Daniel Barenboim: ‘There can be no military solution’
mainThe maestro’s latest thoughts on the Middle East (auf Deutsch).
Read here.
Comments
MOST READ TODAY:
-
RIP
Concertmaster dies, 44
The Finnish music world is in mourning for…
-
Opera
Opera singers ‘face a mental health crisis’
Singers’ agents tell us of a tsunami of…
-
Opera
German opera chief quits at Christmas
The city of Würzburg has been shaken by…
-
Orchestras
Simone Young flak gets a Japan jump-in
Here’s a happy holiday story. The young Austrian…
Hi Norman, I may be mistaken, but wasn’t this in The Guardian a few days ago?
similar… slight shift in emphasis
Excellent. That one person writes “we Palestinians” and “we Israelis” is remarkable and sorely lacking elsewhere.
For us non-German speakers, what does Barenboim propose as a solution, given that the Gazans’ elected representatives have in their charter not peaceful coexistence, but a state from sea to sea and the murder of all Jews?
And what should Israel do in the meantime, not destroy the tunnels and weapons of those who are sworn to kill them and joyfully celebrate even the snatching of Jewish body parts?
You are getting your solution to the Gaza problem. Israel plans to to level Gaza to a rubble pile and kill as many people as possible. I hope you are happy.
Why would you think it makes me happy that civilians have died?
Why would you think that Israel’s military goal is to kill as many people as possible?
And if that were their goal, why have they endangered their own soldiers, many of whom have died as a result, in order to minimize collateral injury and death to civilians?
Just yesterday, three soldiers died when entering a booby-trapped UNRWA clinic that had a tunnel entrance under it. Had they not thought of sparing the building, they would have blown it up first and not taken any chances.
Here is a link to Barenboim’s piece in the Guardian. I don’t speak German but would assume the sentiments to be similar to what Lebrecht linked from Hamburg. He is one of very few people (on either side) who offers another way out of the crisis. Pity that more do not listen to him.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/24/israelis-palestinians-losers-conflict-suffering-rights
Tell this to the Hamas Symphony Orchestra.
Perhaps instead of basing his opinions on his contacts with westernized palestinian intellectuals, Barenboim should read the Hamas Charter.
Hamas is motivated by religion, not politics, which is why they see their mission as to murder all jews, no matter where they are found and to drive all Jews from the Islamic Caliphate they wish to set up, from sea to sea.
No compromise permitted.
Google Hamas Charter.
It’s there in black and white.
Hamas ist motivated by religious extremism and dogmatism. So are the fraction of extremist zionists in Israel’s society. I fail to see the essential difference between the hate mongers on both sides.
My point was that Barenboim frames this as political when Hamas themselves frame it as religious, saying that their religion requires that they slaughter all Jews and drive them from the Land of Israel. This means that they are not amenable to political solutions, except as an intermediate step to eventual slaughter of all Jews.
It’s spelled out very clearly in their charter. Just Google it.
Hamas and its charter are supported by the vast majority of Gaza’s and the West Bank’s population and have never renounced these parts of the Hamas Charter.
So, one can believe Barenboim or one can believe that Gazans themselves.
It seems to me the only solution is that the UN take over control of the entire area, remove all weapons, and start over.