Group attacks kibbutz singers at Berlin concert

Pro-Palestinian activists disrupt Gevatron concert, storm audience members and singers with leaflets and signs.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
ACTIVISTS DISRUPT a Gevatron benefit concert in Berlin 370 (photo credit: YouTube Screenshot)
ACTIVISTS DISRUPT a Gevatron benefit concert in Berlin 370
(photo credit: YouTube Screenshot)
Pro-Palestinian activists aggressively disrupted an Israeli choir concert in Berlin on Thursday to benefit the rehabilitation of the Mount Carmel forest after the December 2010 fires.
The roughly 10 protesters stood up during the Gevatron concert and stormed the audience members and singers with leaflets and signs.
One woman wearing a red “Viva Palestine” T-shirt shouted: “From the river to the sea: Palestine will be free”; she was filmed in a video later posted on YouTube.
The Gevatron troupe was formed in 1948 and has its origins in Kibbutz Geva near Afula. The choir is known for such hits as “Light of Jerusalem,” “My Valley” and “Bat 60.”
The activists, a number of whom tossed flyers at the audience, waved a banner that read “Sponsoring ethnic cleansing.”
According to an article in the Sunday edition of Yediot Aharonot, “The protesters included Palestinians residing in Germany, Iranians, a Spanish activist and two Israelis.
They hurled JNF boxes and Gevatron CDs and knocked over signs.”
Yoel Parnass, Gevatron’s manager, told Yediot, “It is the first time in the band’s 65 years of existence that such a thing has happened. We perform abroad quite frequently and our shows always go over quietly.”
A Jerusalem Post review of the 3.34-minute YouTube video shows a Hebrew-speaking audience member apparently affiliated with the choir asking a Hebrew-speaking protester to leave the event. “I am not interrupting you. You are interrupting me,” the audience member said.
A little over 1,200 viewers had seen the video as of Monday evening.
According to a notice on the German- language website of the Israeli Embassy, Gevatron waved the entrance fees and said that any donations would be used to help plant trees on Mount Carmel following the devastating fires in 2010. The choir event was held in a Berlin church.
In an email to the Post on Saturday, Alex Feuerherdt, a German journalist who writes extensively about anti-Israel activity in the Federal Republic, wrote: “The anti- Semitic character of the ‘protest’ was made clear through two points.” First, he cited the slogan “From the river to the sea: Palestine will be free,” which “can only mean ‘free from Jews.’” Feuerherdt said the second sign the action contained “modern anti- Semitism” involved the protesters’ defamation of the Jewish National Fund, the sponsor of the choir group, as “one of the oldest and effective instruments of Zionist Apartheid and repression in Palestine.”
He said the comparison between Israel and the [former South African] Apartheid system aimed to delegitimize and demonize Israel and was a method that characterized contemporary anti- Semitism.
Feuerherdt added that the “very aggressive action of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] activists deals in no way with peace or the well-being of the Palestinians; rather, the destruction of Israel.”
Meanwhile, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told the Post on Monday, “The uncivil disruption of an Israeli cultural event is another example of the penetration of anti- Israel political warfare in Berlin, which was also reflected in sponsorship by the Willy Brandt Haus of an NGO exhibit falsely accusing Israeli forces of ‘war crimes.’ And instead of naming and shaming the promoters of this modern form of anti- Semitism, Berlin’s (anti-)Jewish Museum joined the attack by hosting BDS campaigner Judith Butler.
In this atmosphere, Berlin’s leaders have a moral obligation to act clearly and strongly to condemn all manifestations of such immoral behavior.”
Willy Brandt Haus is the headquarters of Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
BDS activity has increased in 2012, including when the Berlin Jewish Museum hosting an event last month with a US academic, Judith Butler, who called for a sweeping boycott against Israel.
An article in the online Jewish magazine Tablet last week addressed the Butler talk and quoted a German Jew who said, “The German people love to hear someone hate Israel.”