Perhaps, but I think it's more complicated than that. I think it has to do
with a widespread confusion about the nature of Jewish identity. The article
also reminded me about all the one time left wing Jews who became Neo Cons
and the one time Communists who began testifying against their brothers and
sisters. And I think that relates to what the original motivation was of
those people when they embraced left wing causes.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 9:44 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Bob Dylan's embrace of Israel's war crimes
While I feel no need to either defend or damn Dylan, I do have to point out
that it was this same Nobel Committee that presented our very own Prince of
Peace, Barack Obama, the Peace Prize. Dylan's selection, so far as I am
concerned, neither adds to or detracts from his entire body of work. It's a
sign of the times when a one time protester becomes an apologist for the
Establishment. I remember the comments of a reporter who arrived at John
Steinbeck's home one mid day, only to find the great author sitting on his
veranda in a dressing gown, eating a very late breakfast. The reporter
asked the author why he no longer wrote of the poverty and suffering of the
working men and women. Steinbeck told the reporter that he no longer wrote
about the poor because he himself was no longer suffering from poverty.
Perhaps Dylan has also moved beyond being able to relate to the abject
suffering of an entire people.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/19/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADAadministration.
Bob Dylan's embrace of Israel's war crimes Michael F. Brown Arts and
Culture 18 October 2016
American folk-rock legend Bob Dylan performs in Tel Aviv, on 20 June
2011, in defiance of a Palestinian call for boycott.
Abir Sutan EPA
Controversially, musical genius Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize for
literature last week.
Even some critics who acknowledged his musical brilliance have argued
that awarding a musician was a step that too dramatically expanded the
definition of literature. What few dispute is that his music inspired
millions in the midst of the anti-war and civil rights movements.
But there is also a less pleasant, less known side to the artist,
particularly his views on Israel, Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense
League.
In 1983, in The New York Times, Stephen Holden described Dylan's album
Infidels as "a disturbing artistic semirecovery by a rock legend who
seemed in recent years to have lost his ability to engage the Zeitgeist."
Holden asserted that a "stomping, hollering rhetorical tone infuses
the two most specifically political songs, 'Neighborhood Bully,' an
outspoken defense of Israel, and 'Union Sundown,' a gospel-blues
indictment of American labor unions."
"The lyrics suggest an angry crackpot throwing wild punches and hoping
that one or two will land," Holden added.
With its opening lyrics parroting Israel's own narrative of being the
blameless, perpetual victim of Arab violence, "Neighborhood Bully"
came just a year after Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon that would
claim tens of thousands of lives:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man His enemies say he's
on their land They got him outnumbered about a million to one He got
no place to escape to, no place to run He's the neighborhood bully The
invasion of Lebanon was a calamitous war, widely opposed even in
Israel where it was likened to the US quagmire in Vietnam.
Yet Dylan sang these words exonerating Israel even after the world had
witnessed the horrifying massacres of Palestinian refugees in the
Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by an Israeli-allied militia during
the occupation of Beirut.
Today, the lyrics read like a prelude to the racist nationalism
embodied in the politics of today's Israeli leaders, including
Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett.
Deeper into the tune, Dylan betrays an ignorance of the enormous
support given by the US government to Israel, notably the huge influx
of military support provided by the administration of President Jimmy
Carter shortly before the release of the album.
That funding continues to this day with the record-breaking $38
billion in military aid over 10 years recently negotiated by the Obama
Yet Dylan sings:movement."
He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love He buys
obsolete weapons and he won't be denied Kahane The equal rights backed
by Dylan in the US seemingly have no place in his politics regarding
Israel and its neighbors.
Dylan's challenge to power in the US is transmuted into an embrace of
Israeli militancy because of a flawed sense of reality, perhaps one
learned from Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL)
and later of the racist Kach party in Israel.
Dylan's relationship to Kahane and the JDL is not entirely clear, but
was explored by Anthony Scaduto in The New York Times in 1971.
"Dylan's interest in Israel and Judaism led him, over a year ago, into
an unexpected relationship with Rabbi Meir Kahane and the Jewish
Defense League," Scaduto wrote.
The singer reportedly attended several JDL meetings and may have given
money to the organization.
Already in 1971, Scaduto wrote, "Dylan's enthusiasm for the militant
Jewish organization has brought down the wrath of some in the radical
Scaduto detailed this just four years after the Israeli occupation ofbegun:
the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai had
"To many young radicals, including Jewish kids, Israel is simply"Derriba el muro"
another one of those fascist states propped up by a fascist American
Government, and Dylan's fervent support of Israel and his
over-publicized contacts with the JDL are to them a further indication
that he has sold out to the political right he condemned."
Rejecting Palestinian struggle
Dylan's drift away from the anti-war movement over the course of the
next
45
years - and his clear embrace of Israel after its invasion of Lebanon
- led to no surprise when he rejected the boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) movement's call for him not to play Israel in 2011.
The right of return for refugees, the end of the occupation and equal
rights for all Palestinians - the BDS movement's key demands - would
not have resonated with the man who wrote "Neighborhood Bully."
Ironically, both Dylan and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters performed at the
Desert Trip musical festival this month.
Today, however, it is Waters who is politically relevant, with his
support of the BDS movement and Black Lives Matter, his blasting of
Donald Trump's racism and his love and support for children wearing
T-shirts - Spanish for "take down the wall."Palestine:
In front of an audience of tens of thousands of festival-goers in
Indio, California, Waters gave a shout-out to Students for Justice in
Both Waters and Dylan are now in their 70s; one has grown over theadministration.
last 50 years in his willingness to embrace urgent contemporary
struggles for freedom and equal rights. The other has stepped back
from vital political engagements and yet been rewarded with a Nobel Prize.
Today it is no longer Dylan who best embodies the spirit of one of his
best known lyrics:
Yes, and how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed
to be free?
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//blog/blog/arts-and-culture
Bob Dylan's embrace of Israel's war crimes Michael F. Brown Arts and
Culture 18 October 2016
American folk-rock legend Bob Dylan performs in Tel Aviv, on 20 June
2011, in defiance of a Palestinian call for boycott.
Abir Sutan EPA
Controversially, musical genius Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize for
literature last week.
Even some critics who acknowledged his musical brilliance have argued
that awarding a musician was a step that too dramatically expanded the
definition of literature. What few dispute is that his music inspired
millions in the midst of the anti-war and civil rights movements.
But there is also a less pleasant, less known side to the artist,
particularly his views on Israel, Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense
League.
In 1983, in The New York Times, Stephen Holden described Dylan's album
Infidels as "a disturbing artistic semirecovery by a rock legend who
seemed in recent years to have lost his ability to engage the Zeitgeist."
Holden asserted that a "stomping, hollering rhetorical tone infuses
the two most specifically political songs, 'Neighborhood Bully,' an
outspoken defense of Israel, and 'Union Sundown,' a gospel-blues
indictment of American labor unions."
"The lyrics suggest an angry crackpot throwing wild punches and hoping
that one or two will land," Holden added.
With its opening lyrics parroting Israel's own narrative of being the
blameless, perpetual victim of Arab violence, "Neighborhood Bully"
came just a year after Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon that would
claim tens of thousands of lives:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man His enemies say he's
on their land They got him outnumbered about a million to one He got
no place to escape to, no place to run He's the neighborhood bully The
invasion of Lebanon was a calamitous war, widely opposed even in
Israel where it was likened to the US quagmire in Vietnam.
Yet Dylan sang these words exonerating Israel even after the world had
witnessed the horrifying massacres of Palestinian refugees in the
Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by an Israeli-allied militia during
the occupation of Beirut.
Today, the lyrics read like a prelude to the racist nationalism
embodied in the politics of today's Israeli leaders, including
Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett.
Deeper into the tune, Dylan betrays an ignorance of the enormous
support given by the US government to Israel, notably the huge influx
of military support provided by the administration of President Jimmy
Carter shortly before the release of the album.
That funding continues to this day with the record-breaking $38
billion in military aid over 10 years recently negotiated by the Obama
Yet Dylan sings:movement."
He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love He buys
obsolete weapons and he won't be denied Kahane The equal rights backed
by Dylan in the US seemingly have no place in his politics regarding
Israel and its neighbors.
Dylan's challenge to power in the US is transmuted into an embrace of
Israeli militancy because of a flawed sense of reality, perhaps one
learned from Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL)
and later of the racist Kach party in Israel.
Dylan's relationship to Kahane and the JDL is not entirely clear, but
was explored by Anthony Scaduto in The New York Times in 1971.
"Dylan's interest in Israel and Judaism led him, over a year ago, into
an unexpected relationship with Rabbi Meir Kahane and the Jewish
Defense League," Scaduto wrote.
The singer reportedly attended several JDL meetings and may have given
money to the organization.
Already in 1971, Scaduto wrote, "Dylan's enthusiasm for the militant
Jewish organization has brought down the wrath of some in the radical
Scaduto detailed this just four years after the Israeli occupation ofbegun:
the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai had
"To many young radicals, including Jewish kids, Israel is simply"Derriba el muro"
another one of those fascist states propped up by a fascist American
Government, and Dylan's fervent support of Israel and his
over-publicized contacts with the JDL are to them a further indication
that he has sold out to the political right he condemned."
Rejecting Palestinian struggle
Dylan's drift away from the anti-war movement over the course of the
next
45
years - and his clear embrace of Israel after its invasion of Lebanon
- led to no surprise when he rejected the boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) movement's call for him not to play Israel in 2011.
The right of return for refugees, the end of the occupation and equal
rights for all Palestinians - the BDS movement's key demands - would
not have resonated with the man who wrote "Neighborhood Bully."
Ironically, both Dylan and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters performed at the
Desert Trip musical festival this month.
Today, however, it is Waters who is politically relevant, with his
support of the BDS movement and Black Lives Matter, his blasting of
Donald Trump's racism and his love and support for children wearing
T-shirts - Spanish for "take down the wall."Palestine:
In front of an audience of tens of thousands of festival-goers in
Indio, California, Waters gave a shout-out to Students for Justice in
Both Waters and Dylan are now in their 70s; one has grown over the
last 50 years in his willingness to embrace urgent contemporary
struggles for freedom and equal rights. The other has stepped back
from vital political engagements and yet been rewarded with a Nobel Prize.
Today it is no longer Dylan who best embodies the spirit of one of his
best known lyrics:
Yes, and how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed
to be free?
