Quelle Horreur! 100 "Stars" & 600 Spear Carriers Won't Be Going To Israel

My previous post concerns a despicable example of Israel-demonisation at a British Law School.

This one concerns another, if less worrisome, example of Israel-demonisation coming out of the messed-up old Mother Country.

For playing now at The Guardian Theatre of the Absurd is The Peter, Mike, and Miriam Show.

Yes, the cultural boycott of Israel has been declared in a letter to The Guardian, that usual repository of such onslaughts against the little Jewish State, signed by various theatrical, artistic and musical types including a number of "ashamed Jews" with the prominent three whose forenames I give above leading the cast. Peter Kosminsky, Mike Leigh, and Miriam Margolyes (pictured) need no introduction as stars of the anti-Israel pantheon.  (Remember Ray Cook's fabulous post regarding Miriam here ?)

They are among 100 advance guards (the ones whose names are best likely to resonate with the general public) of a 700-strong boycotting brigade – many very small fry indeed, and unlikely to be much missed in Israel or any other overseas or domestic  venue for that matter – have warned (in that typically self-righteous egotistical style that all such statements share) that:

'Along with more than 600 other fellow artists, we are announcing today that we will not engage in business-as-usual cultural relations with Israel. We will accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government.... Now we are saying, in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Ashkelon or Ariel, we won’t play music, accept awards, attend exhibitions, festivals or conferences, run masterclasses or workshops, until Israel respects international law and ends its colonial oppression of the Palestinians.'

 See the full  letter, tweeted so triumphantly by the Lib-Dem baroness above and by the usual suspects in the Israel-demonising movement, here.

 Full list of signatories here

Andy de la Tour

Among the reasons for signing:

People ask – why a cultural boycott of Israel? Why not other regimes? Because Israel has displaced, exiled and imprisoned an entire people, the Palestinians. Because Israel aspires to be a democracy even as it thrives on its apartheid treatment of its non-Jewish citizens. Because Britons have an especial duty to right the historic wrong when Great Britain enabled the occupation of Palestinian land for Zionist settlement. Because the most important Palestinian political and non-governmental organisations have asked us to. Andy de la Tour, actor and writer (See Andy in full anti-American flood here)

As we rightly remember the Holocaust that killed so many Jewish people and destroyed much of Jewish culture across Europe, so we also need to remember the devastating violence being directed at Palestinian people and their culture today – and ponder the disturbing fact that this is being organised by the Jewish state created after World War II.  Ian Christie, cultural historian, broadcaster

Whatever happened to empathy in the Jewish story? Ordinary Israelis, rise up against your warmongering leaders whose actions are wholly lacking in imagination. Guy Sherwin, film artist/performer and teacher

I ask Israel to turn the other cheek, keep your word and forget playing to the politics of selfishness, so that the real world, of which artists are a part, can do the right things to help end this hideous criminal anger that Israel is displaying.  Paul Watson, documentary filmmaker, writer and teacher

My favourite – not, obviously, for the heinous and chutzpahdik goal it seeks but for its refreshing frankness of aim:

I dream of a one nation state, a united Palestine and Israel that defines citizenship by neither religion nor race, but by those prepared to live together in peace. I cherish the invaluable cultural contributions to our world made by both Jews and Arabs. Barnaby Rogerson, writer and publisher [biographer of Mohammed]

I wonder how many of these "stars" and spear carriers, who reject Israel's right and obligation to defend its citizens from terror, are familiar with Pallywood, and its dishonest lachrymose productions such as what might be dubbed "The Miracle on Shuhada Street"?   (See that blockbuster busted here.)  

Update: For a less polite view of the Guardian letter signatories than I offer see Edgar Davidson's post here

A distinguished thespian of the Anti-Israel theatre of the absurd adds his John Hancock:

Yes, that's how farcical this thing's getting!