Christians and others under their misrule is close to Holocaust denial or 9-11 conspiracy freaks

I have never met a Muslim who will admit Islam’s fourteen-century-long mistreatment of the Jews.

The works of Bat Ye’or deserve more attention. So, too, do articles like this, attempting to set the record straight:
http://www.mmisi.org/ir/41_02/fernandez-morera.pdf

Worse, Islam attempts (to use a bit of Islamic hyperbole) cultural genocide by denying a separate Jewish culture under Islam, attempting to claim luminaries from Maimonides to Ofra Haza as Arab/Muslim, attempting to erase remnants of Herod’s temple, insisting Jews Khazars, etc.

bartok

I’ve the impression that, for two, maybe three decades now, the most Jew-and/or-Israel obsessed intelligentsia in the world is the British (and Irish) one. English, Scottish and Irish intellectuals seem to devote to the Jews and Israel a larger part of their time and passion than even their Arab counterparts do.

The most highly organised, virulently anti-Israeli propaganda structure I’ve ever seen is, for some reason, in Ireland (the IPSC), including a massive database:

http://www.ipsc.ie/
http://www.ipsc.ie/news.php
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/home.php

shame!
how ashamed the british public must feel about their lack of identity,the lack of pride and hope in their own nation that they have to repeat their ridiculous anti israeli scape goat cycle again and again.
in a matter of years you will be living under shiara law begging israel to let you in.
londinistan.

bartok

I’ve the impression that, for two, maybe three decades now, the most Jew-and/or-Israel obsessed intelligentsia in the world is the British (and Irish) one. English, Scottish and Irish intellectuals seem to devote to the Jews and Israel a larger part of their time and passion than even their Arab counterparts do.

The most highly organised, virulently anti-Israeli propaganda structure I’ve ever seen is, for some reason, in Ireland (the IPSC), including a massive database.

The IPSC site is here:
http://www.ipsc.ie/

IPSC’s massive database of anti-Israeli scribblings & articles & books is here:

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/home.php

Well I think KB Player made an entirely sensible point about the way literature works. (Which doesn’t mean the Churchill play isn’t probably just as tiresome as it seems to be from the quotes posted here.) For example it could be argued that you can’t understand what Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale (ostensibly very anti-semitic) ‘means’ unless you look at the much much briefer text of the General Prologue which opens up the possibility that Chaucer was satirising the Prioress and distancing himself from her views.

I should have said ‘much briefer description of the Prioress in the General Prologue.”

I think the Israeli government should be deeply ashamed of what it did in Gaza. Can any of you explain to me how it is possible to say that without in your eyes being labelled anti-semitic?

Any evidence, Sarah, that Churchill is ‘distancing’ herself from the belief that the above are typically the views of ‘Jewish children’, of the last seven generations, or so?

Having read The Prioress’ tale, recently, chiefly in response to K B Player’s nonsense about the mediaevel mystery Herod, for all Chaucer’s mocking the Prioress in certain respects, there is no evidence for his intending her tale to be understood figuratively, ironically, allegorically or in any fashion other than, as far as is possible in a Tale (which is purported to be true), literally.

Julia,

glad you are not disputing my refuting your earlier literary nonsense, and, yes, it is perfectly possible to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza, without being antisemitic.

Having said that, propagating an neo-mediaeval mystery play intended to demonize (and I use the term figuratively) Jews who might be sympathetic both to Zionism and the Jewish state of Israel, attributing to them merely polemically adduced reasons for doing so, constitutes both a serious misrepresentation and, I think, a libel.

It is, I think, tantamount to incitement to hatred.

A debate or discussion is one thing, where both parties and points of view may be represented by themselves. But for the prosecution to mount the defence’s case for them, and then to dramatize it in a piece of libellous propaganda, a ‘fiction’ that purports to be fact, is another.

Neither constitutes drama, tragic or comic, in my view.

Can any of you explain to me how it is possible to say that [to criticise Israel] without in your eyes being labelled anti-semitic?

Sure:

- criticise Israel the same way that you’d criticise any other country

- recognise at the same time that Hamas is a genocidal, anti-semitic terror organisation that believes it is religiously obliged to destroy Israel and the Jews

- treat Hamas’ war crimes, against the Palestinians and the Israelis, as seriously as you treat allegations of Israeli war crimes – including, in particular, the use of children and civilians as human shields for military attacks

- criticise current Israeli policies, just as you would those of any other country. Recognise that Israelis have a right to live in peace too and don’t try to undermine Israel’s right to exist

- don’t use the language of anti-semitism. This includes any reference at all to “Jewish” or “Zionist” power controlling America or the world, and any reference to baby-killing Jews, “massacre of the innocents”, etc.

- don’t make false and grossly offensive comparisons between the Nazis and Israel. If you do, you will be seen as supporting both blood-libels and holocaust denial

- don’t lie, and don’t exagerate (eg: Jenin was worse than Stalingrad and Aushwitz, etc.)

http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/material/pub/AS/AS-WorkingDefinition-draft.pdf

Julia, criticism of Israel is not antismitic provided it does not cross the boundaries in this definition which has been agreed by represntatives of all EU goverments and is the nearest thing there is to an internationally accepted definiton of antisemitism. All Tevya’s points are covered by the EUMC definition.

Thank you. Now I know how it is done I wonder what Churchill’s mistake is? That final speech invites us to identify the madness and to understand the genesis of the fanaticism that fuels it. It ends ‘tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her’. It’s a very powerful polemic and one that would fit the bill for any number of situations where man visits inhumanity on man. However rarely is such fanaticism justified and certainly not in the case of Gaza – Israeli children simply are not under significant threat. Israel has for too long ridden on the back of Jewish history and avoided criticism for its actions because the world fears being stigmatised as anti-semitic. My problem with Churchill’s play is that I think she falls into the same trap of conflating zionism and jewishness. I think the action against Gaza was madness and while we need to understand we don’t need to be confused by sentiment. It happened and Churchill is trying to give a voice to those factions inside Israel who supported and promoted murderous actions against defenceless children. What do you imagine they said?

Distinctions between being jewish and Israeli…..well this this news story today says it all and really!

A Foreign Office diplomat has been arrested after allegedly launching an anti-Semitic tirade while exercising in a gym.
Middle East expert Rowan Laxton, 47, was alleged to have shouted “F***ing Israelis, f***ing Jews” as he watched TV reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza. It is alleged he also said Israeli soldiers should be “wiped off the face of the Earth”, in front of other gym users and staff.Police were called and Mr Laxton was arrested for inciting religious hatred through threatening words and behaviour. He was bailed until late next month. An onlooker said: “I was in the gym around 9pm and I heard this guy shouting something about f***ing Israelis’. This bald guy was cycling away on his machine in the middle of the exercise room. When another guy approached him he shouted f***ing Jews, f***ing Israelis’.
The gym was pretty full and everyone looked totally shocked. That sort of racist language is totally unacceptable. The gym staff called security and I think the guy was asked to leave.”
Mr Laxton is still working as normal as head of the South Asia Group at the Foreign Office. He is responsible for all the UK’s diplomacy in that area and for briefing Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who is Jewish.
Mr Laxton, whose wife is Muslim, has worked extensively in the Middle East and has been deputy ambassador to Afghanistan.

Great – and he is briefing the Foreign Secretary….

“That final speech invites us to identify the madness and to understand the genesis of the fanaticism that fuels it.”

a) “madness”, like “fanaticism”, is a subjective opinion: it is not what most of the Jews concerned think and

b) the “genesis” of Jewish national identity is not the holocaust: it is 2000 years of Jews’ being treated as a nation, dispossessed of temple, city and land as a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets, in Christendom and Islam, of which the Nazi genocide was not the “genesis”, rather the Nadir.

c) Churchill seeks to understand nothing: she seeks to peddle her own polemic as to what drives Israeli and other Jews to Zionism and sympathy with it, for her own anti-Israel and anti-Zionist political purposes.

d) the audience is indeed “invited” to identify with the world view of the author: it is genuine mystery play. Those who watch it are “invited” to enter into the Truth revealed by Churchill’s opening her “mystos” (the box or chest in which the sacred truth was enclosed) and, having experienced Revelation (literally “unveiling”), share it with as many people as possible.

In other words, it’s polemical trash.

I repeat my question – how do you imagine those in Israel who supported the killing in Gaza justified their actions?

“Churchill is trying to give a voice to those factions inside Israel who supported and promoted murderous actions against defenceless children. What do you imagine they said?”

Ohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho.

Churchill is manifestly +not+ “trying to give a voice to those…inside Israel (but it’s ‘Jewish’, not ‘Israeli’ children, remember) who supported” not only Cast Lead, but also sympathy with Zionism, Israel, its birth and history, period.

The tenor of the play is not merely “anti-Cast Lead”: it is “anti-the entire Zionist enterprise, Israel and all”.

She is inserting HER voice into the mouths of those sympathetic with Israel and promoting it, not as fiction, but as FACT.

There is no need for one to “imagine (what) they said”.

All that is necessary for that is to hold a discussion or debate.

But that assumes that the other (pro-Israel) party is entitled to make a case for its own defence, something Churchill manifestly does NOT believe, since she thinks it is beholden on her to TELL THE WORLD exactly what the opposing party thinks, for them, as a matter of PUBLIC REVELATION.

I repeat my question – how do you imagine those in Israel who supported the killing in Gaza justified their actions?

As reasonable and proportionate defence against an implacable enemy, and as a tragic consequence of a war they didn’t start, and can’t finish

Please could you cite some military actions which were justified in your view so your criticisms can be better understood?

I don’t have to imagine, Julia, nor do you.

What you do is not “imagine”, but invite anyone who wishes to explain to you their contrary opinion or position.

That is called DISCUSSION.

Israel acted as any state would when a hostile government or state, one publicly and professedly dedicated to her (Israel’s) destruction, fires or continually allows to be fired a rain of missiles on her citizens, none of which appears, as far as I can see, in the speech inserted into Jewish mouths by Ms Churchill.

You’d think there might have been a mention of that in the mouths of Seven Israeli Jewish Adults, at least.

Israel was far more careful in Gaza than Russia in Chechnya or, arguably, the US or UK in Iraq or Afghanistan, and acted with considerably more justification.

Yet none of these, who have killed far more civilians, including children, with, as far as I can see, considerably less justification, has moved the effluent Ms Churchill to write “Seven British, Russian or American Children”.

of which the Nazi genocide was not the “genesis”, rather the Nadir

The Nadir were a Jewish tribe in Medina who were murdered by Mohammed.

Oh …

Julia – do you really understand this conflict? Do you really think people in Israel are such heartless, callous people? Do you believe the leaders of Israel woke up and decided ‘let’s bomb gaza and kill people’. The Israeli’s who supported the action, and the vast majority did, did so because an extreme terror organisation was firing over 5000 rockets at them over a number of years – an extreme terror organisation was intent on the destruction of the country and its people – an extreme terror organisation who uses their OWN people as human shields – an extreme terror organisation that uses schools, mosques and homes to store weapons of destruction to kill innocent people in israel in name of Jihad – an extreme terror organisation that murders its own people because they support another political faction – an extreme terror organisation that sole purpose is to hate Israel, destroy Israeli’s and jews.

The point is – Israel is the ONLY country in the world that tolerates such hatred and attacks against it and its people for so long – What is it supposed to do? Sit back and take it?

If you and Caryl Churchill want to live in Gaza under Hamas please feel free to do so.

‘mouth-foaming’ – more of the spit-age. The evidence builds….

I have to say, I saw the play on saturday night and found it very touching. It was beautiful in its simplicity and I found myself imagining the act of explaining to a child a reality that is so complex and full of conflict.

I’m surprised to see so many adverse comments from people, most of whom, from what I gather, haven’t actually seen the play yet.

I don’t think that the play stirs up anti-semitism and I wish people would stop associating critiques of the Israeli government with having an opinion about jewishness.

Many countries are criticised for their foreign policies without it being about the specific religion or culture of the people living in it. Acts of war call for criticism and protest, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.

So it seems that Caryl Churchill has pretty accurately reflected the general mood:
‘Tell her they did it to themselves’
‘Tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for’
‘Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed for’
Martin in answer to your question – yes I do believe that people in Israel woke up and thought ‘lets bomb Gaza and kill innocent people’ and spent months priming the rest of the world with the excuses and justifications that you outline above. Quite simply how else do you think it happened? And incidentally who is defending the Russians in Chechnya? Or the American and UK action in Iraq. Do you really want to align yourselves with these acts of aggression? Incidentally maybe you could just remind me how many Israeli children did those rockets kill? And yes I do think Israel has to sit back and take it if the only alternative is killing and maiming thousands of innocent people. And no I don’t think the majority of Israelis are heartless and callous – and neither does Churchill – read the play!

“@Zkharya “Any evidence, Sarah, that Churchill is ‘distancing’ herself from the belief that the above are typically the views of ‘Jewish children’, of the last seven generations, or so?”

No, and I made that point clear in my comment I think. It was the general principle behind KB Player’s observation that I agreed with.

There isn’t a critical concensus about what Chaucer was getting up to in the PT. I read quite a bit about it some years ago and I remember some fascinating articles which suggested that the Prioress was being undermined far more conclusively than appears from the surface – ie ostensibly she’s a rather appealing (tale aside of course) if silly figure. I think there was something about Stratford-atte-Bowe being a place where there were lots of brothels, for example. What most sticks in my mind is the fact that the PT is so much *more* anti-semitic than most variants of that story. I thought – or maybe wanted to think – that Chaucer was being ironically over the top in order to create this portrait of a crazed bigot.

Julia, the play comes dangerously close to a number of antisemitic tropes, for example the ‘blood libel’ and use of the ‘chosen people’ phrase to imply that Jews believe they are superior to non-Jews.

I’m sure you pride yourself as an antiracist so why do you not see the antisemitic leitmotivs to which this play comes much too close?

And please don’t give me the Livingstone Manoeuvre back (that I am trying to stifle criticism of Israel) because that is utter nonsense.

What we know about an author affacts how we understand his/her work. The audience for Brecht would know that he was a Communist and therefore not in favour of the German War machine. The anticipation of his denunciation of it is part of the pleasure of the song. We know that Caryl Churchill is Patron of the PSC, so we should not be surprised that she takes their part.

AS for Chaucer, I think the Prioress’ Tale relates to a theme in the Canterbury Tales about what it is acceptable for a woman to say (cf The Magnificat). The Prioress is demonstrating her conventional piety by denoucing Jews. (I think there had been a recent murder in Norwich of a little boy that was blamed on the Jews.). It contrasts with the Wife of Bath’s Tale which is a wman out of control and saying all sorts of dreadful things. That’s what I think anyway.

“yes I do believe that people in Israel woke up and thought ‘lets bomb Gaza and kill innocent people’”

Ah, the pinacle of English literary tragic empathy at work here: one can see why the UK is a beacon of dramatic art the world over.

Sleep on Aristotle: tragic playwrights today see no reason to at least make the villain of their piece plausible, let alone sympathetic. No, far easier, in (figurative) manichean, Christian vein, to make him a demon incarnate, driven by motiveless evil.

Out with Tragedy. In with Passion Plays.

No change, for some, there then.

Well, Sarah, I see no evidence for Chaucer’s irony there whatsoever. No more than I do in Ms Churchill. Perhaps the fact that Jews had been expelled from England 100 years earlier allowed them to be for Chaucer as monstrous as religious prejudice, rather than direct experience, directed. But that is not the same thing as ‘irony’.

“We know that Caryl Churchill is Patron of the PSC, so we should not be surprised that she takes their part”

“So it seems that Caryl Churchill has pretty accurately reflected the general mood”

This really is a dialogue of the deaf. You have no idea do you? You need to read some Jewish history, read the definition of antisemitism that I posted above and then re-read the article I posted, and the comments below.

Julia
9 February 2009, 11:40 am

[...]That final speech invites us to identify the madness and to understand the genesis of the fanaticism that fuels it. It ends ‘tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her’. It’s a very powerful polemic and one that would fit the bill for any number of situations where man visits inhumanity on man. However rarely is such fanaticism justified and certainly not in the case of Gaza – Israeli children simply are not under significant threat. Israel has for too long ridden on the back of Jewish history and avoided criticism for its actions because the world fears being stigmatised as anti-semitic. [...] I think the action against Gaza was madness and while we need to understand we don’t need to be confused by sentiment. It happened and Churchill is trying to give a voice to those factions inside Israel who supported and promoted murderous actions against defenceless children. What do you imagine they said?

Julia:

If anything is crystal clear about Operation Cast Lead, it’s that after 8 years of shelling southern Israel — despite the withdrawal from Gaza a couple of years ago– the IDF took pains to minimize civilian casualties and Hamas did everything it could to maximize them.

As for cultivating a generation of hate-filled, homocidal people whose lives were actually qualitatively better under Israeli administraton, clearly you haven’t a clue about what the results of agreeing to Arafat’s return to run the PA in 1994 gave birth to or the vile crap that Hamas peddles to small children to cultivate them, not just to kill Jews, but to look to Al-Andaluse as the next frontier.

From Michael Totten’s on-line diary (http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/02/a-minority-repo.php)

February 1, 2009
A Minority Report from the West Bank and Gaza

Khaled Abu Toameh is not your typical Palestinian journalist. He began his career at one of Yasser Arafat’s newspapers and today he writes for the Jerusalem Post. He has produced video for European TV stations, and even blogged for a while at Commentary Magazine in New York. It’s impossible to cram Toameh into a convenient ideological box, though that doesn’t stop some people from trying.

[...]

Some of you may be wondering what’s going on with this guy who started working as a journalist for the PLO and ends up writing for a Jewish newspaper. Some people ask me “when did you become a Zionist? When did you become pro-Israel?” Well, I’m not pro-anything other than the facts and the truth. As a journalist I don’t have any problem working for any newspaper that provides me with a platform. I don’t care if it’s Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or even Buddhist.

And to be honest with you, I find it ironic that as an Arab Muslim living in this part of the world that I have to work for a Jewish newspaper or for the international media in order to be able to practice any kind of real journalism. Why? Because we don’t have any free media. In the Palestinian areas we didn’t have it when I was working there in the 1970s and 1980s, we didn’t get one when we brought Yasser Arafat in to start the Palestinian Authority, and of course we don’t have a free media today under Fatah, Hamas, and the rest of the gangs that are running the show out there. And this is very sad.

Sometimes I wish the problem with the media was the only problem that we have over there, but as you all know it’s a very messy situation. I’m one of those who has been arguing for the past fifteen years that things have been going in the wrong direction in this part of the world. For a few months after signing Oslo we reached the point where many Jews and many Arabs missed the good old days before the peace process began.

Now, what do I mean by that? Oslo was not bad. Oslo was based on the idea of a two-state solution and ending the military occupation in one way or another. So the idea of Oslo was not bad. Separation between Jews and Palestinians who did not want to live together. And as such I supported it. I thought it was a good idea.

But the way Oslo was implemented brought disaster on both Jews and Arabs. The assumption back then in the U.S., in Israel, and in many places in Europe, was that if you bring the PLO and thousands of PLO fighters and you dump them into the West Bank and Gaza and you give them millions of dollars and guns that they will do the dirty job of policing the West Bank and Gaza. They would replace the occupation and fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They would do all these wonderful things. Why? Because they’re on our payroll.

So the international community and Israel gathered all these PLO fighters from around the world, released thousands of PLO fighters from Israeli prisons, gave them uniforms and guns, and called them security forces. And the result was the people who had never received any basic training, people who had never finished high school, became colonels and generals in Yasser Arafat’s Authority. He established sixteen different security forces with the help of the Americans, the Europeans, and the Israelis. And they started pouring money into this regime that they called the Palestinian Authority. Billions of dollars with the hope that Arafat would deliver.

Now, there’s no need to elaborate. As you all know, Arafat turned out to be a crook. Most of the money that was sent to the Palestinian Authority literally went down the drain and supported the shopping sprees of Arafat’s wife who was living in Paris. Instead of building us a hospital, Arafat built a casino in Jericho, as if the Palestinian revolution aspired for forty years to get us a casino. And the chutzpah was that he built that casino across the street from a refugee camp. So Palestinians did not see the fruits of peace.

My argument is as follows. The fact that Arafat was crooked didn’t surprise us Palestinians. We were only surprised by the fact that the international community kept giving him money and refused to hold him accountable when he stole our money. Why didn’t they invest something? They didn’t want to believe it.

When I tried to alert my foreign colleagues in 1995, 1996, and 1997, to the fact that there was corruption in the Palestinian Authority, many of them asked me if I was on the payroll of the Jewish Lobby. I wanted to know where was this Jewish Lobby? If there was one maybe they would pay me.

I told them: “This is what I am hearing. The writing is on the wall. Come and listen to what Palestinians are saying.” And they told me they weren’t interested in that story. They told me they wanted anti-Israel stories because it made their lives so much easier. They told me they didn’t want to write anything bad about Palestinians, that Arafat was a man of peace and should be given a chance. I heard this from major American journalists, by the way. Leading American journalists. I don’t want to give you their names right now, but I was really frustrated. And angry.

Listen. For all these years we’ve been attacking the military occupation. So why is it that when I tell you something that Arafat is doing, suddenly you don’t want to report it and think it’s Jewish propaganda? Most of these journalists did not even want to make any effort.

By depriving these people of money, what did Arafat do? He radicalized the Palestinians who did not see the fruits of peace. So that’s reason number one why Palestinian society is radicalized.

But there are other reasons. Reasons number two is that you gave Yasser Arafat guns so that he could kill Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but instead he directed those guns against anyone who said they wanted reform or democracy. Arafat used your guns, your weapons, provided by the United States of America, to suppress the leaders of a new leadership.

Let me give you an example. In 1997, 29 Palestinian professors signed a petition demanding Yasser Arafat end the corruption. They found themselves either shot or killed or thrown into jail or they had to run away from the country. And of course this is not a story you would see on CNN. I don’t think even the New York Times reported that.

So Arafat cracked down on the reformists and the democrats and the people who wanted good government. And he sent the rest of the people into the open arms of Hamas. He cracked down on the reformists and he refused to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Reason number three. You gave Yasser Arafat money to open a TV and radio station. And on this TV and radio station Arafat said “Jihad, jihad, kill the crusaders, kill the Jews, kill the infidels, kill everyone but me.” Now you may ask yourself why Arafat was inciting against his peace partners in Israel, why was he inciting against the Americans and Europeans who were feeding him? It doesn’t make sense.

Well, to us it does make sense. This is how our Arab dictators survive. They constantly blame the miseries of our people on the Jews and the West and the Crusaders and the infidels and the Zionist lobby and the imperialists. They use all these slogans. Arab leaders always need to make sure that their people are busy hating somebody else, preferably the Jews and the Americans. Otherwise their people might rebel, and God forbid they might demand reforms and democracy.

This is exactly what Arafat did, but he did it in Arabic. The international community – and even Israelis – did not want to listen to what Arafat was saying in Arabic. They only cared what he said in English. They said that what he said in English was good.

I said “Excuse me, folks, but in Arabic Arafat is telling people to kill you.” But they did not want to listen to the incitement. They underestimated it. They said “you Arabs are all corrupt and don’t know anything about democracy so you deserve a dictatorship.”

Perhaps Jonathan Hoffman could write a play explaining it all to us?

There are plenty of books and sources for you to learn about what is and is not antisemitic. Just go and do it. It is not up to me to teach you, it is up to you to learn. You would not ask a black to write a play to teach you about racism or a Muslim to write a play to teach you about Islamophobia – so what make you think it is OK to ask me to write a play to teach you about antisemitism?

“Do you really want to align yourselves with these acts of aggression?”

None of which moved Ms Churchill (nor even you?) to such paroxyms of eloquence.

“Incidentally maybe you could just remind me how many Israeli children did those rockets kill?”

Enough for Israelis, even if not enough for you.

How many Iraqi rockets landed on London or New York? Remind me, please. How many Iraqi civilians, including children, have died as a consequence of US or UK actions?

“And yes I do think Israel has to sit back and take it if the only alternative is killing and maiming thousands of innocent people.”

Well, Israel thinks different. And, in a debate, or even a court case, she or her citizens are entitled to say why.

Not in Ms Churchill’s piece, though: where did Ms Churchill’s “Jewish children” even mention that there was anything Israel had to “take”?

I absolutely defend your right to support Israel but at the same time I defend mine and others right to disagree without being labelled anti-semitic. And I take your point Jonathon and have no wish to offend but it is strange and sad this pressure to take sides, to deny one man/woman/child their humanity in the cause of another. And Zkharya if Churchill had put your words into the mouths of her actors then there might be some justification for all the vilification she’s getting on this site. However she has given you a more sympathetic hearing than you give yourself. You sound quite mad to me.

“And Zkharya if Churchill had put your words into the mouths of her actors then there might be some justification for all the vilification she’s getting on this site.”

Hahahahah: you mean both she and you have our best interests to heart, and only you may represent our views on our behalf for us?

But I and others here, on this site, think the reverse: that her alleged ‘defence’ on our behalf is, in fact, libellous if not incendiary.

“However she has given you a more sympathetic hearing than you give yourself.”

When did she give me or anyone like me “a hearing”? You’re confused, my dear: inventing bad blank verse and stuffing it in the mouths of your characters, in pursuit of your own narrow, thoroughly partisan political agenda, does not constitute giving “a hearing” to anyone but yourself. Like many bad poets, or critics, you confuse the creative act with the reality it purports to represent.

It is not for the Prosecution to decide what case the Defence may make on its own behalf.

“You sound quite mad to me.”

Well, even those declared insane have rights and one such is, if they both choose and insist, to represent themselves in any court of law or opinion, or at least be pro-active in their own defence.

And if I am mad, you are illiterate. I know which I think is worse.

‘I thought Syriana was good. It was loosely based on Behr’s See No Evil.’

If I may say so, Zkharya, very, very loosely based. In the same way that the Chuck Norris film ‘The Delta Force’ was ‘loosely based’ on the hijacking of TWA847 in 1985. Not that ‘Syriana’ is as shit as this film – it just it bears very little resemblance to the original source.

“I defend mine and others right to disagree without being labelled anti-semitic”

Julia FFS I have checked back through the posts and no-one here is labelling you as AS.

So why are you playing the victim? It is a Pavlovian response which is completely incomprehensible. Fine, we have different opinions but why demean the other side of the debate by suggesting they have done something – when it is patently obvious to anyone who bothers to read the posts that they have not? It is the ultimate in nihilism.

the fact is that england is finished, the england i was born in is gone, it’s values are gone, it’s pride gone, it’s common sense and dignity all gone, england sold it’s soul to the saudis’. this is the result of the transaction.

lord ahmed threatens parliament that if geerts film ‘fitma’ is shown he will bring ten thousand islamic demonstrators with him and storm parliament. he boasts in his interview to media ‘this is a victory.’
you people don’t get it do you.
it’s no victory, it’s the beginning of the end.
i’m moving to israel where at least they have limits on their tolerance. that’s something to be proud about.

“The full text can be downloaded from 10 February from http://www.royalcourttheatre.com ”

It has been changed to 11 February. I think the Press Night is tonight so you will see other reviews tomorrow. My review and Melanie Phillips’ review are still the only ones around. The Royal Court has not yet linked to these two reviews on its website despite being alerted to them nearly two days ago. In the interest of ‘free speech’ I think they should.

Don’t you?

I note the director has made certain to cast the play with Jewish actors. This is standard operating procedure for pro-Palestinian anti-Semites: obscure your bigotry by appearing to have normal relationships with Jews; co-opt Jews into your project to pre-emptively deflect accurate complaints of anti-Semitism.

Here is the contact e-mail address for the Royal Court Theatre. How about if we just flood their e-mail inbox with these comments

info@royalcourttheatre.com

Sean, it is worse than that. None is a practising Jew. But they all (or nearly all) have Jewish names.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

I don’t believe anyone should expect an organisation/institution of any sort, publicly funded or not, to publish the online opinions of a blogging ‘guest poster’ on their official website.

You’ve have the right to dislike/disapprove/disagree with the play; you have the right to free speech to say what you like about it; but I don’t think that the Royal Court (who clearly believe in this play and want to get an audience to see it) are obliged to disseminate your opinion. Find me a theatre who quotes the opinions of bloggers (and unfavourable views at that!) and your argument might muster a scrap of strength.

Anyway, it’s good it got you talking. Isn’t that what good (deliberately provocative) art should do?

Mike,
That’s a depressingly low standard you’re setting there for art. How about art should make an intelligent contribution to public discourse? How about art should offer insights otherwise unavailable to its audience? How about art should be a realm of resistance to cant and propaganda.

I lecture on Churchill’s ‘Top Girls’ to Israeli and Arab students, and I always emphasise the importance of conducting historic research for a playwright. This diatribe is based on pure hatred rather than fact, and so transparently biased that Churchill demeans herself and no longer deserves to be taught in my classes.

Lecturer

Well done

I notice not a single one of you have noted that upstairs at the Royal Court is Shades – a play that offers a pretty damning critique of fundamentalist Islam.

Also, I find the increasingly shrill tone of comments here ironic, given the banner at the top of the page which reads “Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear”.

Hoist…

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-let8217s-see-the-8216criticism8217-of-israel-for-what-it-really-is-1624827.html

Howard Jacobson has a terrific piece in today’s Independent

You guys are funny.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-you-cant-be-impartial-about-aid-1518851.html

Mark Steel’s article from last month’s Independent.

Hi….I was looking for a review of the Churchill piece (as I’m headed to London later this week) and happened to stumble on this site. As an African-American raised in the southeastern United States, I am definitely sympathetic to any group of people who have been marginalized within their respective societies due to their religious or ethnic backgrounds.

That being said, I have several Jewish friends including my best friend, and I’ve heard them all utter, nearly verbatim, many of the quotes from Chruchill’s play on a regular basis. However, I would never assume their views are indicative of those of your entire community, and I think most rational people would say the same.

While the piece is obviously agitprop, for better or worse its not too far off the mark when it comes to the (non-Jewish) public perception of the recent Gaza conflict in certain circles. I was just as appalled as anyone by the images coming out of Gaza, but as an educated person and responsible citizen I know the conflict is far too complicated to render judgement on either state.

I think your community would be best served by a Jewish (or not) playwright creating an answer to the piece presenting the Jewish community’s perspective….not something rendered out of anger, polarization, or aggression but out of a desire to educate the wider public and expose the collateral damage rendered by anti-semitic portraits persented in major media (including live theatre)…which I hope, in lieu of pro-Israel propaganda, is what this whole controversy is about….

Let’s be honest here. None of us here is truly capable of taking a side in the Israeli-Gaza conflict and doing so with a clear conscience and with intellectual honesty. It is far too thorny a topic and one that invites any loud-mouth with time on their hands to post a screed without the need the defend it. After so much tit-for-tat the Middle East has become a farcical knot, each side pulling their end so righteously that they’ll never undo it.

No one posting here will be able to sway anyone else, however heroic we all think we are in the blogosphere.

After reading Caryl Churchill’s play, I can say that it’s a piece of art born of outrage and a feeling of impotence. It’s a conversation-starter, intentionally meant to be important and polemical. And a little tedious as a result, however well-structured.

Is it anti-Semitic? Quite possibly. I’m troubled that Churchill is ascribing passionate (inhumane) sentiments to seven characters clearly meant to be allegorical stand-ins for an entire nation or race.

But is she arguing that constant fighting has certain misanthropic effects?

If she were not so clear about her sentiments, I would actually have argued literarily that Churchill could be showing what constant war and paranoia (justified or not) does to people, how it colors their perceptions.

But, again, trying to represent an entire race in seven (barely discernible) characters is problematic no matter what the artistic intent or what comes out of the characters’ mouths.

Churchill sweeps a lot of people into a category that don’t belong there. There are undoubtedly Israeli Jews who’ve said the things Churchill’s characters say. You could also turn the play around and have the same sentiments uttered by Hamas families.

And plenty of Israeli Jews probably agree with Churchill politically.

Whether the play is anti-Semitic is really beside the point. That can be argued for years. What can’t be argued (in my view) is that the play is lazy and somewhat childish.

It almost reads as a piece of juvenilia, if well-crafted juvenilia. I almost don’t care if the play is anti-Semitic. I care that it’s a bit cheap and exists to create a predictable emotional effect.

Art is the casualty in this particular debate.

PS. As someone who has a college degree in Chaucer and Chaucer-era literature, let me caution folks here to be very careful when using the Prioress from “The Canterbury Tales” to back up ANY points. We’ll never know if the tale she tells is meant to be ironic or honest and both sides can be argued ad nauseum Best to move on.

For my take on this, click below:

http://www.readingpulitzer.com/2009/02/18/the-blood-libel-of-the-21st-century/

the most interesting thing is the way so many act as though Jewish history began with the holocaust and there never was a thousand years of european antisemitic oppression, and as though the state of israel was founded by holocaust survivors, rather than by Russian jews fleeing the antisemitism of russia. Acknowledging that the world and jewish history did not begin with the holocaust, but rather that the holocaust was the result of a thousand years of antisemitism, and that the need for the state of israel was predicted before the holocaust and that the state was only acknowledged, not created, after the holocaust, would mean that they would have to own the current antisemitism. Oh no the Europeans are impartial observers of the Jews.

This play has become news in Taiwan and Japan now, too, where anti-Israel protests happened during the Gaza war, organized by leftwingers and Muslims living in Taipei and Tokyo. See? It’s worldwide now.

As a Yank I’ve quite enjoyed this forum, esp. the remarks of the OP and Zkharya. Was quite struck by this from Julia: “And yes I do think Israel has to sit back and take it if the only alternative is killing and maiming thousands of innocent people.” Just two little questions, sweetie: is there any limit to the “it” that Israel has to sit back and take? How many Jews have to die before Israel is granted the same right to self-defense that presumably all other nations enjoy. I wonder if you’re aware of what a depraved indifference to the value of Jewish life this sentiment reflects. Because all Hamas has to do is use their own innocents as shields, and by this formulation Israel is helpless. Also: what other nations do you require to so “sit back and take it,” as opposed to defending themselves against attackers who knew that through their aggression their own civilians were liable to become targets?

One thing I didn’t see mentioned above is the fact that the rockets the anti-Zionist left loves to make light of (which in itself shows a contempt for Jewish life, indeed deligitimizes the Jewish claim on a normal life in the world) are getting more powerful. As I understand it they’re falling rather close to Tel Aviv at this point. Which highlights the depravity of conflating ability and intent. Hamas *can’t* at the moment kill a lot of Jews. But does anyone really think they’re sitting there hoping the rockets will only kill members of the IDF? Are the rockets actually being “aimed” in any legitimate military fashion, or are they being pointed hopefully at as many Jews as can be hit, w/ no distinction between soldier and civilian? To ask is to know.

Jonathan’s article…filled with Zionist brainwashing. Anything we say against Israel is considered anti-semitism..nonsense. Jewish faith yes, Zionism NO! And for your information..Semites are ALL people from south western Asia..includes Hebrews AND Arabs. So who is anti-semitic here?
I am proud to direct this play here in the USA asap…and also donate a lot of money to MAP !!!!!!!!

“I think your community would be best served by a Jewish (or not) playwright creating an answer to the piece presenting the Jewish community’s perspective”

We shouldn’t have to merely to respond to an aggressive, polemical misrepresentation.

It is not necessary to “dramatize” the views of Israeli Jews, or those genuinely sympathetic them. All that is necessary is to invite them to any genuinely open discussion or debate on the matter and let them represent, not ACT, themselves.

““I think your community would be best served by a Jewish (or not) playwright creating an answer to the piece presenting the Jewish community’s perspective”

The whole problem is thinking that “the Jewish community” is a monolithic thing with only one common “perspective.” Christians, Britons, etc can be individuals, but the worst antisemites see The Jew and The Palestinian as masses without individuality. The Jew will always hate The Palestinian, thank God we gentiles aren’t ever defined as such. If you think I’m mad, ask yourself: when did the Guardian ever begin an article with “British Gentile Community Offended by…”?

What I find confusing about many of the comments criticizing the play is this: most or all of the statements made in the play seem to me wholly sympathetic, ones I and anyone I know might make seeking to protect their children, even thought many of these statements have troubling implications. For example, the ones about water seem eminently reasonable. Who, living in a hot climate, would not want to have a lovely, refreshing swimming pool for their children to play in, despite the needs of certain of the neighbors?

Yet, the comments of those opposed to the play suggest that the statements the characters make in the play are outrageous and offensive, as though Israelis occupy some Olympus of moral superiority, and would never put the interests of their children above the needs of their less fortunate neighbors, and to suggest otherwise is the most heinous kind of offense. For example, Zkharya suggests they could “fall into the category of ‘incitement to hatred’.” Mr. Hoffman himself suggests the play “comes dangerously close to the ‘blood libel’”, which he then conflates with “the use of the ‘chosen people’ phrase to imply that Jews believe they are superior to non-Jews.”

This is confusing because of course significant numbers of most groups believe themselves superior to individuals who are not members of that group. This is a problem with human nature, not with Jews or Gentiles. “Blood libel”, by contrast, is a far more serious problem (although perhaps also a problem with human nature), constituting “false and sensationalized allegations that a person or group engages in human sacrifice, often of … children.” (quoting Wikipedia). The play clearly is not a blood libel, except for those who find any criticism of Israel a blood libel, which unfortunately some do.

By now, Americans are use to encountering works that contain ferocious criticism of Americans, frequently appearing unfair and unreasonable. While some of us react with rage, others try to find in the criticism ideas that help to improve our understanding and make the future better than the past. That seems to me a more productive reaction to critical art.

I don’t understand people always hate jewish without any reason, I am suprise this kind of ilogical idea, if you look at the history the jewish are owner of middle east land, and they were native of the Israel land, even north east Egypt land was belong to jewish people before thousands years ago it is known, however after jewish emigrated to Europe and Russia and to toward other world wide countries before frist world war, then Arab came and settled in the middle east and now the Arab countries stick together and they crying racism against Israel that they pretending against jewish in every occassion it is not good,
if you look to the entire Arab media that their media always showing fake news and unfair broadcast and Arab countries are still not feeling shame about this issue in anyway. in the meantime and Arab islamic countries has growing extremism ideology and radical behavior in whole islamic countries and muslim socities through by the chaotic and meaningless manipulation of the people.

*What is Arab countries exactly want from the jewish people?

*why Arab counties having desire to remove jewish people from the land of the Israel?

*where the Arab people want to put jewish people rather than their own native land?

*why the hatred always from Arab counties to the toward other people?