Elton John in Tel Aviv:
"We do not cherry-pick our consciences"
On his web site: I have always believed that music inhabits a world set apart from politics, religious differences or prejudice of any kind.
Throughout my career I have made a point of playing concerts in challenging places, such as the USSR and Northern Ireland in the 1970s, Israel in the 1990s and very recently Morocco. Every concert was an enjoyable event for us all and, as I found in Morocco just this last Wednesday, it is always a great experience playing to a new audience in a new country, getting a wonderful warm reception, and hearing the 30,000-strong audience singing along to lyrics that are not in their native tongue.
Music is, and always will be, a universal language, free from boundaries. It can and does inspire unity and builds bridges between people, and I will continue to play concerts anywhere in the world where I can encourage that unity.
Well, if what I read on some blogs is true, Elton John played in Apartheid South Africa. At least that proves he is not a hypocrite about cherry-picking consciences. I'm sure the Palestinian and Black South African fans appreciated. It is very honourable of him to want to separate his music from politics. I can only hope he made sure none of the money payed for his ticket sales went to the State of Israel, thus funding the latter's occupation politics. I might add, that if the music business can be separate from politics then so can any business. Therefore, if boycotting corporate rock is wrong, any boycott is wrong.
Alternative Online
With the above examples in mind, readers should take bloggers, especially the self-righteous ones like this Angry Arab Abou Khalil, with a grain of salt.
Even better, Abou Khalil is a frequent commentator on Al-Jazeera. He talks with authority, of course being a professor in the US who knows it all from inside the crooked empire.
Readers and viewers of TVs like Al-Jazeera, or even readers of the March 8 dandy writer New Yorker’s Seymour Hirsh should always examine the sources of these media outlets’ speakers and writers and the validity of their arguments. After all, not everyone who depicts himself as “I know it all” or “I am the most patriotic Arab” or for that matter “the most Angry Arab” are credible enough or can sustain their arguments, better known as their ongoing populist propaganda.
Of course, one should always take everything one reads or hears with a 'grain of salt', whether it's in the mainstream media or in the alternative media or on a blog. The BBC, Aljazeera, CNN, Fox etc. may have access to Reuters and information faster than the speed of sound, but that does not make their information necessarily surer than a blog. It all depends on the blog.Readers should use common sense, general knowledge and always double, maybe even triple check. On the other hand, mainstream media can also be the scapegoat for the upholders of officialdom, as has been the case for the BBC and Aljazeera. Again, we should remain wary of what comes out of the mouths of propaganda men and women, be they governmental or non-governmental. Is the BBC a leftwing liberal media? I doubt it! Is Aljazeera a fundamentalist recruitment center? I doubt it too!
Gilad Atzmon
Yet, there is a slight problem here. Just a marginal issue that should be addressed before Blair lands in Gaza International Docks or Ramallah’s busy Heliport. The democratically elected Hamas, the party who was voted by the Palestinian people isn’t really happy with the new envoy. If I could have a word with him, I would say, “You see Mr. Blair, as things stand it is actually Hamas you have to talk to. And what about the Lebanese, did you think about them Mr Blair? Will they welcome to their country the man who just less than a year ago enthusiastically approved the total destruction of their country’s infrastructure, capital and southern regions.”
“Thus, I have a little suggestion for you, Mr. Blair. Just before you become a dove, just on your way to your first peace mission, pop over to The Hague for a few days, put yourself on trail. Prove to us and our brothers in the region that you are indeed a man of harmony and peace. You shouldn’t be too worried, you always believed in what you were doing. You always claimed to believe that liberating the Iraqi people was the right thing to do. You believed as well that destroying Lebanon’s infrastructure would bring stability to the region. You believed that dismissing the democratically elected Palestinian Government was an act of humanism.”
