Israel ballet interrupted in Burlington, Vt. No tutu is big enough to cover Israel's War Crimes

On Friday, February 19, 2010, American and Israeli human rights activists interrupted a performance by the Israel Ballet at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, Vermont, unfurling banners which read "Sponsored by Apartheid Israel" and "No tutu is big enough to cover War Crimes".


The Israel Ballet is currently touring the U.S. as part of an official state campaign, dubbed "Brand Israel" to use the Arts to revive its sagging image abroad in the wake of unanimous condemnation from the major human rights organizations and, most recently, the U.N. "Goldstone Report".
Israel ballet interrupted in Burlington, Vt. - No tutu is big enough to cover Israel's War Crimes from samayfield on Vimeo.

[It was originally on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxZbr1gOEj8 but it was removed for: "has been removed for terms of use violation"--criticizing Israel's apartheid is apparently not okay on Youtube!!!]

Here is the activists' statement: [vtjp.org]

MODERN DON QUIXOTE
Whether conscious or not, there is a deep irony in the choice of Don Quixote as a touring piece for the Israel Ballet. For the company here presents a story of enchantment and self-enchantment, delusion and self-delusion, a fairytale of madness and delusory nobility, the story of a dreamer driven mad by ancient books, his mental state now lucid, now insane.
Tonight you will meet The Knight of Sorrowful Countenance, surrounded by enemies and magicians, battling the world of evil. He is cruelly used, physically and mentally, beaten and scorned by the powers around him. Normally grave and self-controlled, he can be goaded into mad fits of rage, unable to distinguish between his fantasies and the world's realities.

By the end of the book, our hero's soul is taunted by doubt, by the suspicion that his quest to reestablish the past through arms and armor may be an illusion. "I find myself, Niece," he says, "at the point of death, and I would die in such a way as not to leave the impression of a life so bad that I shall be remembered as a madman: for even though I have been one, I do not wish to confirm it on my deathbed."

There are lessons here for all of us.

You art-lovers, people of conscience, members of the international community of intellectuals, have historically stood with the ancient -- perhaps quixotic -- moral responsibility to fight injustice -- as you did, for instance, in helping abolish wage slavery among grape-pickers in California, or apartheid in South Africa -- through various forms of boycott.

Given that the UN has many times condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal, and that six decades of diplomacy have until now failed to convince Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its oppression of the people of Palestine, we ask you in the future to support a general boycott of Israeli goods and cultural offerings -- an international non-violent effort to impel the Israeli government to end its occupation of Arab lands, to end the house demolitions, dismantle the walls, recognize the claims of Arab citizens of Israel to full equality, and to promote the globally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

As it is not anti-American to call for ending our own wars, it is not antisemitic to call on the Israeli government to change its policies in the name of freedom and justice.

Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel vtjp.org

--
"It was year-in-year-out American diplomacy and billions in American loans and/or outright grants voted for annually by Americans' representatives in Congress that were sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was American-made bombers, paid for, at least in part, by American TAXPAYERS, that were pulverizing Beirut apartment houses and burying their occupants under the rubble. Rightly or wrongly, willingly or not, every American citizen, simply by his or her citizenship, was and is involved in the Conflict" ~Fr. John W. Mulhall, CSP, in his book "America and the founding of Israel, an Investigation of the Morality of America's Role, 1995, Deshon Press
 
"I think the unpleasant and unavoidable comparison is with South Africa during the apartheid period and i must say, having visited South Africa, that they were much better off than the Palestinians living in the refugee camps." ~Richard Falk, UN Human Rights Fact Finding Commission