_________________________________________"First violin / Prelude to dialogue"
HA'ARETZ
December 24, 2007
Full article on the Web at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/937539.html
Brief excerpts:
"I was shocked to see these walls, it's a new apartheid, barbaric behavior: How can you impose such a collective punishment and separate people? After all, we are all living on the same planet. It seems to me the world should have already learned from what happened in South Africa. And a country that hasn't learned should be boycotted, so that's why I don't perform in your country."
This was the response offered this summer in an interview with Haaretz by internationally renowned British violinist Nigel Kennedy when asked why Israeli impresarios had yet to bring him here despite repeated attempts. Kennedy's comment hit on a facet infrequently discussed when debating the Israel boycott: The cultural boycott and, in particular, the musical boycott.
The automatic responses of boycott opponents weren't long in coming. As usual, they had a hint of insult and victimization. Prominent among them was the accusation of anti-Semitism, a charge immediately leveled against any boycotter...
...Also apparent is mockery of the British hypocrisy (who pick on Israel, while in China and Sudan, for example, far greater crimes are perpetrated), as if the injustices happening there, and also those that Britain itself is still perpetrating, justify or cancel out the tragedy that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians...
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