The following piece of propaganda has been posted by Lorenzo Viotti, departing music director of Dutch National Opera.
The impulsive Swiss conductor, whose image can be seen at the top of the post, might be required to explain his action.
He has since taken down the post from his feed.
.
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From the general manager’s self-admiring Sunday sermon in…
press release: Royal College of Music student, Robyn Anderson has won a place on the Berlin…
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Shamefull. I remember, as member of the choir, seeing him as a kid seated next to his Mother during rehearsals in Copenhagen when his Father Marcello was conducting.
And you point is what precisely ?
The post and the comments have something in common, pro or contra: there is the evil, but also the innocent victim. Always. I reject this optimism.
In search of moral heroes, war zones are not the ideal place.
How much credibility do the parties have on innocence, based on all the actual events?
He could at least acknowledge that Israel’s hostages are being held in Rafah.
But he’s just another kid who, like so many, is not educated in history or political perspective, never mind war. And he’s reacting to images on the Internet.
He has nine concerts, nine, with the Vienna Philharmonic next month.
Do you know the man?
euh..now we do
The arts world is the last place I would look for insights on historical or political matters, other than perhaps a junior school.
On the other hand, there would be less mindless virtue signalling in a junior school.
Over 36,000 Palestinians killed. A disproportionate kill ratio of 30 to 1. An estimated 14,500 children killed. 70,000 wounded. 7000 missing.
At least 370,000 housing units Gaza damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely. Is is estimated that reconstruction will take until at least 2040, 16 years and cost $40 to 50 billion. There has not been such intense destruction of an urban area since WWII, and in such a short period of time that is virtually unprecedented.
The GDP of Gaza has been destroyed and it was already one of the poorest places on earth. Widespread famine has been created.
Israel is now isolated in almost the entire world, including from the one ally it had, the USA.
The facts speak for themselves and the evidence is there for the entire world to see. When people arrogantly deny these incontrovertible truths, they only add to the disgrace of what has happened. One weeps not only for the Palestinians, but also for what Netanyahu has done to Israel.
Thank you, William.
I don’t need to look up the statistics to assume that the GDP of Germany in May 1945 was lower than the GDP in 1939. Nor do I need to check on the stats to know that the ratio of German to British civilians killed in WWII was not much different. And by the way even the wretched UN cut the mortality rate reported by the Hamas terrorists in half.
The word “Hamas” is conspicuous by its absence.
2/3 of building material that came into Gaza in the psst 20 years were used to create an undergrownd network for Hamas military use from within the population. According to Hamas every single casualty is a non combatant. In reallity the ratio betwean combatants and non combatants is 2:1, ot 3:1. Military experts say no western army could be as humane – and very few would bother to. Casualties rate in Afganistan Iraq or Ukrain – far less compact combat zones – are much higher.
And of course, non of those so happy to criticise have nothing to say about Hamas goals: Before7.10 Hamas allocated governers to the various parts of Israel, and set out rules: which Jews are to be killed on the spot, which will be allowed to be ransomed and exiled, and which will be enslaved.
How do one fight that?
I would LOVE to know where you are getting your numbers from. You seem so confident about them, too.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-halves-its-estimate-women-and-children-killed-gaza#:~:text=On%20May%206%2C%20the%20UN,4%2C959%20women%20and%207%2C797%20children.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable
AP News, consistantly ranked as one of the most reliable sources of any media organization:
https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-hamas-latest-05-29-2024-c5f48e99dd5b7704df7c9b37ba6d16c2#:~:text=Israeli%20bombardments%20and%20ground%20offensives,distinguish%20between%20combatants%20and%20civilians.
This AP News? https://honestreporting.com/photographers-without-borders-ap-reuters-pictures-of-hamas-atrocities-raise-ethical-questions/
The root of this situation’s nightmare is Hamas. Behind Mr Osborne’s eloquence is ignorance and antisemitism. Israel has responded to a terroist attack that equals multiple 9/11s—children, women killed in the most gruesome of ways. Hamas shields itself with innocents; Hamas is indeed the Palestinian’s greatest enemy and in the entire Middle East it is only Israel willing to fight Hamas. Also, Neighboring Jordan and Egypt have very little interest in helping Palestinian. No Israeli is marching to kill Palestinians—the world should be marching against Hamas.
Hamas has siphoned most of the money given to the people of Gaza. The GDP of Gaza has always been low, but Hamas’ treasures have always been high.
Wars are imperfect scenarios, and every Jew under sun mourns the deaths of innocent Palestinians—yet the same cannot be said for Palestinians and Israelis killed on October 7.
Mr Osborne, Syria and Yemen have been killing their own Muslims for years. Where have the protests been? Why are Jews not allowed to defend themselves? What advantage does the world have with a stronger Hamas?
Name the Middle East countries that support Women’s Rights, Mr Osborne:
1) Israel.
Mr Osborne’s comment is a fine example of the left siding with islamists and antisemites, unintentionally so, but through ignorance.
Because they don’t study history.
One of the first things the Gazans did after the Israeli withdrawal was destroy the greenhouses left behind to provide Gazans with fresh produce for export and domestic consumption. So, I don’t care about their GDP and their access to fresh food, since they don’t care about it themselves.
First, the numbers were revised downwards (and some experts believe they’re still too high) – now the admitted civilian to combatant ratio is much closer to 1:1 – tragic but far better than pretty well every other comparable conflict in recent history (which can reach 9:1). Second, there never *has* been a comparable conflict because there has never been a terrorist government/army that has built an entire region as a huge military structure sheltered amidst and beneath its civilian population which it uses as human shields. Hamas has an enormous tunnel network larger than the London Underground or New York Subway. Almost every house, school and hospital in Gaza was found to secrete hidden doors used by Hamas, weapons caches including rocket launchers. They even found an underground cruise missile factory – what’s next, chemical weapons? Hamas, in breaking a long-term ceasefire and savagely attacking Israel on October 7th, and soon joined by daily attacks on this tiny country from various of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere – and announcing on multiple occasions that they intend to do it again and again until Israel is destroyed (a goal actively worked towards also by their allies) showed very clealry why Israel could no longer live with Hamas in power. Nevertheless, and despite all the false information swirling around, serious experts such as West Point’s chair of urban warfare studies John Spencer have argued that Israel has in fact set new standards for urban warfare in seeking to avoid civilian harm – as he wrote in Newsweek, “all available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.”.
Regarding the Rafah tragedy, both the IDF investigation and also I understand a New York Times investigation so far seem to show that the IDF used the smallest-possible munition, designed for precise strikes and minimising collateral damage, to take out two high-ranking Hamas terrorists, but that Hamas were secreting some kind of munitions close to the nearby shelter area (it was a full kilometre away from the initial strike) and that was hit by shrapnel, causing secondary explosions and fire. So who is to blame? Israel, which did what everyone is asking it to do and carried out a surgical strike on terrorists (and thus far has been highly precise in its operations in Rafah, and also gone to huge expense and care to move almost a million citizens to a safe zone elsewhere up the coast) away from the civilians sheltering a kilometre away, or Hamas – a vicious terrorist government that was hiding munitions close to civilians, cynically putting them at huge risk? The answer is obvious. The response of many in the world is predictable (and to some extent understandable) – and that is part of Hamas’s strategy. No doubt that they celebrated the deaths, while Israel mourned them.
“now the admitted civilian to combatant ratio is much closer to 1:1…”
The only source of this claim is Bibi who said that more than 16K Hamas fighters were killed by IDF. Those who are good enough in math can deduce that this is roughly half of the total dead claimed by the UN, hence the 1:1 ratio. However, Bibi’s claim was completely unsupported and is only “admitted” by those who believe every word he says.
You see, James, the laws of protecting civilians in wars, as written in Geneva Conventions, are completely blind as to who fired the 1st shot in anger, and as for who did what and to whom on the 1st day of conflict. The laws of war just say that if you happen to be in a state of war, you must follow the rules or else you commit a war crime. So no matter what Hamas did on Oct 7, this does not provide Israel with immunity against violating the laws of war.
Your ignorance of facts and history is appalling. And your swallowing of propaganda unconscionable. Ever heard of Hamas? 200+ hostages? Beheading and burning of victims? Rape? Sexual torture? The fact that most Palestinians by poll support Hamas? That Hamas and the Arab have always stated that they want to wipe Israel off the map? Or are those facts inconvenient for your narrative?
Mr Osborne might shun Hamas a little bit only if Hamas offered an orchestra position to a man.
Thank you.
And why is all of that happening? Because ‘the Jews’ want to destroy all Palestinians? It has been the Palestinians who have continuously refused a two-state solution, because they simply always wanted to get rid of all Jews in the area. They have chosen with overwhelming majority to be led by monstrous terrorists who have as main point in their program the total annihilation of Israel and the Jews. Still, after 7 October, a majority stands behind their ‘leaders’ who hide in their hospitals, schools and refugee camps, using their own population as human shields. They have used the money sent by the international community not for proper education and infrastructure but to dig tunnels to get their terrorist acts organised. There is a wide-spread culture of ‘martyrdom’ and brainwashing of children, to dedicate themselves to the killing of Jews because Allah likes that so much. There are mothers in Palestine who want to have as many sons as possible to have them die for Allah: a veritable death cult fuelled by primitive religious ideas. All of the terrible things now happening to the Palestinians have been brought to them by themselves, because Israel wants to defend its own existence and rightly so. The death toll of innocents are the responsibility of the Palestinian ‘leaders’.
Before coming-up with such generalisations as in the comment above, it is better to read some background.
Here is some background info about the Arabian death cult of the Palestinians. Not all of them, surely, but enough of them to help their ‘leaders’ into a position of power. With such a conflict, you have to LISTEN to your enemy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svIa02N6JUo
As predicted, the rationalizations here of this slaughter are in themselves a further disgrace. The level of hatred on both sides is plainly racist and the result of close to a century of war.
William, and what has Hamas done for the Palestinians? They plan on crawling out from under the rubble once the war ends and declare victory. Every dead Palestinian is just media coverage in their favour as far as Hamas is concerned. If they really cared about their people then they would at the very least release the hostages illegally kidnapped just because they were Israeli.
An interesting question. Hamas has done little for its people. Also interesting that Netanyahu in a divide and conquer scheme promoted Hamas in order to divide Palestinians between it and the Palestinian Authority. It also set up the foil for the regular “lawn mowing” of Gaza and finally this latest murderously disproportionate assault which will be a stain on Israel far into the future.
Gosh, I wonder whether he showed such concern for the Israelis killed on October 7th, including those burnt alive. Oh wait…
In reference to my previous post, one of the most incredible parts of this on a personal level is that my wife and I spent decades struggling against racism in Germany and Austria, which often included vocally opposing the anti-Semitism we saw so frequently displayed even in the music world. Sadly, this had huge repercussions for our careers there, but we feel it was more than worth it to stand up for such important truths.
It is thus very disheartening that the actions of Netanyahu have undermined so much of what we and others have stood for in our support of Israel and Germany’s small Jewish community. This severe damage of Israel’s image was unnecessary and is like a betrayal of all supporters of Israel. It is going to take a long time and a lot of work to restore Israel’s image in the world. We need to come to terms with this and begin planning. One of the first steps will be to get Netanyahu and his extremist coalition out of the government and make sure they never return.
This post does not excuse the previous erroneous and false claims – in your previous one.
But it does set the context .
The claims are not false and the denial is a disgrace. That kind of indifference to the slaughter of innocents is in itself racist and the result of close to a century of war. Sadly, that racist hatred affects both sides. The numbers are from AP which is considered one of the most reliable media organizations in the world.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-hamas-latest-05-29-2024-c5f48e99dd5b7704df7c9b37ba6d16c2#:~:text=Israeli%20bombardments%20and%20ground%20offensives,distinguish%20between%20combatants%20and%20civilians.
Qui s’excuse s’accuse.
A shame that he was probably cowed into taking it down from his feed. According to the New York Times, after the Israeli bombing: “at least 45 people, including children, were killed by the blast and by the fires it set off” (5/27/24). Seems pretty accurate, no?
Not directly caused by Israel’s precise and limited blast aimed at the terrorists, but by the secondary blasts caused by the fact that Hamas apparently hid munitions amongst sheltering civilians.
No, not accurate. The world was quick to jump on the “blame Israel bandwagon before all the facts are in”. Just like the hospital that Israel blew up and killed 500 people.Except that they never did. Israel never plotted the recent deaths of these civilians – Hamas did.
It’s not propaganda. It’s a fact. Even war criminal Netanyahu has admitted it.
A lot of people ARE acknowledging the atrocities that happened on October 7th…it was horrendous and horrifying…yes, anyone has the right to defend themselves and the Israeli government did…buuuuuuuutttt their response has been god awful and continuing…they’ve gone above and beyond strategically now…you can justify all you want back to October 7th but any sane individual can see this is getting horribly disproportionate with the amount of suffering of literal innocent children and people…1,300+ to 45,000+…Hamas are not all Palestinians the same way that the IRA do not represent all Irish people…look up how the British have occupied Ireland…tell me if that’s fair?…People supporting Israel totally destroying all Palestinians are and always will be known as people who support genocide…you have to live with that…and die with that…again, I am against the October 7th massacre AND the Israeli genocide that has now been going on for months…
What happens if Israel hold fire and retreat?
Missile attacks on Israel will resume. Hostages will remain underground. The next october 7th, as promiss by Hamas, will commence the moment Hamas see fit.How am I so sure? That is what happened the last 5 times.
The whole situation, since October 7, has been appalling. Neither side is without blame in what has happened since. But it has struck me for months that if Hamas were sincere about wishing the Israelis would stop bombing Gaza, they would return ALL the hostages. This gesture would not finish the situation, but it would at least bring a ceasefire for a time.
Nothing will stop Netanyahu, who appears to consider this his Armageddon; he will not be satisfied till every Hamas member, every piece of Hamas materiel has been eradicated.
But Hamas started this, almost asked for, it by the extraordinary — even for a region that routinely blasts rockets into Israel, and sends suicide bombers into Israeli buses and pizza restaurants — brutality of the initial assault. That it is unwilling even to give back what is not theirs — Israelis — does not augur well. They have made it clear that they will fight to the last.
That makes them as responsible as Israeli bombs for what has happened to the people of Gaza — many of whom ARE innocents, just people who want to live family lives with jobs, homes, access to the basic norms of a decent society — food, drink, perhaps some leisure activities, friends, neighbours with whom they interact normally.
And the hostages are also innocents. Even more so in that they are not associated with the aggressors in the initial horror. (But to be fair, no more were ordinary residents of Gaza).
The trouble with these combatants is that neither has ever shown a real commitment to peace.
Chris, the suffering and death toll of the Palestinians is awful but it is not a genocide. Hamas could do the right thing, surrender and release the hostage and the bombing and shelling would be over. Genocide is the mass slaughter of people deliberately targeted because of their ethnicity, nationality or religion, you know, the kind of massacre Hamas instigated (and condone in their evil charter). The sooner the great majority of Palestinians accept that Israel exists and will continue to exist, the sooner a livable solution can be reached.
There are various comments here from people on both sides expressing their support or lack of support for Israel. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
However, most of us are not public figures. The issue here is whether it is appropriate for a public figure to be making controversial and possibly hurtful comments. This is coming from the person who previously published offensive nude photos and then retracted them:
https://www.forumopera.com/breve/lorenzo-viotti-publie-une-photo-de-lui-presque-nu-sur-instagram-puis-la-retire-et-sexcuse-sil-a-offense-ses-followers/
This is clearly not a person with good judgment.
‘offensive nude photos’
Is this your first day on the internet? If people are offended by a topless man (covering his bits), then they are ingenues whose judgement on anything can hardly be taken in any way seriously.
And whether or not Viotti removed the Rafah post, it’s hardly a controversial stance to take. People in this comments section need to look outside their narrow viewpoint (on both ‘sides’ – the fact that people are taking sides is in itself ridiculous), and appreciate some nuance. Israel is as guilty of inflicting ongoing suffering on civilians as Hamas was in October last year. That is irrefutable, regardless of any ‘side-taking’.
Though there is a delicious irony in NL citing propaganda, without realising that he is *literally* doing the same with this posting. No chance of a balanced point of view (on anything!) here.
Is it propaganda?
“Israel is burning people alive”
That’s what bombs do and cause. Israel is also starving people alive.
This is what happens when you sent your kids to a music conservatory and they came out only knowing music and not much else of the world.
Bravo Lorenzo
really only a big boo from me and now he will be forever known as a virulent antisemite
Well, everything that’s being sad in that post is absolutely true. It’s a genocide, there’s an investigation. Get an education, Norman
Shame on Lorenzo Viotti. And shame on all other ignorant posts. Where is your compassion for the innocent hostages still in the hands of Hamas since Oct 7? Did you think Israel would abandon them?? No, because Israel actually cares about its innocent civilians, unlike Hamas who wants the death of its own population to advance its political goals (to kill all Jews and erase Israel off the map).
To all those brainwashed by the palestinian propaganda, ask yourself if you should blindly believe people who burn babies in ovens, rape innocent girls and women, murder entire families in their sleep, take hundreds of innocent civilians hostage, torturing them daily in captivity and even murdering them??? Where is your common sense??? Believing them is to agree with their evil plan. So, think again.
Israel is DEFENDING itself against the most cruel and brutal attack in its history. Yes, wars are always ugly, but Israel has to fight for its survival. As Golda Meir said, « there will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel ».
Entirely correct comment.
Where is the music in all the horror we read about?
What is a musician’s obligation as a human being in the face of unspeakable horrors?
Why do otherwise decent human beings do terrible things to each other in the name of politics, religion, ethnicity?
Why, after over 1000 years, do the words of a Palestinian Jew not resonate?
To what end do people visiting a music news web site engage in continuing a horrible fight which will continue unless the killing reaches a bloodbath so horrible that even the perpetrators on both sides have to back away?
Why are readers on this sight fighting over the right of one passionate musician to protest against violence against children and mothers who are innocent?
Margaret, Israel can’t just stop because they see this as an existential war. Sometimes one has to choose between two different evils; attack Hamas hiding amongst the civilian Palestinian population or let Hamas mount border raids and regularly murder and kidnap Israeli civilians. What a choice…
This war is getting tiresome. You can’t get through a single day without hearing about 7 October or Hamas. Isn’t it time to ignore it yet, like we do with other conflicts?
What is tiresome is the braindead virtue-signalling of the so-called ‘pro-Palestinian’ supporters who, blithely forgetting 7th October and the fact that Israel has not been in Gaza since 2005, basically call for a treatment of the Jews akin to that pursued by the Third Reich.
This is a very real difficult subject…I am a war veteran…Children should never be put in harms way…if your organization is a charity, perhaps a state of support, either way would be proper..
While we must be measured with our words and above all respectful of all fellow musicians, now is not a time for anyone of influence to be silent. The real horror that is going on right now in all of greater Palestine, but especially Gaza is unspeakable and must stop. The Israeli Government’s propaganda has long had the upper hand, leading to a complete misunderstanding of what is going on in this region. If you have a strong reaction against someone who speaks up in support of the Palestinian people, I encourage you to pause, find out more information about what has actually happened since 1947 in this conflict. I encourage you to find empathy for all human beings especially those who have lived under complete occupation since 2005.
Is there no start to his intelligence?
I once had the opportunity to ask Kurt Vonnegut (whose classic novel “Slaughterhouse Five” was about the fire bombing of Dresden) if he regarded as war criminals those who planned and carried out the Dresden raid. His response was very interesting. He said that at the time, it was possible to believe that, by destroying German industrial capacity and damaging civilian morale, the “strategic bombing” (as it was euphemistically called) would shorten the war, and by the grotesque calculus of warfare save more lives than were incinerated in the bombs.
Research after the war concluded that the bombing had no significant effect on German industrial production and morale, Vonnegut pointed out. And yet a generation later we employed the same tactic against North Vietnam, a nation with no industrial targets to attack in a “strategic” manner. “The guys who decided to bomb the Vietnamese—those were the war criminals,” Vonnegut told me.
I think the Israelis owe the world a plausible scenario whereby the attacks on Gaza will lead to a result that will ensure Israel’s inalienable right to live in reasonable safety. If there isn’t one, then how can you possibly justify killing thousands of women and children?
Another brainless spoiled rich kid bend on making everyone else’s life miserable.
Here’s a study from Washington Monthly, a liberal publication for those who don’t know: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/05/24/are-gaza-protests-happening-mostly-at-elite-colleges/.
Basically tells that most protests take place at rich colleges. This statement came to immediate attention: “at the 78 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) on the Monthly’s list, 64 percent of the students, on average, receive Pell Grants. Yet according to our data, none of those institutions have had encampments and only nine have had protests.”
Is there any wonder that blacks and “latinx” are tuning to Trump (again, I did not and will not vote for him).
I DID vote for Trump, and I WILL again
This is downright disgusting, he’s clearly an activist of the antisemitic left, coming up with fake news to “dish” the only democracy in the middle east…
Palestinians are not people, as all Muslims. We need a modern crusade and eradicate this plague from Earth
Lovely. We need a crusade to eliminate people like you, you psychopath.
Hello, FBI? This one…
He is right. And brave. ISRAEL has gone rogue and we are forbidden to protest of say anything against them as the fight terror with even greaster terror. We need to do something. Everyine is scared to call out Israel. WHY? will they cut off all the aid they send us? Thank you maestro. It’s not anti semetic to critisize the mass murder of civilians, with no chance of escape . The designated safe places have already been bombed. Jews deserve better than this corrupt, bellicose secular government. Ther behavior has nothing to do with jewish culture.
It’s not propaganda if it’s true…