The Red Hot Chili Peppers are due to give a concert in Tel Aviv tomorrow night, but boycott advocates still hope that the band, last seen in Beirut, will change its mind.
“Israeli govt press office gives the Red Hot Chili Peppers a strong anti-boycott hug,” Ofer Neiman writes, linking an Israeli government press office tweet about the concert: “Boycott calls unlikely to cool Red Hot Chili Peppers’ first concert in Tel Aviv, Israel.”
A boycott supporter on facebook adds:
Red Hot Chili Peppers, the government of occupying military regime of Israel is worried you may change your mind and not entertain the beneficiaries of their [apartheid state]…
The Israeli government linked a piece in the Times of Israel:
The band has made no comments on Facebook, Twitter or in the press regarding the anti-Israel boycott. Their last known statement was on June 28, when they posted a nearly-minute-long video announcing their Tel Aviv concert date:
“I would like to announce our huge joy and pleasure and excitement and the thrill we have to come to Israel for the very first time,” bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary says in the clip, joined by singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer. “The original guitar player of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the great Hillel Slovak, may he rest in peace, was an Israeli.”
Being pro-Israel is considered integral part of being a hip and trendy “progressive” in the US. So no they won’t call off the concert. Palestinians are no politically correct people in the eyes of “progressives.”
Madonna sang for Apartheid, and the Chili PEPs R next? Progressive except for Palestine–my bet…..
PEP is very hip and trendy. One thing I noticed about the Butler affair is that most of the other big names in Gender and Queer Studies like Claire Potter are rabid opponents of BDS. Often making false claims that it requires a boycott against individual scholars rather than institutions. They then use this lie to claim that it is totally different from the boycott against South Africa so they are justified in having a double standard.
PEP is very hip and trendy.
if that were the case they would be self identifying as peps, they aren’t. or didn’t you notice.
No of course not because “progressives” do not believe that Palestine is a progressive cause. They believe that the Palestinian Arabs are reactionaries that deserve to be displaced by the “progressive” Jews. Look at all the claims since 1948 at how Zionism is a “National Liberation Movement”, how Israel supports Gay Rights, how Israel embodies “progressive” values of tolerance, democracy, etc. Contrast this with the propaganda that the Arabs are religious fanatics, women haters, and homophobes. Currently the big thing is to link the Mufti to the Nazis. In the 1940s the in thing was to link the Arabs to British Imperialism. But, the key point is always to show the Arabs as on the extreme right and the Zionists as “progressive.”
Being pro-Israel is considered integral part of being a hip and trendy “progressive” in the US.
really? trendy? where did you hear this? do you live here? can you link to a “progressive” you think is a model for these alleged “progressives”.are you completely out of touch with what’s been happening on california campuses? or don’t they qualify as ‘hip’ or ‘trendy’. who are the trendsetters in your eyes?
Annie Robbins says: “…really? trendy? where did you hear this? do you live here? can you link to a “progressive” you think is a model for these alleged “progressives”.”
Yeah. That seems pretty dated to me as well. I’ve often commented on the distinctly reluctant quality of Jewish support for Israel among the Jews I know, and those Jews are above all progressive Jews. As to gentiles, either they’re like you, or at least they readily grant that Israel is utterly wrong if they consider the matter.
Support for Israel is pretty much ‘conservative’ at this point. There are still people who are ‘progressive’ otherwise but are closet Israel lovers — but it’s actually far-right wing nutters of one flavor or another who are the big Israel fans.
The so called “pro-Israel” stance has been more to those in the political right and religious Christian Americans.
The left are almost all anti-Israel/pro-”Palestine” especially on university campuses.
Supporting Israel has never been “less trendy.”
I named one in my original comment, Claire Potter also known as “the Tenured Radical.” A huge name professor in Gender and Queer Studies who is a militant opponent of BDS.
You don’t seem to have much idea of what ‘progressive’ means. Or maybe you are being sarcastic. Who knows, it is pretty impossible to decipher any sense from your comment.
Ridiculous. If Pohl was correct, why weren’t the votes there for the DNC vote on Jerusalem?
Oops, I am not sure how I messed up the grammar on that first comment so badly. I meant “an integral part” and “not politically correct.”
the grammar in that comment is the least of what’s wrong with it.
It still makes no sense whatsoever.
love red hot /c///
but will never give them a dime
Anyway, going up to the Solano Stroll today. Last year we had a ‘Stand with Us’ table, a ‘J Street’ table, and a ‘Friends of Sabeel’ (‘Friends’ being a pro-Palestinian Christian group) table.
We’ll see how it goes this year.
when artists boycott it really only matters after a boycott has already picked up steam and then the mass avoidance by artists has a big impact – the boycott of apartheid israel is still spotty and Red Hot Chili Peppers were always overrated, are not artistically relevant anymore, and are not the sharpest tools in the shed intellectually so it is doubtful any of them have much understanding at all, let alone nuanced understanding of the political issues behind the boycott … if they could be shown just a few videos of the endless atrocities israel visits upon the Palestinians that should be enough to get them to join the boycott – if not, then they are callous or on the wrong side by choice
‘Artists’ are not ipso facto moral paragons — witness Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. It can be troubling to realize someone whose work you admire is not necessarily a good person — but it happens. My wife goes through this all the time. ‘I’m not going to watch him. He’s a perverso…wow, that was a good movie.’
We just went through that with ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.’ Allen’s a great film-maker — whatever you may think of dumping the wife in favor of the daughter.
I wonder just how much the RHCP are being paid for this gig? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s simply a matter of the money being too good for a fading band that’s probably suddenly realized it should have set aside some of the money that was rolling in when the times were good. Certainly there’s a pattern of performers who are basically past it suddenly popping up in Israel and doing a gig. Hey: if you don’t actually care enough, and you’re broke enough…
One gets something similar with headline acts at Las Vegas. Of course, Las Vegas is merely tacky — but the principle’s the same.
…In this connection, it’ll be interesting to see if Woody Allen takes Israel up on that ‘all expenses paid if you film here’ offer. He’ll sink pretty low — but will he sink that low?
I agree. Are we supposed to leave Heidegger’s work out of the canon because of his Nazi activities? Or are Mondoweissers not supposed to read Middlemarch because George Eliot was a Zionist? The answer has to be no.
If you remember there were also boycotts held by world jewry during the early thirties trying to call attention to the rising Hitlerian regime.
Now the boycotts are held on behalf of palestinian peoplehood by objectors of conscience.
There are differences and there are similarities.
“…If you remember there were also boycotts held by world jewry during the early thirties trying to call attention to the rising Hitlerian regime…”
You know, what’s interesting about that is that it really bugged the Nazis, too.
…and it influenced their behavior. It’s obscured by later events, but the thirties were marked by ebbs and surges in Nazi misconduct, abandonment of boycotts, attempts to make German Jews agree they weren’t being mistreated, laying off in the run up to the Berlin Olympics, etc.
Obviously, it would be an exaggeration to say it worked — but Israel doesn’t have Germany’s flexibility. She can’t say ‘well, we’re just going to conquer everybody. How do ya like them apples?’
She’s got no out. If international pressure on her is increased, she can pick between increasing isolation and increasing attempts to placate the critics.
The movement to boycott Nazi Germany was a movement not of that fictional concept “world Jewry” but of left-wing anti-fascists, many of them Jewish but many of them not. The Zionist movement strongly opposed the boycott, as demanded of them by the Nazis in exchange for various benefits. The German Zionists were especially zealous in defending Nazi interests up to 1939 (otherwise they would have been suppressed).
Stephen Shenfield: “The movement to boycott Nazi Germany was a movement not of that fictional concept “world Jewry”…”
I agree. However, your comment does make me think of something.
Isn’t there a logical inconsistency between arguing against the reality of ‘world Jewry’ and at the same time insisting that this non-existent ‘world Jewry’ is a single people whose rightful home is Palestine?
The same people who would insist that there is such a corporate entity as ‘the Jews’ when it comes to their right to seize Palestine for themselves would find any such references to ‘the Jews’ as a corporate entity noxious in other contexts.
The paradigm necessary to anti-semitism is also necessary to Israel. ‘The Jews’ need to be seen as a nation, as a corporate entity. Neither ideology makes sense absent that.
@ ColinWright
“World Jewry”? How about “Judea”? Is that singular enough? A Boycott of German goods was announced by many claiming to speak for all Jews everwhere, apparently commencing in 1933 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor (as a way to buy off his party’s growing power, shown by getting 37% of the vote in the ’32 legislative elections).
link to wintersonnenwende.com
A notable exception to the declared boycott by Jews claiming to speak in the name of all Jews at the time were the Zionist Jews.
Isn’t there a logical inconsistency between arguing against the reality of ‘world Jewry’ and at the same time insisting that this non-existent ‘world Jewry’ is a single people whose rightful home is Palestine?
Not to the Zionists. They view the Diaspora as something similar to a spawning ground that functions like a hatchery or fishery devoted to raising and harvesting Jews on their behalf. Israeli Supreme Court President Shimon Agranat ruled that:
Learn it. Know it. Live it;-)
Citizen says: “…@ ColinWright
“World Jewry”? How about “Judea”? Is that singular enough? A Boycott of German goods was announced by many claiming to speak for all Jews everwhere…”
Well, I’m not sure Jews everywhere shouldn’t have tried to mobilize against Naziism — and if gentiles of good will joined in, so much the better.
What would you have? Jews should have said, ‘it would be wrong for us to see ourselves as a group and seek to avoid extermination. Mustn’t remind anyone we’re Jewish’?
I’m merely struck by the contradiction between ‘there is no such thing as world Jewry,’ and ‘the Jews are a national group whose home should be Palestine.’ It seems to me it should be impossible for someone to logically advocate both those positions at the same time — yet I am certain I could readily find plenty who have both furiously objected to references to ‘world Jewry’ and at the same time are pious Zionists.
If PEP were trendy you would see more Hollywood types coming out in support of Israel. Instead, I think most actors don’t want to touch this issue with a ten foot pole. I think it’s safe to say that pro-Palestine activism could be a career killer in Hollywood, just like coming out of the closet is a no-no for most of the A Listers.
There was a three hour “happy 50th birthday Israel” extravaganza on CBS in 1998. Stevie Wonder, Dustin Hoffman and some other stars were in it. I have no idea what these people’s beliefs are but I have to assume that at least some of them were asked to be in this and thought it would look bad if they turned it down.
I think a lot of the musicians are probably clueless about I/P. Witness Jello Biafra’s confusion when BDS and fans started lobbying him not to perform in Israel. Madonna doesn’t strike me as particularly “deep” on this issue or any other. What pisses me off more is people like Margaret Atwood who know exactly what they’re doing and don’t seem to care.
1998 was a long time ago. Back then, I probably disapproved of Israel’s behavior — but I doubt if I thought it shouldn’t exist. Probably ‘withdraw to the 1967 borders’ blah blah blah.
…if I thought about it at all.
Things change. Israel makes more fans with every passing year.
@ColinWright
Personally I think the first Intifada was the point where large numbers of people started to become aware that something was seriously wrong with Israel. Before that, it was considered an extreme fringe position to suggest that the PLO was anything other than a terror group. By 1998 there was plenty of evidence out there for those who wanted to look, but by that time many had been lulled into the opium trance of the peace process. Oslo was disastrous on so many different levels.
I should hope so. During the first intifada, there was a guy….his name was Yitzhak Rabin….who was responsible for the “Broken Bones Policy”…basically smash the bones of any Arab as punishment for revolting. It led to an unusually high number of physically and mentally disabled Palestinians….years later…the terrorist ethnic cleanser was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
“There was a three hour “happy 50th birthday Israel” extravaganza on CBS in 1998. Stevie Wonder, Dustin Hoffman and some other stars were in it. ”
(Chinese Box)
Lara Fabian participated in Israel’s 60th in Paris, sang in Hebrew and shouted “I love you Israel” on stage. Because of it, this year, BDS activists campaigning in Beirut to stop her from performing there succeeded in getting her to cancel her 2 concerts in February. A couple of years back, BDS also succeeded in getting Gad Elmaleh and Placebo to cancel. Some efforts succeed and some don’t. It failed with RHCP this week and in the past year, it couldn’t sway or prevent from performing Shakira, Van Buuren or Tiesto.
A Lebanese promoter is suing the Beirut BDS activists for having succeeded in preventing the concert by Placebo. From activist Samah Idriss being sued in al-Akhbar interview:
“… Idriss, who is also editor-in-chief of al-Adab magazine, offered an alternate perspective on the validity of boycotting groups like Placebo. “The band performed in Tel Aviv shortly after the offensive against the Mavi Marmara flotilla. This is a blatant disregard to the crimes committed by the [Israeli] occupation.” He continued, “If we choose to adopt the same logic as that of the plaintiff, we can say that the band’s concert in Israel, which was attended by 7,000 people, brought over US$3 million to the Israeli organizers and Israeli tourism. Hence, artists who perform in Israel not only participate in whitewashing the crimes of the Zionist entity, they also provide financial revenues to Israel. The cultural, artistic, and academic boycotts of Israel do not only serve to morally expose Israeli crimes; they also represent an effort to reduce financial support for Israel.”
link to english.al-akhbar.com
From a review of the Beirut concert this week:
“The build up to the long anticipated Red Hot Chili Peppers gig in Beirut was partly over-shadowed by the news that local darlings Mashrou’ Leila had pulled out of their opening slot as a protest to the band’s refusal to boycott their gig in Tel Aviv. While tweeters and bloggers fought over the net with some suggesting Mashrou’ Leila had been bullied into the decision, Pindoll came to stand in and the night carried on as planned.
There was no sign of the rumoured ‘Boycott Israel’ protest. Besides a few Palestinian flags fluttering among a sea of people and a banner reading ‘Fight the brave, don’t be a slave, don’t play in T.A’, the atmosphere was far from political…”
link to timeoutbeirut.com
Bravo to Mashrou’ Leila
“What pisses me off more is people like Margaret Atwood who know exactly what they’re doing and don’t seem to care.” (chinese box)
That’s unfair to a great writer and a great Canadian, most probably brought on by her refusal to heed the Palestinian students’ call for her to turn down the Dan David literary prize and the half-million dollars that come with it because it had some strings to TAU attached to it. Some people’s knowledge of her started and ended with the Israeli literary prize but little is known of what she she is really about; Eleanor Kilroy had a small piece up about her on Mondo last year. Shortly after the prize controversy, she wrote a small essay on what she called a shadow looming over Israel and of her unease at being in that country and what Israelis are inflicting on the Palestinians.
From “The Shadow” that appeared in Haaretz:
“… But… there was the Shadow. Why was everything trembling a little, like a mirage? Was it like that moment before a tsunami when the birds fly to the treetops and the animals head for the hills because they can feel it coming?
“Every morning I wake up in fear,” someone told me. “That’s just self-pity, to excuse what’s happening,” said someone else. Of course, fear and self-pity can both be real. But by “what’s happening,” they meant the Shadow.
I’d been told ahead of time that Israelis would try to cover up the Shadow, but instead they talked about it non-stop. Two minutes into any conversation, the Shadow would appear. It’s not called the Shadow, it’s called “the situation.” It haunts everything.
The Shadow is not the Palestinians. The Shadow is Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, linked with Israeli’s own fears. The worse the Palestinians are treated in the name of those fears, the bigger the Shadow grows, and then the fears grow with them; and the justifications for the treatment multiply.
… The most virulent language was truly anti-Semitic (as opposed to the label often used to deflect criticism). There were hot debates among activists about whether boycotting Israel would “work,” or not; about a one-state or else a two-state solution; about whether a boycott should exclude culture, as it is a bridge, or was that hypocritical dreaming? Was the term “apartheid” appropriate, or just a distraction? What about “de-legitimizing” the State of Israel? Over the decades, the debate had acquired a vocabulary and a set of rituals that those who hadn’t hung around universities – as I had not — would simply not grasp.
Some kindly souls, maddened by frustration and injustice, began by screaming at me; but then, deciding I suppose that I was like a toddler who’d wandered into traffic, became very helpful. Others dismissed my citing of International PEN and its cultural-boycott-precluding efforts to free imprisoned writers as irrelevant twaddle. (An opinion cheered by every repressive government, extremist religion, and hard-line political group on the planet, which is why so many fiction writers are banned, jailed, exiled, and shot.)
None of this changes the core nature of the reality, which is that the concept of Israel as a humane and democratic state is in serious trouble. Once a country starts refusing entry to the likes of Noam Chomsky, shutting down the rights of its citizens to use words like “Nakba,” and labelling as “anti-Israel” anyone who tries to tell them what they need to know, a police-state clampdown looms. Will it be a betrayal of age-old humane Jewish traditions and the rule of just law, or a turn towards reconciliation and a truly open society?
Time is running out. Opinion in Israel may be hardening, but in the United States things are moving in the opposite direction. Campus activity is increasing; many young Jewish Americans don’t want Israel speaking for them. America, snarled in two chaotic wars and facing increasing international anger over Palestine, may well be starting to see Israel not as an asset but as a liability.”
link to haaretz.com
Walid says: “…That’s unfair to a great writer and a great Canadian, most probably brought on by her refusal to heed the Palestinian students’ call for her to turn down the Dan David literary prize and the half-million dollars that come with it …”
…but she took the half-million dollars. That’s understandable, but hardly praiseworthy. Myself, I’m not sure what I would do. Certainly take it — what to then do with it isn’t as clear.
“What pisses me off more is people like Margaret Atwood who know exactly what they’re doing and don’t seem to care.”
china box, if you knew a bit more about how Atwood feels about Israel and what it’s doing to the Palestinians, you would be a little less pissed-off; she cares more than you know. The prize was just a minor road bump.
The Chili Peppers haven’t had a decent album since Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991. Madonna hasn’t had a decent album since Like a Prayer in ’89. Do we really care if these has-beens play in Israel?
By the way, the last time I checked, there’s no agreement between Israel and Lebanon. Anyone who has a Lebanese stamp in his American passport can’t enter Israel and certainly anyone who has an Israeli stamp in his American passport can’t enter Lebanon….unless of course, you have 2 different passports. I wonder how the Flea and his friends plan on circumventing that problem?
Border agents of both countries wave stamping the passports. A separate loose paper is stamped to record the entry and used to exit.
More on not getting a passport stamped.
From a travel blog:
“… In the end, avoiding the stamp was easy. At the passport control booth at Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv, I politely asked the officer not to stamp my book. She stopped and looked at me. “Why don’t you want me to stamp it” she asked.
I told her that as a travel writer, my work often took me to different countries. She told me that while she didn’t have an extra piece of paper, she would stamp an entry card for me.
link to caroundtheworld.com
and another:
“… Before handing your passports you must tell the immigration officer that you do not want your passports to be stamped. He/she will ask you if there is any reason for that. Just tell them you need to visit other countries in the Middle East (or another reason like visiting Dubai etc) and that is it. They will stamp a very loose paper (small in size) which is the size of an immigration stamp and they will enclose that with your passport.
We also noted that almost everyone who stood in front of us carried a loose paper when they left the immigration counter. ”
link to tripadvisor.ca
But stamp or no stamp, it’s best to not go at all to that wicked place.
They’re overrated, like U2. And that boring “Under the Bridge” song was way overplayed on the radio in the 90s.
Let us not forget that in that vibrant only democracy in the Middle East the boycott cannot be discusssed. Not even mentioned.
Yes, the Israeli Anti-Boycott Law was passed in July 2011 and actually criminalizes actions of BDS or in support of BDS not just against Israel proper but also against West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.
“…makes it a civil offence to call for an economic, cultural, or academic boycott of people or institutions in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) for political reasons. Anyone making such calls could face a lawsuit and other financial penalties.” – from link to bdsmovement.net
So in light of this law…and others…it often amazes me that Israel has the gall to tout itself as the only “western democracy” in the Middle East when really its just another 3rd world fascist state which denies social, cultural, human and civil rights for those determined as the “others” and represses their freedoms of expression. In reality, its only a “democracy” if you fit the proper characteristics of an Israeli which is basically anyone who’s Jewish, White, Non-Arab, fiercely Nationalistic and Obedient.
It really is laughable, isn’t it. Segregated schools, landlords who won’t rent to Arabs (does Israel even have fair housing laws?). Oh well. Plenty of Communist countries labelled themselves democracies too.
Oh if it was only limited to the examples you’ve mentioned. It almost reminds me of a certain, shall we say “reich” that governed Germany in the 1940s.