Friday, September 17, 2010

Fein as having reached a new low in Jewish self-hatred.

quoting " Leonard Fein's equating Israel's democratically
elected officials, going back to June 11, 1967, with the "fascist"
Franco, the "dictator" Mussolini and the Nazis is beyond contempt.

Fein writes, "Artistic history offers rich precedent [to the boycottof
the Ariel Theatre]: The great cellist Pablo Casals was widely admired
for his steadfast refusal to go home to Catalonia so long as Spain was
under fascist rule. He refused to perform in any country that
recognized the Franco dictatorship (until accepting President
Kennedy’s invitation to perform at the White House in 1961). Or think
of the Italian patriot Arturo Toscanini, arguably the greatest
conductor of all time. While Mussolini ruled as Italy’s dictator, from
1922 to 1943, the Maestro famously refused to perform in his native
country. He denounced the Nazis’ treatment of Jewish musicians; he
refused to conduct at Austria’s Salzburg Festival because Jewish
conductor Bruno Walter’s performances there weren’t broadcast in
Germany. (And in the late 1930s he conducted at a festival in Lucerne
with an orchestra entirely composed of musicians who had fled German
persecution.)

"Casals and Toscanini were on the right side of history. So are those
who have added their names in support of the Ariel boycott."

You can read the full column in which Fein expresses his opinion about
the development of the city of Ariel and consequences that may flow
from that. This part of Fein's essay is not surprising given Fein's
oft-expressed political views. The comparison of Israel's leaders to
Franco, Mussolini and the Nazis reveals Fein as having reached a new
low in Jewish self-hatred."

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