Muzzlewatch is a subsidiary of Jewish Voice for Peace, which tracks efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy. This article describes an example of how Palestinian voices are being stifled for fear that they would displease….guess who?
The article on Muzzlewatch is entitled, Update on Marcel Khalife, Lebanese oud player and was posted yesterday by Cecilie Surasky.
We reported earlier that the San Diego Salvation Army refused to rent their auditorium to UN artist for peace Marcel Khalife because doing so would be unbalanced if he didn’t also share the stage with an Israeli.
Pitchfork media is reporting that United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “Artist for Peace” oud player Marcel Khalife can play at the Kennedy Center , the Skirball Center and Boston’s Berklee College, but he won’t be playing at San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc Theatre at the Salvation Army’s Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center.
The center said that they’d need an Israeli to play on the same stage. Is it because Khalife is known for putting the poetry of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish to music?
Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam called the Salvation Army to get the story straight from them.
Turns out that depending on one’s perspective. Either it was an understandable move, or a classic case of muzzling.
Richard writes:
I spoke with Capt. John VanCleef who told me that when first approached, an individual was to rent their hall for the Khalife concert. But in the course of time this changed and a group named Al Awda took the place of the individual as sponsor. The Salvation Army would have had no problem with an individual renting the hall for this concert. Nor would it have had a problem with most Arab organizations renting the hall. But as part of the vetting process, the Theater asked Al Awda to present information about its mission. After reading this information, the Army decided it could not allow this group to rent their facility:
Al-Awda unequivocally supports the fundamental, inalienable, individual and collective rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their original towns, villages and lands anywhere in Palestine from which they were expelled…All Palestinians are entitled to the rights to self-determination, to political, economic and civil equality, and to live in a single democratic state for all its citizens in all of Palestine.
I want to pause here to say that while I do not agree with Al Awda’s one state solution and its demand to full implementation of the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees, I would not have refused them the right to rent the hall. However, given that I am not the Salvation Army and they have larger community issues to consider, I can understand why they chose not to go forward with the concert.
The Arabist has a different take:
It’s good that Richard got this independently checked, although I strongly disagree with him that the Salvation Army’s decision is understandable. I very much doubt it would have made the same decision if the organization trying to book the venue was the Zionist Organization of America, Hillel, or one of the countless groups that supports Israel. I would guess that the Salvation Army’s decision very much has to do with the well-known intimidation campaigns against pro-Palestinian organizations and individuals by Zionist groups, and that it chose to avoid the controversy and problems that would probably come with hosting an al-Awda event.
So essentially the problem is that Al-Awda, whose advocacy of right of return for the five million Palestinian refugees of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine-Israel, living around the Middle East in refugee camps, should not have a voice without a corresponding counter-voice that makes the case for nullifying their aspirations. Even peace activists can disagree on this matter.
However, the issue of right of return was supported only six months after the creation of the state of Israel by UN Resolution 194, and should be exposed to fair thinking Americans without an Israeli (read Zionist) perspective. To what degree should Americans be asked to nullify or make exceptions to their human rights agenda before our hypocrisy becomes evident?
For reference sake, Marcel Khalife (b. 1950, Amchit, Mount Lebanon) is a Lebanese, Maronite, composer, singer and oud (an Arabic lute) player, considered a Palestinian among the Palestinians, a Southerner among the South Lebanese and most commonly an Arab musician. From 1970 to 1975, he taught at the conservatory in Beirut. In 1976, he created Al Mayadeen Ensemble and became famous all over the world for songs like Ummi (My Mother), Rita w’al-Bundaqiya (Rita and the Rifle) and Jawaz al-Safr (Passport), based on Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry.
In 1999 he was granted the Palestine Award for Music. In turn, he contributed the financial portion of the award to the National Conservatory of Music at Birzeit University in Palestine. In 2005, Khalife was named UNESCO Artist for Peace.