The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Musicians suspended over Israel Proms row

The London Philharmonic Orchestra management has some serious question to answer.

By Ben White Published 15 September 2011 14:57

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has suspended four of its musicians for up to nine months for putting their names to a letter, published in the Independent, that called for the BBC to cancel a concert by the Israel Philharmonic.

For expressing support for the Palestinian boycott call, these individuals have received what has been called "the most severe penalty inflicted on London orchestral musicians in memory".

Plenty of people have been disturbed by the LPO management's response, including those who disagree with the views expressed by the four musicians. Classical music journalist Gavin Dixon, for example, has written that "the efforts by the LPO management to distance themselves from the views of these players has clearly been an over-reaction".

Norman Geras, someone who thinks that boycotting Israel is "contemptible", has written of his concern about "whether a nine-month suspension from one's job for writing a letter to a newspaper isn't rather excessive". Geras also raises the legitimate questions about LPO internal disciplinary policy, and asks:

Why should members of an orchestra not be free to signal their professional affiliation when publicly expressing their views? Academics do it as a matter of course, and no one assumes that the University of Edinburgh, or Oxford, or Birmingham, or wherever, is implicated in the views that their members have publicly espoused.

There are many unanswered questions here.

First: the letter appeared in the Independent on 30 August. On 2 September, in what seems like the first official public response to enquiries, LPO chief executive Timothy Walker told the Jerusalem Post:

The views expressed by four members of the LPO concerning the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Proms are the views of the individuals and not the company.

A reasonable (and rather obvious) clarification statement - but no indication that the musicians were liable to face internal disciplinary action, let alone the severity of a 9-month suspension. What happened between 2 September and the decision to mete out the punishment?

Second: On 8 September, the Jewish Chronicle reported that an LPO violinist had been suspended for launching "an anti-Israel tirade at a question and answer session". The article said that "LPO chief executive Timothy Walker confirmed she had been suspended indefinitely" and that "the LPO board will decide on what disciplinary action to take". But the recent confirmation of four suspensions by LPO is reported as because of signing the letter -- not for "an anti-Israel tirade". Which is it?

Third: On announcing the suspension, the official LPO management statement said "the board's decision in this matter will send a strong and clear message". This indicates that the severity of the punishment is motivated by deterrence, rather than being an appropriate response guided by established practice or policy.

Ben White is a freelance journalist specialising in Israel/Palestine.

More from Ben White

View the discussion thread.

50 comments

Sun, 2012-04-15 19:33 — PetLetle (not verified)

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Sat, 2011-09-17 02:43 — Maria111

Richard Albright, the Lady doth protest too much.
Hard to believe that you never heard the name of Avigdor Lieberman the current Israeli Foreign Minister, a former Moldovan thug with a checkered past and the certified racist who has a tragicomical sense of choosiness, which gives him the allegedly God-given right to humiliate the native population and encourage illegal confiscation of the natives’ land. His racist pearls include calling for the execution of elected Arab members of Israel's parliament if they meet with Hamas, and his demands of drowning the Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea in order to save on transportation.

Mon, 2011-09-19 00:19 — ann hallam

So Luddite what are YOU doing about the oppression in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Burma then as if you actually care?
Watching repeats of The Holocaust?

Sat, 2011-09-17 03:30 — gjyuyu

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i hope we can trust for ourselves,thanks for your visit

Sat, 2011-09-17 03:31 — Maria111

Fergus Pickering, there were no orchestras in the Jewish pales of settlements. You should make some research on why.
By the way, all the famed Jewish doctors have not been ashamed to follow Avicenna, and even Pythagoras went to study in Egypt.
Only bigots have an ethnocentric fancy. Spinoza did not have it, as well as Wittgenstein, but the ridiculous former Moldovan and the progeny of the former Polish do fancy their petty choosiness. It is doubtful that you understand what the Felix Mendelssohn’s educational mission was and what exactly had shaped the great Oistrakh. And if you still want to boast about very special Jewish race, go to the library and learn about the principal KGB bosses and their shameful role in running the Soviet concentration camps.

Thu, 2011-09-15 20:29 — John O'Brien (not verified)

@RichardAlbright
The comments of Maen Areikat are inacceptable and if he said this then you are just proving that there are fools on both sides. But I believe that calling Israel an apartheid state is not inappropriate. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said "Apartheid is alive and well" after visiting the West Bank and Israel and he knows a thing or two about apartheid.

Sat, 2011-09-17 03:47 — Maria111

Luddite:” For far to long the political-left have intimidated and abused and at time's assaulted their political opponents…”
Seems like the mantle of victimhood grew into your skin. The poor innocent Israel (forget about AIPAC and the Friends of Israel) suffers from the vicious classical musicians! Well from the opinion of a few classical musicians in London.
What you wrote is not even laughable—the same way the heartless Cheney is no joke.
To balance your overgrown sense of victimhood, there is the confirmed information on how exactly the most-moral IDF deals with “others”:
The US-born unarmed teenager on Mira Miravi “had been shot in the back and in the back of the head, as well as in the face.”

Tue, 2011-09-20 08:11 — Luddite (not verified)

So ann hallam
what are you doing about the oppression in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Burma if you actually care? "Holocaust denialism" is not the soul preserve of the extreme right, it also infects many on the political-left. The simple truth is the Jews aren't going to walk into your gas-chambers.

Feltpen. "freedom of expression" now wouldn't that be nice!! "ugly dead"
that sounds a bit like modern left-wing politics.

Sat, 2011-09-17 08:50 — Luddite (not verified)

Maria: Hamas has murdered dozens of Fatah members in the Gaza Strip for merely violating the Hamas-imposed house arrest. After Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip many Fatah members were publicly butchered, some having their eye gouged-out. If your wonderful enlightened friends are capable of such savagery against their own. What are they capable of against a defenseless Jewish civil population? Jewish history teachers the Jew no one will defend them but themselves. It most be really frustrating for hate filled people such as yourself, that the Jews will not again walk quietly into your Gas Chambers. It's simple, the Jews are no longer prepared to carry the mantle of victim hood and live by your sleve...

Thu, 2011-09-15 21:00 — Richard Albright1

John O'Brien. Archbishop Desmond Tutu doesn't know what he talking about.
From 1948 to 1994, South Africa, the country that came up with "apartheid" had an official policy that declared blacks second-class citizens in every aspect of that nation’s life. Among many other prohibitions on the country’s blacks, they could not vote, could not hold political office, were forced to reside in certain locations, could not marry whites, and couldn't even use the same public toilets as whites. Not one of those restrictions applies to Arabs living in Israel. One and a half million Arabs live in Israel, constituting about 20 percent of that country’s population. They have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens. They can vote, and they do. They can serve in the Israeli parliament, and they do. They can own property and businesses and work in professions alongside other Israelis, and they do. They can be judges, and they are. Here’s one telling example: it was an Arab judge on Israel's Supreme Court who sentenced the former president of Israel a Jew to jail on a rape charge.

Thu, 2011-09-15 21:10 — Lox (not verified)

The LPO shouldn't have suspended the musicians, and Israel isn't an apartheid state. Repeating a lie doesn't make it true.

Israel is the most socially liberal and inclusive state in the ME.

Thu, 2011-09-15 21:33 — Julia Harris (not verified)

An Open Letter to the Edinburgh University Student Association on Boycotting Israel
Thought this was worth sharing. It sums up a lot of my views about the way the search for a middle-east peace has been characterised by polarised sides.

(via http://www.cicweb.ca/scene/2011/03/an-open-letter-to-the-edinburgh-unive...)

An Open Letter to the Edinburgh University Student Association on Boycotting Israel
March 29, 2011 – 3:25 pm

Around 270 students at Edinburgh University voted in favour of a motion which described Israel as an apartheid state and called for a boycott of goods. However, the Jewish Chronicle reports that the Edinburgh University Students’ Association has confirmed a proposed boycott of Israeli products will not be enforced.

Here is a strong argument against the boycott, written by an Edinburgh University alumnus:

The Committee
Edinburgh University Student Association

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those member of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the Baha’is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews – something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha’is…. Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.

I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. As for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense to you. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

Thu, 2011-09-15 23:50 — Janet Green (not verified)

Denis MacEoin - it is unlikely that you do not know that the state of Israel allocates rights on the basis of a person's ethnic or religious background. It is also unlikely that you don't know that there are certain areas of Israel where Orthodox Jewish groups impose a strict dress code and where women have to go to the back of buses. Obviously these same groups do not have a liberal attitude to gay rights but anyway Gay rights cannot be traded for equality between ethnic or religious groups. In addition there is no civil marriage in Israel and people of different religious backgrounds cannot marry in Israel. Palestinian civil society has called for a boycott of Israel until it complies with international law. Israel should recognise that Palestinians have the right to live normal lives with equality and supporting the boycott is the least we can do.

Sat, 2011-09-17 13:32 — Stan Rosenthal1

Well said, Luddite. No doubt the actions of the LPO management can be explained by their understandable disgust with the irrational hatred being directed at Israel for which there should be no place in a public funded body.

Fri, 2011-09-16 07:12 — Luddite (not verified)

Janet Green: So when are you going to call for a boycott of Saudi Arabia, Burma, The Socialist Republic of North Korea, Or are you only interested in Jews?

"Palestinians have the right to live normal lives with equality" Would that equally apply to Jews and Christians living in a Hamas dominated free Palestinians state?

Sat, 2011-09-17 19:35 — Parkour Pete (not verified)

@John O'Brien ...I believe that calling Israel an apartheid state is not inappropriate. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said "Apartheid is alive and well" after visiting the West Bank and Israel and he knows a thing or two about apartheid.

Try and read something about apartheid and then something about Israel and then you might understand things more clearly.

What's your take on the threat to the world from Islam? Ayaan Hirsi Ali knows 'a thing or two' about that. Hmm, doesn't hate the USA and Israel so can't be credible.

Fri, 2011-09-16 11:34 — swatantra

'The Terriotories' are nothing more than the bantustans of old S Africa.
Its about time the international community did something about this disgraceful situation. The Musicians have made their protest. Lets hope it leads to further actin including boycots.

Sat, 2011-09-17 20:26 — Arminius (not verified)

Open letter to Dr. Denis Maceoin
by Gary Spedding
To: Dr. Denis Maceoin

I wish to be permitted to respond to your letter to the Committee of Edinburgh University Student’s Association on their behalf. I am not a student of Edinburgh university however I am a university student and have travelled to Israel several times over the past two years. I do not hold any of the prestigious academic qualifications that a man such as yourself holds. I would like to congratulate you on your past successes in the academic realm it would appear you have an extensive knowledge on Persian, Arabic and Islamic History which is a great achievement considering the complexities I know of in the history of Persian and Arabic Peoples.

That being said I wish to state that being a graduate of such studies and having taught Arabic and Islamic studies in my home town of Newcastle Upon Tyne no way makes anybody a ‘Middle East Expert’ nor does it mean they are necessarily well-informed on current middle eastern affairs. For this reason I am disgusted that you would try to use your academic standing to belittle those who are still studying at university in such a way especially considering those studying at any university especially Edinburgh university are some of the best minds to be found for the future. As has been proven in the past people can author as many books as they like and write thousands of articles on the subject of the middle east and still be wrong this was proven quite clearly when authors such as Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz were ousted as frauds by Dr. Norman Finkelstein as just an example.

You claim that you are shocked regarding the EUSA motion and vote for a simple reason in that you claim there has never been a system of Apartheid in Israel you then go on to justify your stance to my surprise by not using an attempted legal definition or justification but by claiming your opinion is not just an opinion but is actually fact. I would like to take the opportunity to inform you that I know personally several Edinburgh students who have been to the state of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories for themselves to learn about the facts on the ground which is possibly why contrary to your arrogant claim these students are so well-informed about the situation here. Allow me to spell this out for you, judging by your statements as well as your hilarious claims on question time a few months ago on the BBC where you sit next to Sam Westrop providing us with an insight into your already pro-Israel stance I believe it is you who is (whether an academic or not) clueless in matters concerning Israel and its policies. Furthermore being a holder of a degree in Persian, Arabic and Islamic HISTORY does not make you in any way an expert on international law, human rights law, modern History, Hebrew affairs, Jewish history, current events, political science, political analysis or many of the other far more relevant topics that could be studied in order to grasp an insight of what is happening Today and Now.....
continued @
http://abureesh.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/open-letter-to-dr-denis-maceoin/

Fri, 2011-09-16 16:16 — swatantra

Israel is the grit in te oyster of the ME. Unfortunately its not producing a pearl but a heap load of trouble for the indiginous peoples.

Sun, 2011-09-18 01:37 — Maria111

Luddite,
If I understood you correctly you believe that the special ethnic value makes Jewish people inherently good and inherently victims. First of all, this is racist. Second, the history has the well-documented facts which show that Jews can be as vicious and as cruel and sadist as any psychopaths from any other ethnic group.
Solzhenitsyn wrote a great book on the archipelago of concentration camps in the former USSR. He also wrote a documentary book on the role of Jews in the Soviet Government ("Two hundred years together"). That was time when the names of Yagoda and Kaganovich (the KGB bosses) became known in the West. Despite Solzhenitsyn stellar reputation, this book was immediately slandered and it took years before the book became available in translations. The Soviet camps had been established before the German camps.
If ethnic choosiness is all that you have in life, I am sorry for you.

Fri, 2011-09-16 14:21 — JCollins (not verified)

I presume that the next time these doughnuts put a job ad out for their publicly funded orchestra, they will include "all applicants must have sound views on israel".

Tue, 2011-09-20 19:49 — terry johns (not verified)

The LPO DOES NOT PAY NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS FOR ITS PLAYERS . They are not employed and therefore cannot be suspended. If they are employed the situation for the management is even worse. No company can censure the opinions of its employees

Fri, 2011-09-16 15:50 — Luddite (not verified)

For far to long the political-left have intimidated and abused and at time's assaulted their political opponents. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is publicly founded that is true and so it such be. So why all this whining "all applicants must have sound views on Israel". Isn't that better than having vile loathsome views on the small state of Israel?

Fri, 2011-09-16 16:23 — The Luddite (not verified)

swatantra nandanwar. Indigenous peoples in these lands are having a hard time at the 'moment' I'm watching the Holocaust on the History channel at this point in time. Let's never forget why Israel came about.

Sun, 2011-09-18 10:41 — Luddite (not verified)

Maria: No i didn't believe the Jews have any special ethnic value you deluded individual. Marx and Trotsky along with Yigael Gluckstein where also Jews. So whats your point? my rabid 'anti-semitic' friend! Hitler invaded the ex-Soviet Union believing it, like yourself to be a giant Jewish-Bolsheviks conspiracy you half-wit, and don't feel sorry for me after all i'm not poisoned by hatred.

Fri, 2011-09-16 16:24 — JCollins (not verified)

It is absurd for the taxpayer funded leadership to suspend some musicians for supporting a boycott, and it would be equally absurd for them to suspend some musicians for being against a boycott.

Fri, 2011-09-16 16:33 — swatantra

believe The Holocaust was caused by Europeans massacring European Jews.
The last time Israel suffered at the hands of phillistines gentiles and pagans was over 2000 years ago when the pharohs drove the tribal Jews out of their homeland. Perhaps I shouldn't mention the Crusades, but I will, when Europe slaughtered the Jews. Europeans have a lot to answer for, no the Arabs.

Fri, 2011-09-16 16:44 — Luddite (not verified)

After arriving in Berlin in the 1930s the Mufti received an enthusiastic reception by the "Islamische Zentralinstitut" and the whole Islamic community of Germany, which welcomed him as the "Führer of the Arabic world." In an introductory speech, he called the Jews the "most fierce enemies of the Muslims" and an "ever corruptive element" in the world. Husseini soon became an honored guest of the Nazi leadership and met on several occasions with Hitler. He personally lobbied the Führer against the plan to let Jews leave Hungary, fearing they would immigrate to Palestine. He also strongly intervened when Adolf Eichman tried to cut a deal with the British government to exchange German POWs for 5000 Jewish children who also could have fled to Palestine. The Mufti's protests with the SS were successful, as the children were sent to death camps in Poland instead. One German officer noted in his journals that the Mufti would liked to have seen the Jews "preferably all killed." On a visit to Auschwitz, he reportedly admonished the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war, he appeared regularly on German radio broadcasts to the Middle East, preaching his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:03 — Ian5

Blatant breach of their article 10 rights, and more importantly article 9 rights. unless of course you think it in some way breaches the limitations imposed. Perfectly fair to comment on, not the action of some snivelling toadies. Oh please don't tell my employer that I think the LPO has behaved disgracefully, or that I agree with the sentiment of those that signed the letter. Or that I believe in a free society...and a homeland for both Jews and Palestinians.

Time for changes at the top of the LPO. Anybody with dubious affiliations on the board? Well one or two with a possible conflict of interests in this case maybe......? Hope they did not sit in judgement on these people.

Thu, 2011-09-15 15:07 — Stu (not verified)

Willing Ziocon lackeys.

Thu, 2011-09-15 15:16 — georgep

I doubt that the same punishment would have been given had they been boycotting a Palestinian musical group.
Still, blatant Israeli bias is slowly dying out here, and there is growing condemnation of the states crimes against humanity.

Thu, 2011-09-15 15:24 — swatantra

Surely its an infringement of their HRs? The LPO is wrong to suspend. The IPO should be boycotted if it turns up and all LPO tours should be cancelled to Israel. You cannot keep the politics out of music, just like you cannot keep the politics out of sport.

Thu, 2011-09-15 15:28 — Dan (not verified)

"Finally, it was Gavin Dixon who pointedly noted that the LPO is "obviously trying to appease somebody. It would be indiscreet to speculate as to who and why".

They're probably trying to appease musicians who don't like other musicians calling for boycotts of yet other musicians. The left used to call that solidarity. Now its obvious appeasment of something unmentionable.

I agree with neither the boycott nor the suspensions. But if you're going to reverse scab on fellow professionals...

Fri, 2011-09-16 18:29 — Janet Green (not verified)

Luddite - the Palestinian people are not responsible for the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany. Yes, I believe in equality for people from all ethnic and religious backgrounds - this means equality for Jewish people inside Israel rather than a privileged status. The point about supporting a boycott of Israel is that it has been called for by Palestinian civil society. If other oppressed groups were to call for a boycott then this would have to be considered.

Thu, 2011-09-15 16:11 — mark gardner

Come on Ben White, why so coy?

"Finally, it was Gavin Dixon who pointedly noted that the LPO is "obviously trying to appease somebody. It would be indiscreet to speculate as to who and why"".

Out with it, after all, if Netanyahu can get Obama on his knees (as Mehdi Hasan recently approvingly cited Robert Fisk saying), then surely The Conspiracy can get the LPO down on bended knee.

Nice one New Statesman. Time for another 'Kosher Conspiracy?' cover?

This is where the left has come to. Disgusting.

Thu, 2011-09-15 16:34 — Mark (not verified)

"This is where the left has come to. Disgusting."

What? Standing up against an apartheid state? If being on the left means anything in terms of solidarity, you align yourself with the underdog, not with a country armed to the teeth by the US. Well reported NS.

Thu, 2011-09-15 16:54 — Arturo Bandini (not verified)

The LPO management should at least tell us exactly what sort of "strong and clear message" they are supposedly sending.

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:13 — Ben White (not verified)

@Mark Gardner

The kind of nuanced contribution I've come to expect from you. Hope I haven't spoiled your celebrations at managing to get the government to change universal jurisdiction legislation.

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:40 — mark gardner

@Ben White

You write an article that sets up the conspiracy wink at the end - whereas Gavin Dixon's article is clear in its disdain for boycotts geared at destruction of states.

Is that nuanced enough for you? Or do you only do obsession?

On your off topic mention - Cheers for monitoring the UK Jewish media so closely, I didn't have a clue what you were talking about re universal jurisdiction. We had no involvement whatsoever and will seek a correction asap.

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:43 — Ben White (not verified)

@Mark Gardner

Your correction on Twitter duly noted. What a strange mistake for BoD to make!

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:49 — Phil (not verified)

I look forward to the LPO being taken to the cleaners in a civil action.

Thu, 2011-09-15 17:51 — Spencer (not verified)

@georgep
I wasn't aware that there was a Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra. Come to think of it there isn't one in Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran or any other arab/moslem state. In fact don't all islamist states ban music!

Sun, 2011-09-25 08:03 — Ehad Ha'am (not verified)

"The London Philharmonic Orchestra has suspended four of its musicians for up to nine months for putting their names to a letter, published in the Independent, that called for the BBC to cancel a concert by the Israel Philharmonic."

This, of course, is outrageously untrue. The musicians were NOT suspended for putting their names to a letter calling for the BBC to cancel a concert by the Israel Philharmonic, and in fact the LPO's management made a point of publicly emphasizing that.

The four were suspended for using the name of the London Philharmonic Orchestra next to their own name on the letter, in defiance of the LPO's code of behavior which prohibits using the name of the Orchestra to further a musician's political agenda.

The false assertion in White's opinion piece is a classic example of "if you can't rightly condemn the act you dislike, then condemn another one and hope no one notices".

Thu, 2011-09-15 18:04 — Paul C (not verified)

Finally, it was Gavin Dixon who pointedly noted that the LPO is "obviously trying to appease somebody. It would be indiscreet to speculate as to who and why".

I've been thinking about this for the last hour and it's simply beyond me. Could you put me out of my misery, Ben?

Sun, 2011-09-18 20:13 — Feltpen (not verified)

Please let's not let the likes of Luddite deliberately derail an important discussion about freedom of expression and the relationship between art and politics - into the usual ridiculous and ugly dead end manipulations of history.

Thu, 2011-09-15 18:26 — Longue durée (not verified)

If the musicians had signed a letter, identifying themselves as members of the LPO, expressing approval of the BBC's decision to resist calls to cancel the IPO's invitation, does anyone believe LPO management would have suspended them?

&, yes: nothing in way the letter was signed constituted a claim to speak for the LPO; it identified them professionally, common practice with newspaper correspondence.

Thu, 2011-09-15 18:30 — Adam (not verified)

@ Spencer
Are you so sure there arent any. Why dont you try and look it up. There's this thing called google... just type in e.g. Iranian Philharmonic Orchestra or malaysian... and see what comes up... amazing innit!

Thu, 2011-09-15 18:51 — Richard Albright1

Mark: "Standing up against an apartheid state"? A Palestinian official actually called for any future Palestinian state to be without any Jewish residents. Maen Areikat, who served as the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's envoy to the United States, actually said "it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated in any future state".(Apartheid state) No state has officially prohibited Jews since Nazi Germany attempted to become "judenrein" (free of Jews).Israel has a majority of Jewish citizens, but is still home to a number of minorities including Muslims, Christians and Baha'is. So would it be acceptable to expel all none Jews from Israel?

Thu, 2011-09-15 19:13 — Yael Kahn (not verified)

The irony of London musicians being victimised for calling to boycott the apartheid state of Israel.

Sat, 2011-09-17 00:31 — Fergus Pickering (not verified)

Saddam's Iraq had a symphony orcgetra. The present lot don't. Muslims don't care for music. Jews, on the other hand, care about it deeply. But then Jews are civilised.