As you will see from this Video I found from YouTube, last night, the Proms were disrupted by protesters. The reason was simple: the BBC had dared to invite the renowned conductor Zubin Mehta and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra to perform at the Royal Albert Hall.
Hard-line pro-Palestinian activists started shouting at the Israelis on stage. It is both sad and fascinating that they saw this act of cultural vandalism as a way of making their opposition to all things Israeli, all too clear. What was heartening was the response of most of the audience, who booed the protesters and shouted 'out, out, out', until they were eventually removed by security.
Cultural vandalism can be quite chilling. Its most extreme proponent in the last Century was Goebbels, who burnt any books with a Jewish association, whether it was the authors or in the writings. Its most stupid is Dunbartonshire Council which has sought to ban Israeli books from its Libraries.
Nevertheless, the fundamentals are the same: an attempt to shut down Jewish culture.
A couple of other points are worth noting: First, Zubin Mehta and the IPO have made great strides in building better relations between Jews and Arabs. Mr Mehta has started a special education project for this purpose - a fact wilfully ignored by the activists. Second, is it not astonishing that whilst President Assad has been murdering his way through Syria, there has been barely a peep of protest from these kind of people. It is just Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East -that is the focus of their hate.
P.S. Apparently, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign called for the Concert to be boycotted. If you want to understand the motivations of the PSC, have a look at this post from the left wing blog 'Harry's Place', here.
This makes interesting reading as well.
by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com
