He didn’t have any problem performing at Rush Limbaugh‘s wedding, so what made you think a little criticism over last month’s flotilla attack would have Elton John skipping a performance in Israel?
Not only did Elton play a full 2.5 hour set yesterday near Tel Aviv (“Shalom, we are so happy to be back here! Ain’t nothing gonna stop us from coming, baby!”), he also took a moment, after his second number “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” in front of 45,000 fans, to attack other artists who’ve skipped their Israel dates because of Israel’s Gaza attack: “Musicians spread love and peace, and bring people together. That’s what we do. We don’t cherry-pick our conscience.” That list includes Elvis Costello, Santana, the Pixies and Devendra Banhart.
But hey, as Elton’s husband David Furnish says, the singer accepted Rush’s invite because “life is about building bridges, not walls.” And that holds true in Israel too, yah?
A
life is about building walls in israel
Cam
As i’ve said many times before, i’ll feel sympathy for the govt. in Palestine, when I can walk down the street in Gaza holding another mans hand, without being arrested and tortoured or somebody like my sister has full rights. I just can’t cry about the suppoedly horrible treatment they are getting when being gay is illegal and human rights watch is documenting our officially sanctioned torture and murder there.
Ugh, but the fact that I agreed with Elton john about something is going to be annoying me all day.
Paschal
Israel is a democracy which treats its Muslim minority well. Obviously Israelis feel threatened due to Palestinian terrorist organisations such as Hamas. Rockets are repeatedly fired into Israel threatening the lives of Israelis. History shows that Israel has sought peace including offering to give up a lot of its small land area to Palestinians at peace talks at Camp David. However, 2.2 million Palestininas live in Gaza. Gaza is a tiny area and Israel’s blockade of Gaza is causing a humanitarian crisis. Israel’s announced easing of the blockade is progress but it not enough. The existing settlements in the West Bank cause unnecessary trouble. Israel needs to learn that it has to work with its neighbours in the Muslim world. Israel should work to build a strong relation with Jordan, Lebanon, etc.
Michael Joseph Cuneo
Yeah, I’ll be supporting the only place in the Middle East with Democracy, religious freedom, and equal rights for homosexuals and women. I really don’t give a rat’s ass about violent, terrorism loving people whose brains are stuck in the middle ages. Women should live in terror of having their throats slit by their own families for stepping out of line and gay people shouldn’t have to worry about being beheaded, imprisoned, or have walls pushed down on them by bulldozers. Period. Join the human race and the modern-age, arabs-living-in-Gaza (they aren’t “Palestinians” because there is no “Palestine”) and I’ll worry about your po-po human rights. Oh, yeah, and you’ll have to stop strapping bombs to your deluded children and sending them off to purposely kill civilians who aren’t involved in combat or hiding of other terrorists like ya’all are.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Wow!! 3 outta 4 posts not bashing the freaking crap out of Israel! Have I cyberstrolled over to an bizzaro world Queerty St.???
As usual I have to post a link to my one and only retort to those who demand “compassion” to the “poor mistreated muslims”…….
http://10.1.9.23:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=2047223967
View the photos above to see what those vile muslim scumbags did to two Gay teens and then post about “compassion” for their “miusunderstood culture”……..
Tommy
I actually don’t agree with boycotting any country based on the government’s policies by an artist. That just makes average people who are fans of the artist suffer for something they really have very little control over.
So I think Elton isn’t wrong to play there, but I don’t think he should tell artists what to do. If someone’s conscience tells them they don’t want to play somewhere that is their right also.
I’m shocked by the narrow minded frankly bigoted comments on here against Palestianians and Muslims. Israel has consistently violated the human rights of the Palestinians. Not all Palestinans are terrorists.
This is something that bothers me about the gay community. Why is it we only care about our issues and not other people who are suffering or being discriminated against. as typified by Cam’s comment. Why are we so selfish and unable to carry about non-gay people and their pain and suffering? We are all humans before we are gay. Somewhere along the way our community was forgotten that.
And all is not perfect for women and gays in Israel. There are many Orthrodox Jews involved in Israeli politics who are just as narrow minded against gays and women as their Muslim counterparts.
The problem is not Jew or Muslim, it’s any kind of fundamentalist religion of which there is way too much on both sides in the Middle East.
Lamar
Israel is way better than Gaza, they are so much more tolerant and accepting whereas Gaza just seems to be terrorism fueled.
Cam
@Tommy: said..
“””””I’m shocked by the narrow minded frankly bigoted comments on here against Palestianians and Muslims. Israel has consistently violated the human rights of the Palestinians. Not all Palestinans are terrorists.
This is something that bothers me about the gay community. Why is it we only care about our issues and not other people who are suffering or being discriminated against. as typified by Cam’s comment. “””””
Oh gee, Tommy, funny, I thought that arrest, torture, and murder went beyond simply being “Gay issues” my mistake. Answer me this. Do you also protest outside prisons that don’t treat rapists and wife beaters well? You say that not all Palestinians are terrorists. I never said one thing about terrorism, I said I feel no sympathy for a state that has declared my state of being is illegal, and would jail torture and possibly murder me just for who I am. Your terrorism comment is a red hearing designed to distract from the fact that any of us walking down the street there holding a same sex partners hand would be arrested. I think it is quite self-hating to run to the defense of the attackers of gays.
“””””And all is not perfect for women and gays in Israel. There are many Orthrodox Jews involved in Israeli politics who are just as narrow minded against gays and women as their Muslim counterparts.””””
The difference being, that those people are not backed up by the law. If they attack gays in Isreal, they get arrested and go to jail. In Palestine, if somebody attacks gays nothing is done, and if the gay person complains, they are arrested for being gay. To try to compare the two is like saying that the U.S. is exactly like Afghanistan in it’s treatment of women, because there are cases of abuse over here.
WiseUp
Plays Well With Others : That is very strange , I agree. Usually the gay has nothing but contempt for Israel and support for the homophobic Palestinians, which is very strange, but is the usual.
Rashid
This is absolutely ludicrous.
So tolerant ideologies and supposed democracy override the fact that countless human rights violations have been committed by the state of Israel since its conception in 1948? I guess before asking that one should ask if most folks on here who are pouring their thoughts and opinions about Israel/Palestine even know the history of the conflict.
My grandparents had to seek refuge elsewhere, as did millions of Palestinians, after their orchards and their home was taken away from them in 1949. That doesn’t sound too tolerant to me.
WiseUp
Rashid : That is a legitimate point, and I know the whole conflict is overall very debatable and complicated. I am only saying that, only from the gay point of view, Israel is the much greater ally. I’m am not to say everything Israel has done is necessarily correct or anything..
Cam
No. 10 · Rashid
This is absolutely ludicrous.
So tolerant ideologies and supposed democracy override the fact that countless human rights violations have been committed by the state of Israel since its conception in 1948?
_________________________________
So let me get this straight. It is ok for you to hold something against Isreal that began in 1948, long before you were born. And yet I am somehow intolerant for holding arrest, torture, and murder of people just like me, going on today, against Palestine?
Why is it that you get to hate Israel and you expect everybody else to hate them for things done, and yet somehow we are supposed to ignore the things currently going on in Palestine being done to gays, lesbians, and women?
Lets compare, A tolerant ideology compared to arrest, torture, and murder…yes, the tolerant ideology wins. Once again, I will feel sorry for the people in Palestine when they stop killing people like me simply for being gay.
Paschal
I’ll defend Israelis when they are unfairly attacked, which happens often. But I am morally obliged to defend Palestinians as well. As has already bee pointed out by Tommy, Israel is not perfect. The current government is very right wing and homophobes are plentiful in the Knesset. That said, Israel is easily and by far the most gay-friendly of countries in the Middle-East.
Call me old-fashioned Michael, but I believe two wrongs do not make a right. We should of course work to help fight homophobia in the Middle-East. The treatment of women, gays, etc. there is terrible. Punishing men, women and children in Gaza, who are relying hugely on aid (not that enough of that is being allowed in) helps no one. You know what, let’s kill everyone who is homophobic and/or lives in a homophobic society. That will show the world that we gays are so moral. Don’t be so sick in the head. After all, Jews like any other group you care to mention, have their homophobes and certainly were much more homophobic in the past. Using your pathetic logic, the Holocaust was fine.
I’m Irish so we are a people who do not have a reputation of having people as enemies (apart from the British of course but they’re nice now). I have faith in the Irish people and the Irish people are appalled by the recent interception of the aid flotilla. While the actions of some on board were silly, they are not to blame. They were intercepted in INTERNATIONAL waters trying to break an ILLEGAL blockade. The Irish ship, the Rachel Corrie, was part of the original flotilla but was delayed. The people on board it put up no resistance and made its captain made it clear that they would make no resistance. Israel is too paranoid and should focus on building ties with its neighbours.
Shashi
So horrifying, so gruesome are the human rights violations, that a Jewish judge (from South Africa)in the International Court, named Goldstone, did a full investigation. The United Nations Goldstone Report can be read online. The reason the Pride parade in Barcelona last week banned the Tel Aviv gays from coming, was NOT because they have problem with Israeli people or gays, or Muslims, the reason was so they could get the Tel Aviv gays to pressure their mayor to condemn the Massacre on the Flotilla, and the outright PIRACY in International waters, of a ship that was proven to be turned its course AWAY from Israel as well. You should be encouraging the Tel Aviv gays to take a stand, against genocide.
[img]http://www.barcelonareporter.com/img_uploads/Madrid_Gay_Pride_2010.jpg[/img]
Harriet M.
http://www.barcelonareporter.com/index.php/news/comments/madrid_gay_pride_2010_march_has_banned_israeli_float_over_gaza_ship_raid/
saw that, I agree, I’d ban them too from the next pride in NYC
“In any case, the president of the Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals (FELGTB) said that “any Israeli organization defending human rights, and in particular LGBT rights, may participate in the parade.” “We would accept this with joy, especially if they favoured a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli situation,” he added.
Let the movement be started here in NYC with Jewish gays, it can work, we have the power…
WiseUp
Hmmm. But then again the gay of Spain lost all his backbone when the bombs hit their train stations. So no wonder they would act as such.
kolokol
“We don’t cherry-pick our conscience.” Of course not, what’s to pick? I don’t cherry-pick my conscience either, Mr. John, but what can I do, I don’t have your music anyway and certainly won’t try to get any.
Cam
@Shashi:
You keep saying “Genocide”, are you referring to what is happening to the gays in Palestine?
Haithem El-Zabri
obviously this fuck-face doesn’t have a conscience. fuck elton john.
Raimo Kangasniemi
It’s funny how people still whine about this or that artist didn’t show spine in the days of Nazi Germany, been an example, but became instead a pawn of the regime, entertaining both elite and footsoldiers, and then when today somebody does show spine in a case of an opressive apartheid regime enslaving innocent people, then suddenly he should be apolitical – and go and perform in a country ruled by the aforementioned regime, which in itself would be a political statement: Support for ethnic cleansing and enslaving an entire nation of people.
The problem with attitudes of Zionists seem to be that they would like to artists to have a conscience only when the victims are Jews, and forget about conscience when the oppressors are Jews. Then it’s ok to just entertain the new übermensch in an endless need of a lebensraum.
alan brickman
israel protects gays…it’s just that simple….
Paschal
@alan brickman: While I would defend Israel and Israelis from unjust attacks, the situation is not that simple.
Paschal
@Raimo Kangasniemi: That’s is going too far.
SSCHIEFRSHA
The Jews…
WalkderDC
Somebody here in the US, can tell an anti-gay Joke, or write a lyric in a song that is anti-gay and the gay community will want them fried alive. But somehow, some in the gay community have bought into this crazy cult of thinking that it is ok for this group of people in Gaza to kill gays, and gays should feel sorry for these people. Sorry, but I don’t hate myself or other gays that much. Stop murdering us before you try to ask for our sympathy.
Robert in NYC
No. 4, Michael Joseph Cuneo….actually, gays in Israel just like American gays, do not have equal rights yet, Israeli gays can’t get married anywhere in their own country even though it recognizes foreign same-sex marriages, although I think Israel will allow same-sex marriage long before we in the U.S. get it. In terms of democracy, straight Israelis aren’t even allowed to have a civil marriage, it has to be officiated by a rabbi, a religious ceremony, which means Israeli’s have to leave their own country to do just that. In fact judaism forbids civil marriages, period. I hope one day that will change.
Yael Kahn
We’re talking about Elton, who sold gay rights for cash [as well as broke the Apartheid Sun City boycott]. See the hilarious coverage of the $1 million Elton was paid to perform for anti-gay Rush Limbaugh. With such dubious integrity, bragging about Elton’s support for Israel ought to blowback in the face of the Israeli apologists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKUaMhFym74&NR=1
justin
@Paschal: you know, according to the international laws, if a boat refuses to stop after several warnings, you can take over even if it’s internationl water…
Queer Supremacist
@Cam: I agree with everything you have said except for calling them “Palestinians” and calling them “people”. No country that executes people for a “being crime” has any right to claim sovereignty (this means you too, Iran) or any right to complain about human rights violations.
There is no “Palestinian” “genocide”, and if there were, it’s obviously not fucking working because those neo-Nazi camel-fucking breeder supremacist shit bags keep breeding like rabbits.
I’m not surprised by the neo-Inquisition in Madrid. The spirit of Tomas de Torquemada is alive and well among the supposedly “sophisticated” European goyim. 2000 years of European “sophistication” got us the fall of the Roman Empire, the Black Plague, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Holocaust. All because of the goyim.
Elton John is a hero. Queerty should change its name to Ernst Rohm dot com.
Paschal
@Queer Supremacist: So Palestinians deserve to suffer? Children deserve to suffer? Society makes people homophobic. It’s no surprise that who we meet and know influence our opinions and beliefes. It makes more sense to fight homophobia therby making Palestinians more gay-friendly than to act in an evil towards them. Two wrongs do NOT make a right. Hate is not defeated with yet more hate. It is defeated with knowledge.
Vicky
Muslims are far better in Israel than jews in any muslim country!