Palestinian Solidarity Campaign disrupts Israeli Concert. Yeah!!!

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From the BBC. I can't tell you how proud I feel to be British, and a member of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign right now. Hopefully this will bring the plight of the Palestinians to the public's attention, and strengthen the Israeli Boycott.

Quote:

Anti-Israel protests disrupt BBC Proms concert

A group of about 20 people had gathered outside the hall to protest the appearance of the orchestra
Protesters have disrupted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's BBC Proms concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Several demonstrators in the hall shouted as Zubin Mehta stood to conduct Bruch's violin concerto. The rest of the audience booed in response.

BBC Radio 3 said it had to interrupt its live broadcast twice "as a result of sustained audience disturbance".

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign had earlier called on people to boycott the concert and urged the BBC to cancel it.

In a statement published on its website ahead of the Proms, the pro-Palestinian group claimed the IPO showed "complicity in whitewashing Israel's persistent violations of international law and human rights".

The BBC Proms Team tweeted: "We're sorry that the concert was taken off air following hall disturbance. Glad both pieces were heard by the audience in the RAH."

It later added: "We regret that as a result of sustained audience disturbance tonight's concert was taken off BBC Radio 3."

The performance, which consisted of four parts, was interrupted at about 19:45 BST and coverage was cut off again an hour later after more protests.

A spokeswoman for BBC Proms said it appeared each piece had been targeted by different protesters seated around the hall.

She said the broadcaster was "disappointed" the coverage had been taken off air but said the performance had continued in the hall.

About 30 people were removed by security but there were no arrests and no violence, she said.

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@izzythepush,

it never will cause no one watches it except for the upper class rich who dont give a **** about Palestine never mind their own lower class people who needed to loot and riot to raise a point that the government was punishing them for in a bid to save the bankers and is now looking too ban the means of communication that they praised is Egypt, Tunsia and Libya revolts. wake up u have no chance to save Palestine.

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@BDV,

People said the same thing about Egypt and Libya.

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In my opinion, it is risible that there is so much concern about Israel's treatment towards the Palestineans, but so little activism towards the slaughter in the Middle East from rulers that do not care for their population protesting the political situation. Perhaps, protesting against Jews is just too important to some folks to be concerned about real atrocities?

By the way, has there ever been a definitive explanation as to who the Palestinean people are? Were they a people under the Ottoman Turkish rule? I would hate to think the Palestineans have been posing as a people, only to prove that Britain should not have allowed Jews to have a homeland. Considering Europe was collectively appreciative, in my opinion, of the Final Solution, putting the Jews, after WWII, in Palestine was the only decent thing to do, so Europe could have "closure" on its participation in the Holocaust, and get about rebuilding itself, and living without Jews mucking up another Christmas by their presence. [Sarcasm was meant.]

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@Foofie,

This is not about Jews. This is about the way the Palestinians are being persecuted on a day to day basis. This is about the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Israel likes to paint itself as a democracy fighting terrorists, but it's not. It is a brutal oppressor, just like apartheid South Africa.
And like apartheid South Africa it needs to be reminded that it is not part of the free world. This was a good reminder, next we need to look to the European cup and the Eurovision song contest.

Note, peaceful protests, no arrests.

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Allowing the Zionist to establish and maintain a necessarily discriminatory and oppressive ethnocentric state is the quintessential example of socio/psychological enabling of problematic behavior caused by post-traumatic stress disorder, and the corrosive harm it causes. The issues that many of the Israeli Ashkenazim have in regard to the Holocaust and European anti-Semitism would have begun to be dealt with much more constructively had they been given the incentive to create and granted an inclusive, pluralistic and egalitarian state incorporating all of the peoples of Palestine instead of the exclusivist state that they were allowed to created based on seething indignation. Unfortunately, the mindset in Europe in regard to states and nations at the time during which the UN passed its resolution 181 was one of an ethnicity based nationalistic ideology that dated back to the 19th century and infected all the peoples therein including the Ashkenazim themselves and of course the Germans through whom this ideology saw its grossest manifestation. Regrettably, most people today still subscribe to this ideology especially in regard to Zionism (Jewish ethnocentric nationalistic ideology) and the state of Israel, and support its continued existence as the state "for the Jews" with disregard for the rights of the Palestinians and oblivion to the hypocrisy which underlies their selfsame subscription and support.

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@izzythepush,

I can understand why you might feel proud about the antics of a handful of your fellow Palestinian Solidarity Campaigners, but why the pride, based on this story, in being a Brit?

The majority of the audience booed the agitators.

Presumably they were mostly British, but then maybe they were mostly British Jews.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

The majority of the audience booed the agitators.

Maybe, Finn, they were a bunch of cheapskates who felt they deserved to hear their concert, the oppressed be damned.

People, like you, who would have made excuses for keeping whites only water fountains.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I think those who were unhappy were people who had gone to the Proms expecting a concert. I don't think being Jewish had anything to do with it. I'm proud that this happened peacefully. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is committed to non violence.

The BBC was asked to comply with the boycott, and non-violent methods ensured that it did. What was really clever was that the protestors were in groups. They didn't all go off at once, but took shifts, so once the first lot had been removed, and things quietened down, another lot kicked off.

The same methods employed against apartheid South Africa are now being employed against apartheid Israel.

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I started out pro Israel in the sixties and have worked my way around. Liked Blue's post. I've by now gripes re both (many, actually) sides.

On the other hand, I'm sorry the protesters interrupted Mehta. I think that takes righteousness away from the protesters. (I don't like shut downs as a tactic, never have.)

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@Foofie,

That's a hoot, Foofie. Another foofieism. Your pretense that you might actually care about real atrocities - you, a person who regularly makes excuses for the myriad atrocities committed by the US. You have to remember, Foofie, just who it is that has placed and supported those Middle East rulers who slaughter.

It's really quite amazing that you have the chutzpah to even show your face and advance such a notion, but then you have shown that stupidity is one of your long suits.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

On the other hand, I'm sorry the protesters interrupted Mehta. I think that takes righteousness away from the protesters. (I don't like shut downs as a tactic, never have.)

When everyday life is disrupted, people are put out, and an opportunity is missed. This sort of tactic works though, South Africa was most put out by not being able to play test matches. It gets people talking about the issues, and it sends a message to the Israeli public.

Since the 1970s Israel has become more and more right wing. The settler movement has a disproportionate influence over government. Now, things may be changing, working class Israelis are starting to protest about the lack of affordable housing for them, inside Israel proper. These people are starting to see how the actions of the settlers are impacting on them, and the actions in London should bolster that view.

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@izzythepush,

Most ordinary Israelis want what most ordinary people want the world over. Successive governments have pandered to the far-right settler movement and the very rich. The obsession with security may suit those groups, but it pushes ordinary Israelis into poverty. Are they beginning to realise that they've got more in common with the ordinary Palestinians, than the far-right extremists and millionaires who seem to have hijacked this country? I certainly hope so. From the BBC.

Quote:

Israelis have again taken to the streets in mass protests over the high cost of living.

At least 250,000 people joined the protests, with the main rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, although some Israeli media put the turnout as high as 400,000.

They are the latest in a series of protests held throughout the summer.

Many Israelis are angry at the high cost of housing, food, education and health care.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has responded by forming a committee to examine calls for reform, although he has warned he cannot meet all the protesters' demands.

Economic battlefield

The biggest protest on Saturday, part of what organisers had dubbed a Million Man March, appeared to be in Tel Aviv.

Student union president Itzik Shmuli told the crowd: "They told us that the movement was slowing down. Tonight we are showing that it's the opposite. We are the new Israelis, determined to continue the fight for a fairer and better society."

One banner read: "An entire generation wants a future" and another "The land of milk and honey, but not for everybody".

Jonathan Levy, one of the protest organisers, told the BBC: "All the non-rich people in Israel, no matter if they're secular or religious, old or young, realise that we've abandoned some really important battlefields in this country, that is economy, and we only dealt obsessively with security problems."

The BBC's Jon Donnison, in Tel Aviv, says the Israeli government - with its eyes on the impact of people-power elsewhere in the Middle East - has been taken a back by the spontaneity and scale of the demonstrations.

He says many other countries look enviously at Israel's growing economy but people here feel the wealth has not been shared.

Many of the protesters are from a middle class that has had to bear a hefty tax burden and conscription into the services.

The movement began in mid-July - when some Israelis angry at housing costs pitched tents in a Tel Aviv neighbourhood - and has burgeoned.

Mr Netanyahu has appointed a panel of experts to meet protest leaders and assess their demands.

But some demonstrators say this is an attempt to stall.

I wish them well.

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What is needed is for these protesters to form an alliance with the Palestinians. That will mean either that those Palestinians ignore Hamas, or Hamas be somehow brought to renounce the call for the destruction of the Israeli state. That is the "security issue" to which they refer, and which has allowed Israeli governments since 1947 to keep a death grip on political power. So long as a government can claim that the very existence of Israel is at stake, and so long as their stooges in the west can equate opposition to Israeli government policy with anti-semitism, nothing will be done.

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@Setanta,

Hamas isn't the ravenous terrorist beast that it is sometimes portrayed as. Hamas will not renounce calls for the destruction of Israel, in the same way that Gerry Adams would not renounce the idea of a united Ireland.

This is mostly about political posturing, Hamas have announced a desire for ceasefires before, giving terms as long as 20 years. Hamas do stick to ceasefires. Certain announcements become pure rhetoric after a while. Once both Israelis and Palestinians enjoy real peace and security, political posturing will become more and more irrelevant, as people get on with living their lives.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

When everyday life is disrupted, people are put out, and an opportunity is missed. This sort of tactic works though, South Africa was most put out by not being able to play test matches. It gets people talking about the issues, and it sends a message to the Israeli public.

If opportunity is missed then a tactic does not truly work. It may be viewed as working on one side for a select group; but, it has diminished life for others.

Then again, how would you understand it since you've switched from Israel to South Africa and undoubtedly no little or nothing about either.

The United Nations made the initial decision to partition Palestine, take it up with them.

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@Sturgis,

Lets instead talk about what is happening now, not what happened 50 odd years ago. Perhaps talks brokered by the UN would be a good idea. However, I can't see it happening with an idealogue like Netanyahu in charge.

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@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

Then again, how would you understand it since you've switched from Israel to South Africa and undoubtedly no little or nothing about either.

Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't mean that they know nothing. I was closely involved in the anti-apartheid potests against South Africa, and am a member of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. I am not the only one who has likened Israel to apartheid-era South africa.

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@izzythepush,

I will not try to explain this to you. Clearly you are unable to comprehend the fact that the situation of today, is in part from what happened 64 years ago, not '50 odd' as you believe. If you don't even know the timeline, why would I believe you'd have even the slightest inkling as to the history of Israel, Palestine or any other place or how these places came to be? But you go right on ahead spouting your brand of stupidity, I need the amusement.

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@Sturgis,

Sorry 50+ years. I didn't realise you had a problem with the English vernacular. You must have been a great success as a teacher, if you called all your pupils stupid when they did not agree with you.

If you want to talk about history you could start with the Balfour declaration of 1917. That was 94 years ago. Then again, you know best, you've already made your mind up, and your contribution to debate it to call other people stupid.

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Palestinian Solidarity Campaign disrupts Israeli Concert. Yeah!!!

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