Don't it warm the cockles?


By Jenni Frazer
February 10, 2010
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So Bricup, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, is urging, yet again, that a rock star should not play Israel. This time the target is that well-known highly politicised singer (I jest), Sir Elton John, who has announced that he will give a concert in Tel Aviv this June.
I was immensely amused by Bricup's tactic in which it sought to persuade Elton not to go, and to convince him of Israel's innate unsuitability as a venue. He was recommended to read the Goldstone Report.
Now, I daresay Sir Elton and David Furnish have a lovely home. But somehow, I just can't see the pair of them cuddled up of an evening, poring over Judge Richard Goldstone's dissection of Israel's Gaza operation. Heat magazine or OK!, yes. Goldstone?

COMMENTS

zachary esterson

10 February, 2010 - 12:12

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Sir Elton might take exception to your implying he is superficial.

moshetzarfati2

10 February, 2010 - 12:36

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A good point, Zachary. That's terribly elitist of you, Ms Frazer.

Jenni Frazer

10 February, 2010 - 12:51

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We are talking about the man who was nicknamed SuperFlounce after he left Tel Aviv in a huff, scared of the nasty-wasty photographers. So yes, I daresay that's elitist.

moshetzarfati2

10 February, 2010 - 12:56

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In that case, justifiably elitist. Now where's me copy of Proust?

tonylevene

10 February, 2010 - 13:20

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Bricup's appeal would be sparing Tel Aviv folk a musical experience that I would not wish to endure.
The serious point is that these calls should make JC readers aware of the world's multi-dimensionality. Better to think than to knee-jerk

Marian Lebor

10 February, 2010 - 15:58

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Elton John doesn't have to read Goldstone; the letter Bricup wrote to him might just be persuasive enough:

"You may say you're not a political person, but does an army dropping white phosphorus on a school building full of children demand a political response? Does walling a million and a half people up in a ghetto and then pounding that ghetto to rubble require a political response from us, or a human one?
"Okay, you turn up in Ramat Gan, and it gets to that 'Candle in the Wind' moment, and thousands of lighters flicker - but there won't be any Palestinians from the Occupied Territories swaying along with the Israelis - the army won't let them leave their ghettoes.
"... the Israeli state denies it has a case to answer, though it's knee-deep in ethnic cleansing and land-theft and the endless daily suffocating of Palestinian lives and hopes."

Note that a few weeks ago the boycotters managed to convince Santana to cancel his scheduled performance in Israel.

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