17 thoughts on “Daniel Barenboim: Hated in Israel, Unwelcome in Iran – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. His family moved to Israel in 1950. Wikipedia mentions Barenboim having the citizenships of Argentine, Israel, Spain and Palestine. He was not born and raised in Israel as mentioned in the text.

    What is astonishing in this Israeli governmental level demands to German governmental level is that Berliner Philharmoniker is administratively under the city of Berlin and David Barenboim is not a German citizen. Can the German chancellor command the orchestra and its non-german leading artist without making herself look like an complete idiot internationally and at home? Israel has lost completely their sense of proportion in foreign policy and public relations. Do they really think in the Israeli government, that one public demand by them and the leaders of great powers like Germany submit to their odd demands. Well Germany is not USA. Also when a Israeli minister Regev is demanding that the German government sees that the visit “harms Israel’s efforts to prevent a nuclear agreement” is obvious that the minister did forget that Germany was one of those behind that same nuclear agreement Israel is trying to prevent. Is it really wise that these kind of people run one of the world’s strongest nuclear powers?

    Jewish organizations used considerable amounts of their “anti-Semitism powder” when just recently the US Jewish artist Matisyahu was almost blocked from performing in a concert in Spain because for his opinions of the state of Palestine. Matisyahu is obviously not a citizenship of Israel, only US. Jewish organizations did not approve that boycott and demanded that blocking artists to perform in concerts because of their political opinions is not proper. Without doubt these same organizations support Israel’s governments line with Barenboim performing in Teheran.

  2. Time tio time, AIPAC et al. complain and denounce the (academic and) cultural boycott of Israel. Nice o see their culture minister is happy doing the same thing, twisting German arms in hopes of banning Barenboim’s visit.

    1. Well, they know that Miri Regev hates Barenboim, and for the chach-chachim and the rest of the proles who get their news from Arutz Sheva, the Bibiton or whatever, that’ll be sufficient.

    2. @ Mitchell Blood: That’s an idiotic statement. Israel has a huge audience for classical music with full concert halls for most concerts. Israelis are always proud of their own who succeed abroad. So of course many Israelis know of him. And many right-wingers are disgusted by him. You’d know that if you’d read the links in the post to the protest inside Israel over his receipt of a major music/humanitarian award. But you didn’t, did you?

      1. Trust me on this, the right-wingers you revile, don’t listen to classical music.
        Israelis that do listen to classical music, don’t hate Barenboim.
        Twenty percent of Israelis are Arabs. Do they know or hate Barenboim? I doubt it.

        If I walk down Rothchild St in Tel Aviv, or hang around the university campus, yes, people know him.
        Nowhere else in Israel.

  3. The Moral Men. Book. Film. Ah, where is that quote when you need it about if Good men don’t……yes,of course, how quickly one can seem the font of all information and wisdom courtesy of Google:

    ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

    which seems to have transmuted from Burke’s :

    ‘When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.’

    which is even more telling.

    But they don’t associate. They stand up individually. A shooting gallery. The moment a well-known public intellectual re-condemns the settlement building on the West bank and East Jerusalem, the whole propaganda apparatus swings into action, a well-oiled machine, to spread so much denial, ‘refutation’, ‘argument’, the original message is lost in the noise. You know when Alan Dershowitz starts to fulminate about anti-semitism and self-hating Jews [or am I behind the times, is that passe?] the poor guy wot just uttered the word settlements has to climb down the rock face, pick up the rock once more and climb back up again.

  4. Though Israelis seem to think that the whole world hates them, and there is from time to time some karfuffle about the country in an international forum such as the UN, the truth is that Israel has been spoiled rotten by the political heavyweights in the international arena. This is most clearly the case in the US. But I can’t remember any condemnatory stance by a European leader either (apart from some underhand personal criticism of Netanyahu).

    No other country that engaged in Israel’s type of colonial practice would have remained so scot-free.

    The world’s indulgence thus far has created expectations in which all sense of proportion seems to have been lost . Miri Regev’s expectation that at her mere complaint the German Chancellor would forbid an orchestra to perform in a particular country is one instance of this.

    It also highlights how a politician of ministerial rank in a sham democracy can get the limits of governmental power in a real democracy quite wrong.

  5. Since Barenboim is part of Markel’s welcome party in Tehran – Sheikh Rouhani cannot refuse Barenboim’s entry to Iran, who holds citizenship of Israel, Argentina and Palestine.

  6. The denial of entry to Barenboim & his orchestra was announced by Rouhani’s Ministry of Culture & Islamic Guidance, although the hardliners started the noise. That BDS gurus consider boycotting WEDO justified, is an indication of the extremism and irrationality of some of their basic positions. The Iranian authorities did not reject WEDO out of any solidarity with the BDS movement; their basic positions on Israel-Palestine (and they have more than one) are not those of the BDS. As far as “Iran cannot find a braver human being willing to do what is right without regard to nation, tribe or religion, than Daniel Barenboim,” who says they care about such qualities in a human being? Since the Iranian authorities persecute many individuals who fit that characterization within their own society, why would they care about an Israeli one?

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