The right thing to do?

Lo que yo decía abajo de separar la gente de sus gobernantes : los Editors, uno de mis grupos preferidos, dieron anoche un concierto en Tel Aviv - después que los Pixies y Elvis Costello cancelaran los suyos por las muertes en la flotilla que intentaba a Gaza. En su página web, Tom Smith, el cantante, publica un texto muy honesto donde confiesa que han tenido que reflexionar mucho sobre hacer el concierto de Israel o no, pero que está convencido de que la gente de un país y su gobierno son cosas muy distintas.

Thank you Tel Aviv for a beautiful evening, one that will linger on in our memories for a very long time. When Pixies cancelled their headlining performance at PicNic we talked long and hard about if it was the “right thing” for us to still go or not, as we did when we initially got the offer for the show all those months ago. But the simple fact is we do not believe that playing a show in a country is an endorsement of its government. For example, our shows in Northern America during the Bush administration did not mean we were comfortable with the invasion of Iraq. Right now there is no global concerted effort to change the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians as there was from the world’s media, sports stars and musicians etc with apartheid era South Africa. Sure, given the recent events and the way Israel and the whole of the middle east is discussed and viewed through the western media it would have been the easier thing to do for us to cancel, to forget about it and wait until Israel is out of the news again. We live in complex times, there are terrible things that happen the world over, but a country’s people are not it’s government. Tonight we played one of the most memorable shows of our career, 1004 people singing their hearts out, 1004 people who hope for peace and resolve wherever the troubles may be, be it on the door step or the other side of the world. Thank you for tonight Tel Aviv, we hope to see you again soon. Peace. Tom (and the other Editors) xxx