Piers Akerman: ‘Foolish’ Sydney Festival boycott attempts to rewrite history
Sydney Festival-goers won’t be missing much from the small group of ignorant performers who withdrew over Israeli sponsorship, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
‘The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” Israeli diplomat Abba Eban wryly noted in 1973. Today it is the Boycott Disinvest Sanctions (BDS) movement and its woke spin-offs that is always off-target.
The move by a small group of unremarkable performers to withdraw their acts from the Sydney Festival because an Israeli performance received Israeli government sponsorship is a classic example of idiots providing evidence of their ignorance.
The Middle East is a complex arena but the history of the conflict is known and – despite the best efforts of left-leaning academics from Sydney University – cannot be rewritten to suit their cause and justify their current protest. The Palestinian leadership has rejected every offer to devise a just solution.
I have met with Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi and the ineffectual President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who last April again indefinitely postponed elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, which had been due in May. The last election was held in January 2005. Sixteen years without people being given a vote.
Crikey, a supporter of the BDS movement, has falsely claimed I’d merely spoken to the duplicitous duo in a number of phone calls. Wrong. I sat with them over mint tea and listened as they told falsehoods about the Palestinian’s Authority’s programming of child terrorists.
I want the Palestinian people to have the same opportunities to live prosperously in peace as Arabs living in Israel but their ineffectual unelected government won’t let them. Tell that to clowns like the ABC’s Tom Ballard. Ballard, whose limited repertoire seems to exclude history, should be made aware that boycotting Jewish businesses in Hitler’s Germany was a stepping stone for the Nazis towards their implementation of the Final Solution – the systematic murder of six million Jews during WWII, along with the murders of a further five million others selected for their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation.
Hamas and Hezbollah, the terrorist organisations that control the PA, don’t have time for homosexuals either. Or women’s rights. Let’s just say that human rights aren’t on their list of priorities.
The acts who have withdrawn from the Sydney Festival must be unaware that the most significant step towards peace in the Middle East was put in place under the Trump administration with the signing of the Abraham Accords, which normalise contact between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Palestinians, even further isolated by their leadership, are going backwards as Arab nations tire of supporting their corruption.
What the boycotters don’t want to understand is that their foolish display serves only to highlight the many failures of the Palestinian leadership. The Israeli Embassy’s $20,000 donation to the festival organisers, to assist with the staging of the world-class ballet Decadance, is no different to the support the Australian government gives to our artists to appear in overseas festivals.
Presumably, none of the acts boycotting the festival would accept government funding because of the perceived lack of support for left-wing causes such as open borders, Indigenous policy or the women’s movement. Make no mistake, the BDS movement wants to see Israel wiped out. It’s not seeking a two-state solution. There’s no give and take – it’s all or nothing.
The co-founder of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, has repeatedly said that the goal of the movement is the end of Israel. His BDS National Committee includes terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Last year some 4300 rockets and missiles were launched from Gaza towards Israel (each one a war crime), killing, wounding, and traumatising millions, including the Palestinians in Gaza in areas where many projectiles fell short, according to a British academic network in a letter published in the British Medical Journal on December 27.
Clearly, terrorists from the West Bank and Gaza Strip are an ongoing threat to the lives of all Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians alike.
As Arab nations reach out to normalise relations with Israel in defiance of calls for support from the Palestinians it is tragicomic that clowns in Australia attempt to create division in our multicultural society.
Ballard, like most of those who are billed as comedians by the ABC, is his own best audience, laughing loudest at his own lines.
The boycotting of the Sydney Festival by these fools will be a relief to attendees.
More Coverage
Black Friday ahead for retailers
Let’s call this rail dispute for what it is. It’s industrial warfare that is a dagger to the heart of our city and its still struggling economy, writes Paul Nicolaou.
Transport minister Jo Haylen’s service could be terminated by train stoppage
Sydney’s train strike has not come as any surprise. The transport minister had weeks to plan for this but instead basked in the glory of a Metro she did nothing to build, writes James O’Doherty.