Witty and pertinent observations on matters of great significance
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All of the aboveGuns and Rosin
For the three immigrants, carrying a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other is the ultimate Zionist statement.
Probably just as well they won't be playing Tippett then (he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during WW2). Or Beethoven (they'd have to forget the Ode to Joy, or his tearing out of the dedication of the Eroica on hearing of Napoleon's imperial ambition).
Last year they were inducted into the Israeli Defense Forces and endured a month of basic training. Bressler (second violin) says his only fear then was that something would happen to his hands.
Yes, punching Palestinians at checkpoints can be hazardous to those of refined sensibilities.
Say no to Israeli riflemen-violinists in Edinburgh
Queen’s Hall Fri 29 Aug 10am
And before the usual chorus of accusations of anti-semitism weighs in, I have no problem with Jewish musicians. Indeed, if I did I wouldn't get to hear very much music. On Thursday I shall be attending Alfred Brendel's recital in the Usher Hall. However, to the best of my knowledge the Jerusalem Quartet are unique in proudly proclaiming their militaristic associations. Alfred Brendel, I gather, does not play the piano with a (metaphorical) rifle in one hand, or even stashed under his stool.
Perhaps the reason why the JQ are Israel's only professional string quartet is that the thousands of other talented Jewish chamber musicians prefer to work somewhere where they are not co-opted as propaganda tools for ethnic cleansing.
I shall be at the Usher Hall the night after the Jerusalem Quartet's concert, to hear Tippett's A Child Of Our Time, a masterpiece inspired by an act of collective punishment. I wish I thought the four "Distinguished Musicians" in the IDF would stay in Edinburgh long enough to hear a truly distinguished musician's excoriation of what has been standard IDF procedure in the Occupied Territories for over forty years.
Update: A protest took place. While I have, as you may imagine, every sympathy with the picketers outside, the disruption inside was probably counter-productive. Yelling "Judas" at Dylan didn't do him any harm, after all. Not to mention the fact that to protest inside you have to have bought tickets costing at least £7, probably more, thus subsidising the quartet about which you are complaining.
posted by Rob @ 01:26
4 Comments:
Okay, so this means you're either involved with, or simplistic enough to swallow wholesale the propaganda of, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Don't you feel an obligation to check your facts before posting your sophomore drivel?
Gosh, does the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Society Campaign write for the Jewish News of Southern Phoenix? Because that's where the remarks I took exception to were published. (I stole the graphic from some site or other, very possibly the SPSSC's: so sue me.) That being so, which "facts" are you accusing me of having got wrong? I even checked what programme they were playing. You, on the other hand, simply make wild assumptions and accuse me of "sophomore drivel" (from which I infer you're an American). Well, buddy, it's all true, and I published it over my own name (unlike your pseudonymous comment). If you don't like it, run and cry to your Mum.
"Run and cry to your Mum"? "Buddy"? As well as being puerile, mistaken in your inference, then childishly insulting about that putative nationality (although what relevance this has escapes me, unless you also infer I'm part of a US-backed international Zionist conspiracy), the facts you failed to check or note include that one member of the quartet works with Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, not exactly a Zionist front, and that serving in the Israeli army is scant indication of anyone's political views. What you did was lift a couple of pieces of propaganda - one claiming the musicians were dedicated to nothing but the greater glory of greater Israel, the other a cheap and nasty graphic suggesting they were involved in some murderous cultural offensive against the Palestinian people - and add your own lazy slogans. Now run and bleat to your blog, you self-important bourgeois bore.
Ok, so you're not an American. How have I been insulting, childishly or otherwise, about America? Do explain, oh all-knowing one. Insulting about you, certainly: you're a cowardly fool who hides behind a pretentious pseudonym (and Kids often run to Mummy). You also don't know the difference between "infer" and "imply" (get a grown-up to explain it). Hell, no: the average (even the below-average) American gets far more respect from me than you're ever likely to see.
Serving in the IDF may not indicate one's political views, but proudly acting as a "Distinguished Musician" for it suggests a degree of support for what it does, no? and what it does is mostly an illegal military occupation, which you may have
heard about. Forgive me if I fail to cheer.
If you checked you own facts a little better you would have noticed that TWO members (not one) of the quartet are members of Baremboim's East-West Divan Orchestra (or possibly past members): Amichai Gross and Kiril Zlotnikov. I support them in that, but it isn't Barenboim's orchestra to whose appearance I am objecting, but that of the Jerusalem Quartet, IDF poster-boys. If I were to object only to the presence of its violinists would you be happier? (Actually now I look again that's exactly what the "nasty graphic" does object to.)
And if the article I cited was propaganda then it was Israeli propaganda (the word I believe is "hasbara") rather than anything from the Palestinian side. What part of "Jewish News of Greater Phoenix" do you not understand? If the JQ are content to be praised in those terms (and I have found no suggestion that they have complained that they were misquoted or misrepresented) then they will have to take the consequences.
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