Literally, that is. For by supporting the campaign to boycott Israel, the pianist-conductor has come out on the side of those who yearn to kill every Israeli.
It has to be said that only in our time could a musician of Barenboim’s modest abilities have possibly achieved his prominence. In the past, concert platforms were mostly inhabited by musicians whose talents were worthy of the giants whose music they played.
The subsequent collapse of education and taste put an end to such outdated elitism. Music has become just another entertainment genre, one that has to function according to the laws of pop. Under such conditions, a different talent becomes paramount – one for self-promotion.
It’s in this area that Danny ‘Boy’ Barenboim approaches genius, which God’s gift he has built into a life of renown matching that of pop stars.
Danny’s status in the musical world is unrivalled because he blows his trumpet better than anyone else. And the sound of that instrument is too loud to be contained within the concert hall.
Since Danny has become a Celebrity, he feels entitled to pontificate on areas outside his immediate expertise. And because he’s a Celebrity, our comprehensively educated masses are prepared to listen.
If the frankly savage Russell Brand can command a political following, then surely the cultivated Danny, who can mouth pseudo-intellectual leftie platitudes in several languages, can do even better.
Anti-Israeli invective is an essential part of today’s leftie parcel, what with the reflux from the erstwhile battle against colonialism still burning leftie throats everywhere. Israel, with her selfish desire to survive against odds, has to be portrayed as a colonial empire, while the Palestinians are seen as the virtuous third-world masses yearning to be free.
Hence the emergence of Danny Boy as a world statesman, one who intends to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict single-handedly. To that end he has created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, staffed with both Israeli and Palestinian musicians.
That undertaking almost got Danny the Nobel last year, and his narrow loss still rankles. Clearly he has to step up his efforts and raise the already febrile temperature of his self-aggrandisement.
Danny’s views on global, especially Eastern, politics were borrowed wholesale from Edward Said, the guru of anti- and post-colonialism, who was to jihad roughly what Diderot was to the guillotine – someone who didn’t call for it directly but provided the necessary philosophical basis.
That’s why Danny always hails the justice of Palestinian aspirations, pretending he doesn’t realise that the innermost of those is to eliminate Israel and kill every Israeli. The even-handedness that Danny preaches closely resembles the leftie sermon of moral equivalence between the KGB, an organisation that murdered millions, and the CIA, one created to prevent further murders.
The coveted Nobel being so tantalisingly near, Danny has come out in favour of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the Palestinian-run campaign aimed against Israeli goods, scientists, artists – well, against Israel.
Delivering his Edward W. Said lecture in London, Danny spoke from the heart: “I think the boycott movement BDS is absolutely correct, it’s perfectly right and necessary with one limitation… It is… not positive… to boycott anything that has anything to do with Israel. Anything to do with government policies, yes.”
In other words, distinctions must be made between good Israelis, those who support the Palestinian cause (and let’s not forget that destruction of Israel is in fact its essence) and bad ones, those who support their government’s efforts to keep Israel alive. He’ll hate the parallel, which to me is unmistakable: the Nazis elevated ‘good’ Jews like Warburg and Oppenheim, those they saw as indispensable to their cause, to the status of ‘honorary Aryans’, thereby letting them live.
In a recent speech ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu cited one of the leaders of BDS as explaining that his real aim was “to bring down the State of Israel”.
Danny has no such far-reaching aspirations. His aim is more personal: to win the Nobel. But in pursuit of this lifelong dream, he has converged with those who are red in tooth and claw.
I’m sure he’ll succeed. If Arafat could win the Nobel, why not Danny?