IOA Editor: On the trivialization of the ‘inevitable’ war with Iran, possibly the largest ever Middle East war, with consequences too unthinkable to consider.
By Haaretz – 9 Feb 2012
www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/israeli-fans-beg-pm-to-hold-off-iran-attack-over-madonna-show-1.412014
New Facebook group asks Prime Minister to postpone any plans to a strike of Iran’s nuclear facilities until after the Queen of Pop’s planned May 29 visit
Recent verbal exchanges and remarks concerning alleged Israeli plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program later this year has Israelis scared, and not for the obvious reasons.
In a newly launched Facebook page, Israeli fans of U.S. pop megastar Madonna are pleading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off any such plans to strike Iran until the Queen of Pop’s planned show in Tel Aviv on May 29.
The group, simply and directly enough, is named: “Bibi don’t start a war with Iran until after Madonna’s show on May 29.”
While the, currently relatively unpopulated, Facebook page could seem like a case of dealing with trivialities in the face of all-out war with Iran,” Israeli Madonna fans’ fears are not unsubstantiated, with a distinguished list of artists bailing out on Israeli shows in the last minute over political crises and wars.
In fact, later Thursday American singer-songwriter Cat Power announced on her Facebook page that she is cancelling her planned Tel Aviv show due to political reasons.
In a short statement, the U.S. singer said: “Due to much confusion in my soul, playing for my Israeli fans with such unrest between Israel and Palestine I can’t play, as I feel sick in my spirit.”
However, Cat Power’s cancellation is far from being the most prominent in recent memory.
In 2006, electro band Depeche Mode famously cancelled its planned show in Tel Aviv during what later became known as the Second Lebanon War, over the production’s apparent inability to convince its technical support team to make the trip.
The U.K. band later made it up to its Israeli fans by opening its 2009 world tour in Tel Aviv.
An earlier, and just as famous cancellation, was the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bailing out of a planned 2001 showduring the turbulent events of the Second Intifada.According to the their Israeli Shuki Weiss, the cancellation came in light of the two suicide bombings over the last week, in Kiryat Motzkin and Jerusalem, and in the wake of warnings by the American foreign ministry to U.S. citizens not to visit the area.
The U.S. band is scheduled to conduct its first show in Israel since 2001 this summer.
A more recent high-profile case was the sudden cancellation of a planned show by U.S. alternative veterans The Pixies, announced in the aftermath of the IDF’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals.
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