Ivor Dembina is apparently threatening legal action over a protest made by myself during his Monday night set at the London Jewish cultural centre . That comes as something of a surprise because in the grand history of heckling , I was only doing what hecklers do and that is to heckle . To date I don't believe any have been sued but I could be wrong . A quick google of mr Dembina reveals a number of entries on how to deal with hecklers . However remaining silent and reverting to his ever present crib sheet was not one of them .
After a slow start to the set , things went downhill . Dembina eased into his main theme of the night which is of course the question of Israel and Palestine . I thought this somewhat odd as I believed I was at a comedy event rather then a party political . Dembina then proceeded to regale the audience about his visit to the west bank . That's about as funny as a bag of wasps and as Dembina mentioned, a bit tricky for a Jewish boy .
At this stage I was still not sure how you could extract rip roaring comedy from
Hamas quoting " Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam obliterates it " . Well that's a real bundle of fun Ivor .
Yet that is who Ivor supports through his work with the ISM or international solidarity movement which purports to be an apolitical humanitarian NGO but in reality is nothing of the sort . The ISM core protocol is the dismantlement of israel and its replacement by a single Palestinian state .
This is who you support Ivor . The least you could do is own up to it , advise the LJCC and let them decide if your act was appropriate for a Jewish centre . But they were not aware and neither was your audience . I merely asked whether you would care to explain to the audience, the nature of your work in the west bank . You failed to answer .
The fact is the comedy part such as it was is merely an ease in for you to expound yourextreme views on israel . It gives you an opportunity to gauge the audience and see how far to push it . No doubt , you have other audiences who are far more receptive to the vicious bile you project against israel given the chance .
I have no problem with that on your own turf . I do when you use subterfuge to disseminate anti israel agit prop at an unsuspecting Jewish community centre .
So sue and be damned . Bring it on as they say although for what I'm not entirely sure . Its simply freedom of speech . The same freedom your co conspirators from the Bds and psc use when they bust into the wigmore hall and interrupted a concert by an Israeli string quartet . Or when they prevented the Israeli ambassador from speaking and every other case . Well whats sauce for the goose etc .
Anyway I want my £8 back .