Paul McCartney is playing Tel Aviv. Or will he. First, McCartney faced the ire of anti-Israel musicians and friends for booking a gig in Israel. But he was not deterred. Then he faced threats by anti-Israel groups – still he has not budged. He likes Israel andwants to bring a peace message. And now he faces threats by terror organizations. JPost reports:
McCartney Warned against Israel Show
Former Beatle Paul McCartney’s decision to perform in Tel Aviv has turned him into the target of a terror attack following a threat made against the singer by extremist Islamic leader Omar Bakri.
His planned participation in a concert celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary has made him the enemy of all Muslims, British tabloid Sunday Express quoted Bakri as saying.
Bakri’s threat was made in a weekly internet broadcast from Lebanon, where he has lived in exile since being banned from returning to Britain. The 48-year-old Syrian national questioned the Holocaust’s authenticity, and asked how McCartney could participate in the celebration of the independence of the Jewish state.
“Instead of supporting the people of Palestine in their suffering, McCartney is celebrating the atrocities of the occupiers. The one who is under occupation is supposed to be getting the help,” Bakri said. “Our enemy’s friend is our enemy,” the Muslim leader told the Sunday Express in an interview.
“Thus Paul McCartney is the enemy of every Muslim. We have what we call ‘sacrifice’ operatives who will not stand by while he joins in a celebration of their oppression. If he values his life Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel. He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him.”
McCartney, who was apparently shocked by the threat, was determined
to perform in Israel and refused to cancel his show. His spokesman responded by saying that McCartney intended to come with a “message of peace”. On Saturday, McCartney said he was approached by several political groups who asked him to cancel the trip but he declined.
Blah, blah, blah. You’ve obviously never been to either place, Anomalous. There are plenty of South Africans who dispute the apartheid analogy just as there are plenty of doctrinaire SA former militants who are now in positions of power and therefore are natural allies for the Palestinians. The facts remain that much of the “segregation” of which you speak is defense oriented and wouldn’t even exist if the Palestinians were actually ready to make peace with a two state solution. Go back to 2000 and the post-Camp-David war the Palestinians launched and you see the beginning of their current situation.
I will correct you on one serious error of yours, however. Historically and to the present day in fact, Israel has permitted Moslems and Christian Arabs to live as citizens within Israel. In my recent travels there, I saw booming villages with huge, new houses and plenty of expensive cars driven by these Arab Israeli citizens. That alone speaks to your spurious and false charge of genocide or potential genocide. But I’ll go further and take you into the Territories, where the Palestinians’ own government agencies report the ever-growing population which they claim has now surpassed 3 million. They have a higher birth rate than Israelis, and ever since Israel took over in 1967, Palestinian mortality rates and longevity have improved considerably and almost to Western standards. Genocide my ass.
As for ethnic cleansing, I encourage you to read the history books. Not a single Jew was permitted to stay and live in Jordanian controlled Palestine after 1948 and not a single Jew was permitted to stay and live in Gaza in 2005. In both cases, the Arab governments of the Jordanians and Palestinians insisted that not a single Jew remain and used force in 1948 to ensure this outcomes. On the other hand, the supposedly ethnic cleansing Jews of Israel permitted 100,000 – one 7th of the population – Arabs to remain in Israel in 1948 and that number has since ballooned to 1.3 million with generous grants and subsidies to these Arab families who received stipends for every child above 3 whom they brought into the world, just like Israel’s Jewish citizens.
Paul McCartney has a much better handle on the situation and its moral construct than you, Anomalous.
I find it terrifically amusing the way all these robotic zionists get all heated up by each others company and attack en masse.
I guess I need to say it again. Israel, because of its criminal policies is rightfully a pariah state. If – as most of the world’s cultural giants, writers, artists, musicians concluded 2 decades ago – it was immoral to legitimize the Apartheid regime in South Africa by performing in, and bringing in economic revenue, then it is only that much more overwhelmingly correct to draw the same conclusion concerning Israel. South African envoys, upon visiting the Occupied Territories, quite routinely report that the current state of racial subjugation is far worse for Palestinians than it ever was for blacks under apartheid. The difference, they explain, is that under South Africa the goal was simply separation, while the Zionist regime seems to be dreaming of the total absence, annullment, and erasure of the non-Jewish presence in Palestine. This is why genocide monitoring agencies categorize Israel’s relationship to Palestinians as an advanced stage six genocide (stage seven being actual mass liquidation, and stage eight being denial).
Paul McCartney is free to do what he likes, as is any artist. And I am free to express my disgust for his decision to be a headliner at a “celebration” of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel 60 years ago. Ethnic cleansing is nothing to celebrate.
Well, seeing as how the Barbary Wars started in the Mediterranean, I think an allusion to McCartney’s surviving a heist by a modern-day pirate is called for. Although the one-legged bandit who swindled McCartney was allowed to make off with quite a bit of cash, I think it put McCartney in a good frame of mind to sympathize with other victims of terror and stand up to extortion generally.
XisnotX,
I side with Israel completely, feel free to assume that I agree with everything any Israeli does if you must.
Which generalizations?
“No stupid generalizations”
what were yours, then, smart ones?
I found two of my posts, with comments, that deal with a musician and the Israel-Arab conflict:
https://jewlicious.com/?p=709
https://jewlicious.com/?p=1356
What did Anomalous say?
“obscene national apartheid”
“endless military occupations”
“quite rightfully the shame of the entire world”
“this gaggle of ethnic cleansers”
He’s talking about all Israelis, Xisnotx. Ignore the moronic hyperbole, the lies, the misleading use of language, the disingenuous use of hot button phrases and the immoral focus on Israel while ignoring both Palestinian actions and the far worse actions by many countries other than Israel. We’re talking about a musician who believes that engagement and dialogue are a better way to bring about peace than boycotts and angry frothing statements. He sees music as a healing and positive thing. In the manner that Anomalous uses to attack McCartney, he is definitely taking sides.
Well, actually, I don’t try to stop musicians from visiting Palestinian areas, unlike Anomalous who advocates this behaviour for musicians visiting Israel.
Even if I were trying to stop musicians from visiting Palestinian areas, I wouldn’t justify my position by saying that such a visit rewards all Palestinians when, in fact, they are a group responsible for the murderous terrorists in their midst. I don’t say the Palestinians should be ignored by musicians because they brought about this conflict, caused the war in 1948 and maintain their refugee status and violent posture despite ample opportunities to move on. No stupid generalizations, no false tales, no ridiculous statements and no attempts to equate musicians with “ethnic cleansing.”
See a difference?
relativity isn’t the point. If TM is gonna take “sides,” does he become responsible for everything anyone claims to do in the name of his “side?”
Please. You can’t honestly draw any moral relativity there.
“But that’s the side he chooses. ”
gimme a break, TM. should you be held responsible for settler violence?
touche Middle. always pointed out the hard to see but immediately obvious 🙂
you should be in advertising, when you’re not busy pointing out the stupidity of anti semites!
Anomalous says:
“Obviously the death threat business is disgusting, immoral and totally inappropriate.”
But that’s the side he chooses. Talk about disgusting and immoral.
My mom loves the Beatles. I’m into them, but I’m so stoked that Israelis who grew up listening to ’em can actually hear em live.
If they can afford the tickets.
AnomalousNYC: Man, you don’t know from ethnic cleansing. Or Apartheid. I envy your ignorance – I hope you never know frist hand what that really entails, even if it means that you are going to continue spouting nonsense.
Ano, I then suggest you kindly refrain from using technologies invented in Israel, which include mobile phone technology as well as a large aray of Intel’s processors, medical treatments etc.; your purchasing respectively investing in those might, afterall, support the economy of a state you so greatly despise. Instead, since you seem to be focused on justice and justice towards minorities in particular, you might want to consider making donations to the Christian minority among Palestinians the numbers of which have been dwindling thanks to repressive actions carried out against them by part of the Muslim majority.
Obviously the death threat business is disgusting, immoral and totally inappropriate.
As is McCartney’s decision to play in Tel Aviv.
Israel, because of its obscene national apartheid and its endless military occupations, is quite rightfully the shame of the entire world. If McCartney is so desperate for cash that he’ll cozy up to this gaggle of ethnic cleansers in exchange for a few bloody shekels, then he I hope he gets paid well, because he’ll never get another penny from me.
Haha. Good point Tim! I hope the audience in Tel Aviv surrounds and protects Paul. Love and good security are all you need.
It sure doesn’t take much to become “an enemy of all Muslims” these days
Just as long as he doesn’t pull an erika badu I’m happy. Oh, and screw yoko! Artist my ass!
I am glad he’s going forward and not backing down. Again with the fear– you have to braver than your fears to invoke true change. Yes? Yes.
Could somebody break the message to Bakri that if the rich Muslim Middle Eastern oil nations don’t care to support the Palestinians “in their suffering”, given the importance of religious brotherhood Islamists like pointing out, it takes a lot of chupze to ask this support from any non-Muslim. That said, should anything happen to Sir Paul, the ire of the entire Western world and, I dare add, large parts of the civilized Muslim world, will turn to against the terrorists and their supporters. And that would include a lot of housewives in their fifties and sixties that were teenagers during the Beatles’ heydays. Considering the hate Yoko Ono’s faced from that demographic for allegedly being the catalysator in breaking up the Beatles, Bakri better be afraid.
Wow, ethical and courageous.