Earlier, I posted a video of Thursday night's disruption at London's Prince Albert Hall.
In response, commenter Theo posted a link to the video below. Watch the last 30 seconds or so (especially) to see how conductor Zubin Mehta handled it. The video cut off just as the BDS'ers were played down.
Let's go to the videotape. More below the fold.
For the record, London police removed about 30 people from the hall, but incredibly did not arrest anyone, according to the account that was posted with this video. That was a bad mistake because they're just inviting the next such incident.
Overnight music video (with video from Prince Albert Hall)
I'm going to do something a bit unusual tonight. First, I found video from the incident in London's Prince Albert Hall, so let's get that up first.
Let's go to the videotape.
Now, the other thing I wanted to do for you was to post the exact program that was played at Prince Albert Hall this evening. Unfortunately, I could not do that. The program was Bruch Violin Concerto Number 1 featuring (American Israeli) Gil Shaham as the soloist. I found videos of the piece and videos of Shaham but not videos of Shaham playing that particular piece.
So here's the first movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto # 1 played by Pinhas Zuckerman for the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta.
Let's go to the videotape.
And here's Gil Shaham with the Israel Philharmonic (this time conducted by Daniel Etinger) playing the first movement of Haydn's violin concerto in C Major.
The Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta (pictured) will play in Prince Albert Hall in London on Thursday night, despite efforts by terror supporters to prevent the concert from taking place.
Since July, activists have been pressuring organizers to cancel the concert. They told organizers that the IPO is, according to one activist, “a pillar of the Israeli state system and of its cultural propaganda campaign” and “complicit in whitewashing Israel’s persistent violations of international law and human rights.”
Leading the campaign is London School of Economics Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead, chairman of British Committee for Universities for Palestine, a group leading the call for a blanket boycott of Israel. He wrote to Roger Wright, director of the Proms, on July 31 telling him to cancel the concert.
“By inviting the IPO, a pillar of the Israeli state system and of its cultural propaganda campaign, you provide the Israeli government, perpetrator of the Cast Lead invasion of Gaza and of so many other violations of international law and of human rights, with the support that they crave. Cancel the concert!” he said.
“For years now the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been promoting ‘Brand Israel,’ a deliberate PR campaign to divert people’s gaze from what they are doing to Palestinians.
The idea is to craft a new image by focusing on Israel’s cultural and scientific achievements,” the LSE Emeritus Professor of Operational Research added.
It followed a campaign led by PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for Academic-Cultural Boycott of Israel) who wrote to the Proms’ director on July 18 calling on him to withdraw the invitation to the IPO. In the letter they stated that “its services to the Israeli army dates back to the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba in 1948 and the occupations of 1967, and continuing up to the present day.”
The calls have been firmly rejected by the Proms organizers.
There's more - read the whole thing. Unfortunately, it sounds like there may be as many demonstrators - on both sides - outside the hall as inside. Hopefully, at least they won't play Wagner tonight.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
