Arts & Culture

Elvis Costello Bails on Free Trip to Israel

Elvis Costello is bailing out on shows planned in Israel this summer. From The Forward: “It is a matter of instinct and conscience,” Costello wrote.   "In a lengthy explanation he provided, the rock musician said that merely having his … Read More

By / May 18, 2010

Elvis Costello is bailing out on shows planned in Israel this summer. From The Forward:

“It is a matter of instinct and conscience,” Costello wrote.

 

"In a lengthy explanation he provided, the rock musician said that merely having his name added to those appearing in Israel this summer “may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.”

I wonder how Costello found this "conscience?"  Was he visited in his sleep by ghosts of good musicians past who threatened boycotts against him? Because he didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with playing Israel before…

 

 

  • Kokapelye

    Actually, Ismail, Godwin’s Law —as described by Mike Godwin himself— makes no requirement of direct comparison, mere reference to Nazis without appropriate context is sufficient. Your tossing out the Americans in Vietnam as a substitute only proves your original mention of Nazis was gratuitous. So no, my reference to Godwin’s Law was neither meaningless nor a cheap rhetorical point. Face up to it, Ismail, you were caught.

    Human behavior is rarely as simple as we’d like it to be. When you consider the aggregate behaviors that  produce interactions between human groups, simplistic explanations and solutions are bound to be wrong. Sure, viewing one party as responsible for some situation is a normal human tendency, but so is throwing rocks. As you pointed out, Ismail, throwing rocks isn’t necessarily right.

    Okay, you said that you believe “the overall responsibility for [the Palestinians’] displacement is squarely Israel’s.” Not “much of” the responsibility or “the  lion‘s share of” the responsibility, but “overall” and “squarely.” To assign such blanket responsibility to Israel neglects that significant displacement of the Palestinian population in Israel and the territories occurred during wars that were initiated by Arab states. This in no way excuses Israel, but it does prove that your calculations regarding the Middle East in the last half century or so are far too simplistic, Ismail.

    My notion of complexity regarding the politics of the Middle East is not stupid and in no way limits my sympathy for Israel and its people. And my support for Israel does not preclude sympathy for the Palestinians. This is not the “feel good” version of your suggested throwing up the hands in disinterested ambivalence. While the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians may of necessity require a territorial zero-sum solution, I believe it is by no means an all-or-nothing solution. 

    On the other hand, Ismail, your non-complex assignment of responsibility leads me to believe that at least one of your a priori assumptions includes 1)That the Israelis are uniquely and intrinsically culpable; 2) The Arabs —in general— and Palestinians —in particular— are not responsible for their actions; or 3) Conflict with Israel proceeds from rules different from conflict with any other state. That is neither moral or just.

    My thought experiment remains relevant on its own merits. And you prove its relevance to this discussion, Ismail, by repeating it [in short form] with your hypothetical Iraqi and/or Iranian. I have no idea what you were trying to prove in that repetition, inasmuch the way you worded it only serves to further my point. I think we can find fools and knaves closer than Baghdad or Tehran.

    I think much of our disagreement stems from your use of “the bad actor” versus a bad actor, Ismail. I thought I understood what “bad actor” meant, but to be sure I waded through a couple hundred examples of its use until the redundancy became unbearable. What I gleaned was that other writers make a distinction between a bad actor among many [or several bad actors among many] and the bad actor as in “the one and only bad actor.” A non-political example comes from chemistry: remove the bad actor compound from an undesired chemical reaction and the reaction stops; remove a bad actor compound from another undesired reaction and the reaction may slow but the other bad actors must be removed before the reaction halts. Examples from ecology, finance, law, political science, sociology, etc. repeat the same pattern. [This, by the way is the origin of my thought experiment, not any imagined offer of milk and honey.]

    It is therefore entirely sane that I question whether by using “the bad actor” you intend that Israel is the sole bad actor in the Middle East, Ismail. When prompted, you have admitted that “the other side” is not blameless and you don’t condone the actions of the Palestinians [or Native Americans, or partisans, or Viet Cong], but you have avoided accepting “a bad actor” as a reasonable descriptor of Israel and you have avoided assigning any modicum of responsibility to the Palestinians. It is you, Ismail that are being obstinate. When explicitly asked to define how you use “the bad actor” you ignore the crux of the inquiry and only partly explain your stance. Partial obscurantism is still obscurantism, Ismail.

    At least you admit no concern with Costello’s motives, Ismael, altho’ this contradicts your earlier statements. It would explain your lack of curiosity about his only recent awareness of the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, altho’ you did attribute a conversion experience to Costello. But then you complain of the lack of political sophistication of Daniel Barenboim and other liberal Zionists. Make up your mind, Ismail.  Either political sophistication and nuance count, or they don’t.

    Your rejection of the WEDO puzzles me, Ismail. Since when has Edward Said been a “sanitizer of colonialism”? This rejection also belies any political sophistication on your part, that is, if that’s what you’re into. The problems of the the Israelis and Palestinians most certainly have a psychological component: both the Israelis and Palestinians have dehumanized the other side, both casually and explicitly. There can be no political solution until both sides see each other as human beings. The WEDO is making steps in this direction. Or are you suggesting one side isn’t human?

    Finally, what is this “word to the wise,” Ismail? Are you threatening to set those thugs from the neighborhood next to yours on me?

  • Fishman

    I still LOVE "Trust"

  • Ismail

    First, you make a meaningless reference to Godwin’s Law, even while acknowledging that I accused no one of being a nazi. Do you suggest that even a passing reference to nazis makes an argument suspect? If it makes you feel more soothed, change "nazis" to "americans" and change the historical context to the Vietnam war. So now, I find the brutal actions of some Vietnamese against their countrymen who supported the American forces to be inexcusable. Still, the Americans were the bad actors. Happy? Of course, you could have done this metaphorical math yourself, but you chose instead to make a cheap rhetorical point of no discernible value. Sad.

    The idea that the situation between the Palis and Israelis is too complex to allow the normal human tendency to see one party as responsible is one of the great achievements of Israel’s hasbara efforts. It is not complex at all. Although some Palis have done some terrible things during their resistance to Zionism, the overall responsibility for their displacement is squarely Israel’s.

    By the way, since you revere this stupid notion of complexity, tell me, does it prevent you from by and large feeling more sympathy to the Israeli narrative? That is, while I’m sure you make kind noises about there being enough blame on all sides, that each people has its own story, blah blah blah, at the end of the day do you simply throw up your hands and declare that you do not support either side? If not, then we agree, despite your empty calculations of "complexity". If so, you are simply uninterested in morality or justice.

    Your thought experiment may have some relevance to this discussion on some planet in the bizarro galaxy, but here on earth it is beyond pointless. Kindly point out where I declared that Israel is responsible for every conflict between every entity in the mideast, or where I insisted that every Arab country would supply free milk and honey plus endless virgins to one another’s citizens if only Israel had never come into being.

    Perhaps you are not convinced. I’ll bet you were happy to see regime change in Iraq, and I’m sure that you support a change of the guard in Iran (which are closer parallels to my wishes re Israel – not that it "disappear" but that its criminal Zionist regime "vanish from the pages of time", as someone or other once said). And if an Iraqi or an Iranian were to say, "What, you think if you get rid of us the whole region will become a paradise?", you’d rightly consider him a fool or a knave. His comment is dishonest or immaterial, like yours.

    I suggest you use the "edit" function at once to remove your preposterous and embarrassing "thought expeiment" before eyes less kind than my own happen upon it. Word to the wise.

    I have tried to explain that calling someone "the bad actor", where that means that you hold that party responsible for the matter under discussion, is a perfectly unremarkable speech act we all perform daily, and it in no way entails the crazy notion that the other side, the one you think is the aggrieved party, is blameless. You remain obstinately immune to correction re this. I’m afraid that I can be of no further help regarding this peculiar belief of yours, but if you are interested, I’m sure I can supply the names of other, more patient clinicians who may have better luck than I.

    Regarding Costello’s "nuanced stance", fine with me. All I care about is that his devotion to nuance did not prevent him from acting. That is, his behavior was identical to that of someone like, say, me, who sees no nuance at all in this issue. If it comforts you to add the meaningless operator "nuanced" to a guy who undertakes a behavior you deplore, go for it. As long as he withdrew the tacit support for Israel’s barbarism that his presence there might suggest, I’m happy. "Nuanced" or not.

    Barenboim is a liberal Zionist and as such displays the decent heart but political unsophistication of that group. This comment is not the right place to analyze WEDO and similar sanitizers of colonialism, but let’s just say that I reject your positive estimation of Barenboim, and, by extension, any similar efforts to suggest that the POLITICAL problems in Palestine/Israel may properly be addressed by PSYCHOLOGICAL means.

    My neighborhood, by the way, is quite a lovely one. But those bastards one neighborhood over? You can have them! 

     

     

  • Kokapelye

    Congratulations, Ismail, you’ve crossed Godwin’s threshold. Okay, you didn’t write “X is Nazi” or “Y is like Hitler,” but your examples for comparison do count for something. Or is your bag o’ comparisons and similes so shallow that Nazis regularly come to the top? 

    I’m not willfully trying to misunderstand you, Ismail, but something may be blocking my comprehension. Does the bad actor have a specialized meaning in philosophy or poli sci that I’m missing? Possibly where “the” is only part of a formula and has no separate linguistic meaning? Or perhaps the bad actor is reserved for the chief malefactor and other terms are assigned lesser offenders? This is neither a descent into minutia nor a facetious inquiry intended ridicule your writing style. 

    I am not demanding grade-school “evenhandedness” [“We have to punish the good children as well, so we don’t hurt the feelings of the bad children”], but I also reject the blanket binary narrative [“The are two sides to every story, and only two sides”] and the adversarial sports metaphor where every issue becomes a conflict with winners and losers that must be tallied. Just because these have become endemic in what passes for journalism is no reason we should succumb to such lazy thinking. And it is lazy thinking because the situation in the Middle East —in general— and with the Israelis and Palestinians —in particular— is more complex than the two sides, win-lose scenario your writing implies, Ismail. 

    Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine the State of Israel does not exist. It doesn’t matter when —yesterday, today, tomorrow,  1948, whenever— run as many scenarios as you want. Given the other parties involved, does this produce a peaceful Middle East? Sure, aggression by and against the Zionist Entity will have disappeared. But will Jordan have granted the Palestinians independence? Will the Syrians and Lebanese stop their intra- and extramural fighting from spilling over to whichever polity is to their immediate south? How’s Egypt’s security in the eastern Sinai? A thinking person would answer “How should I know, this is all speculation, and much too complex to answer definitively,” which is precisely my point. Your gathering the blame and fault to Israel is far too simplistic to account for the complexity of reality in the Middle East.

    Agreeing to disagree would be the gentlemanly thing to do, altho’ not nearly so satisfying as the alternative. But your insinuations and not so sly insults lead me to believe that your heart is not really in that agreement. How is it that only Israel’s partisans are easily wounded? That sounds as if you’re all for defending one’s respective beliefs, unless those beliefs include being pro-Israel. 

    And what silly, slapstick epistemological rules? All I ask for is a little precision in your writing, Ismail, so I —and anyone else— know what you actually mean. For example, that stray ”the” still appears to be at odds with your later explanations. That is, unless it was your intention to be obscurant.

    The purpose of quoting Costello’s citation of the Palestinians’ bad behavior was not to refute his position on performing in Israel. Rather I meant to counter your evangelical crowing that Brother Elvis has seen the light [see also Israeli Booking Agency Makes Elvis Costello Look Like Douchebag]. For that matter, Costello was able to convey a nuanced stance in far fewer words than you, Ismail. I s’pose it helps to be a songwriter.

    Elvis Costello has his reasons to withdraw from performing in Israel. He gave his reasons in his statement. Mebbe he has other reasons, who knows, that’s his business. But three things still bother me: First, other musicians have managed to engage both the Palestinians and Israelis. Case in point, Daniel Barenboim co-founded  the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra “to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians and pave the way for a peaceful and fair solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” In comparison, Costello’s pullout seems less an action for peace than inaction for convenience. Mebbe Costello has other plans to use his music for peace or mebbe he’s no Daniel Barenboim. I hope for the former. Second, what other major events of the last half of the 20th century has Elvis Costello missed? I mean, it’s kinda like claiming you didn’t know that the county you’re currently imprisoned in for being an American spy was on the State Department’s warning list. Who’s s’posed to check this stuff out before Costello signs up for a tour? And third, why did Ismail mention throwing a rock through a window in his faulty drivers example. In the real world, the usual retribution for failure to signal is tailgating or passing the offending vehicle then cutting it off. What kind of neighborhoods does Ismail drive in?

  • Kokapelye

    To imply that I require one side to be entirely angelic to be worthy of support or another side to be entirely demonic is the strawiest of men, Ismail, and you know it. To suggest that I argue from that untenable position and then you defeat it is only rhetoric intended to distract attention from weakness of your arguments.

    Using the definite article, as in “Israel is the bad actor in the Middle East,” indicates you hold Israel to be the sole bad actor in the Middle East. Exactly what are all the things you were taking into account? Given the state of Israeli and Palestinian dispute, surely there is room for more than one bad actor. Prob’ly room for several bad actors. I find it difficult to believe that you’ve even taken most things in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute into account, Ismail, if you can find only one bad actor in the Middle East.

    As apparently your computer hook-up is incapable of following links, Ismail, I’ll give you an pertinent excerpt Elvis Costello’s own website, regarding his withdrawal from upcoming performances in Israel:

    ”I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.”

    Uh-oh, it looks like Costello has joined the ranks of those who’ve had enough with the Palestinians’ behavior

     

  • Ismail

    "Using the definite object, as in “Israel is the bad actor in the Middle East,” indicates you hold Israel to be the sole bad actor in the Middle East. Exactly what are all the things you were taking into account? Given the state of Israeli and Palestinian dispute, surely there is room for more than one bad actor."

    Well, let me try to help you apprehend a pretty straightforward concept that you seem to be using all your powers to misunderstand.

    I in no way support the scalping of innocent women and children by Native Americans whose lands were relentlessly appropriated by Europeans, nor any other acts of savagery by those indigenes. In a similar fashion, I denounce the actions of resistance fighters during WWll who summarily hanged those even suspected of treason, killed their families, etc.

    Note that these beliefs in no way commit me to taking an "evenhanded view" of these matters. I have no trouble whatsoever laying the blame for the destruction of the indigenous North American populations at the feet of the Europeans, nor do I have the faintest problem with seeing the nazis as the villains of WWll.

    If you think about it for a minute, even you should see that pronouncing someone "the bad actor" in a situation doesn’t mean that you grant dispensation to every act committed by the other side, only that, taken as a whole, you find one side the one to blame.

    We all do this every day, as you must know – "Well, he shouldn’t have changed lanes without signalling, but that’s no reason for you to throw a rock through his window". Nothing exotic about finding someone to be at fault, even though others may not be blameless.

    Except, of course, when the subject’s Israel, whose partisans get so easily wounded.

    Here’s the thing; you and I disagree about the origins and continuance of the problems in the Middle East. Fine. Who doesn’t? So let’s agree to stick with defending our respective beliefs, and stop constructing silly, slapstick epistemological rules that would forbid anyone from taking a side in any dispute, anytime, anywhere.

    Deal?

    Oh, one more thing – you quote Costello thusly:

    ”I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.”

    and conclude that 

    "… Costello has joined the ranks of those who’ve had enough with the Palestinians’ behavior"

    Well, he’s certainly not down with the bad behavior of some Palestinians, that’s for sure. But notice how acknowledging that doesn’t stop him from taking a stand on performing in Israel. Just as I said actual people do all the time.

    Thanks, Elvis, for illustrating my point so well. 

     

  • Ismail

    Koka, talk of "all the innocence" and "all the guilt" is the reddest of herrings.

    No one has to own "all the guilt" (whatever that might mean) in order to be worthy of condemnation, nor must someone own "all the innocence" in order to deserve our support. That is to say, we make political judgments and take sides every day without requiring that those we support be angels nor that those we oppose be demons.

    I certainly do believe that, taking all things into account, Israel is the bad actor in the middle east. But this does not depend on my subscribing to such fictions as "all the innocence" and "all the guilt".

  • Kokapelye

    It’s not Israel’s bad behavior being called that gets me twingy, just the use of snippets of a story to attribute all the innocence to the Palestinians and all the guilt to the Israelis. Costello’s own statement is much less black and white and indicates a more informed and nuanced understanding of the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

  • Ismail

    I’m not sure what Jason’s point is. Does he imagine that people don’t change their minds about things? That the situation in the Middle East has remained static, with nothing happening to push anyone to reconsider? Can he not think it possible that the inexorable accretion of Israeli crimes might reach a tipping point in the mind of Costello (or any ethically sensitive person) and cause him to become fed up?

     Why else would Costello make up his mind to bow out? Jason murmurs something about a boycott from fellow musicians, but this is nonsense. Apart from the powerful industry juggernaut Gil Scott-Heron (!), the vast majority of artists have ignored the call for cultural boycott of Israel. If anything, I’d think Costello would face greater risk of negative consequences from his decision to leave the Israelis to entertain themselves.

    As I understand it, the concert was well-subscribed, so he’s leaving a lot of money on the table.

    Seems to me that he simply made a moral decision to withdraw his tacit support of a country whose foreign and domestic policies are careening wildly towards intolerance and aggression by the day.

    I know his decision must hurt the feelings of those who feel a personal twinge whenever Israel is called on its bad behavior, but Jason mustn’t let his emotional reactions becloud his intelligence. 

  • Emma Rothschild

    He DOES get better with age!