THE EASIEST GROUP FOR ISRAEL HATERS TO GROOM
Big Thief are the latest showbiz figures to lack a back bone
Every so often a spineless band or musician gives in to an act of targeted bullying from anti-Israel racists who spook them with the threat of career destruction if they don’t pull out of a performance in Israel. At the same time, they’re told they’ll be showered with love and praise if they do pull out. It’s a move that’d make any creep or abuser proud. It’s blackmail. And it sometimes works.
Performers are the perfect people for Israel haters to groom. Showbusiness is an industry run on fear. People who want to be famous or on stage are the most damaged people in society. They need the affirmation of strangers. The last thing they want is for people not to clap them. They would do anything for approval. You’re not watching a person in front of a microphone on stage. You’re watching fear take on whatever shape is necessary to please you.
That’s why so many of these boycott statements read like hostage letters. They all sound like a pilot shot down in the Middle East, paraded on TV with bruises, and reading the strange words of whatever dictatorship has captured them.
A band called Big Thief are the latest musicians who’ve been beaten and then love bombed to achieve compliance.
Just to get this out of the way: I know music is subjective but I had a listen to their stuff on Youtube and it sounded like hoedown music for people with diarrhea.
Imagine a barn dance with cowboys and cow-girls wearing rhinestone boots, line-dancing and occassionally slipping off to go to the toilet, the sound of stall doors constantly banging in the background.
That’s what they sound like.
Anyway, the band released the usual statement that these hostages to Palestinian cultural terrorism make. It was full of the typical slogans designed to stop casual punters from looking under the bonnet for a closer and more detailed inspection.
We could take the whole statement apart but I want to hone in on one sentence. They write:
“We believe in total freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
It sounds lovely doesn’t it? It’s a simple slogan that’s hard to disagree with.
But I don’t want total freedom for Palestinians.
And neither do you.
Because if you want to go beyond slogans and actually create peace you cannot give carte blanche to every whim, desire and action of the Palestinians.
Because that would include total freedom for them to pursue the destruction of Israel and the extermination of every Jew on earth.
That is the unambiguous, openly held position of Hamas and a sizeable proportion of Palestinian society, and it is the fundamental barrier to peace.
All the boycotts against Israel in the world will do nothing to advance Palestinian liberty unless you engage Palestinians as robustly and harshly as you engage Israel, making it clear that their self-determination cannot and will not ever come at the expense of Israeli self determination.
Unless you challenge Palestinian terrorism, genocide fantasies and the awful racism they feverishly harbour against Jews, there will be no peace.
Israel cannot shake hands with people that want to punch them in the face.
This is the simple fact BDS organisers want useful idiots like Big Thief to be blind to.
BDS does nothing to advance peace: because it doesn’t intend to. It was set up by those who wish to destroy Israel, which places supporters of BDS in the same company as white supremacists and reactionary Islamic fundamentalists such as Hamas and the Taliban. It is a hate movement - not a justice movement.
The singling out of the world’s only Jewish state and ONLY the Jewish state is pure mendacity attempting to disguise itself as progressive.
If several children in a classroom misbehave but the teacher only ever punished the black pupil: that’s racism. It would also call into question how accurately that teacher is interpreting the behaviour of the black student.
This relates absolutely to how proponents of boycott treat the Jewish state.
Nothing they have to say about the conflict has any value.
You know who does have something of value to say? The Israelis of all political persuasions you would meet if you actually performed there. You might be surprised with what you hear and who you could collaborate with in pursuit of justice for all. You are allowed to meet them as well as Palestinians.
In fact, you’re a ridiculous person if you don’t, considering these are the two sets of people you want to shake hands. Get to know them. Stop being ridiculous and stop being an idiot. Building something in this world isn’t easy. It takes sweat and hard work. That includes building peace. If you’re not prepared to do that. As lovely as your slogans of total freedom sounds, in the background all I hear is the sound of stall doors banging and endless shit.
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