Brian Eno nails it in Stealing Gaza.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?Eno is the avante-garde guitarist whose album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts brought my split musical worlds together in the 80s. Now he nails the horrors of Gaza, the complexity and ambiguity of Israeli motivations. You can download, legally, tracks from the album at this site.
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
Thank you for the post.
I have been a fan of Brian Eno since his early Roxy Music days.
And I agree with you, Bush of Ghosts is an amazing album.
His article makes me respect him even more. Thank you for the link.
MM.
Posted by: MsLevantine | January 06, 2009 at 08:51 AM
I remember the hypocrisy of Dire Straits boycotting South Africa and then starting their world tour in Israel in the 1980s. Now I see a number of musicians have come out against apartheid in Palestine as well. I was glad to see that Annie Lennox, another talented artist, denounce Israel's atrocities in Gaza the other day.
Posted by: J. Otto Pohl | January 06, 2009 at 07:00 PM
"The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen." brian eno at c-p
no, brian, they are not gifted nor resourceful. they are thieves and thugs. they have no right to live in peace in someone else's home on someone else's land and by brute, savage force take their resources. well, taking someone's resources is, i guess, sort of resourceful. and brian, they do not squander chances. they, the jews, do not want chances at peace. peace hinders theft and genocide.
notice how he had to get on his knees before he said something.
Posted by: 5 dancing shlomos | January 07, 2009 at 10:04 AM