SPIEGEL Interview with Daniel Barenboim: 'The Germans Are Prisoners of Their Past'

[sysop]

World-famous Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim is noted for his strong views on the Middle East peace process and for performing Wagner's music in Israel. In a SPIEGEL interview, he explains why the Israeli antipathy toward Wagner is grotesque and argues that Israel shouldn't depend too much on Germany and the US for support.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...840129,00.html

[katjoeus]

This is a great interview with a fantastic musician and human being. What he says makes so much sense - if only there could be more like him, then the Middle East (and Israel!) wouldn't be in the mess they're in. Unbiased, unresentful arguments. Chapeau!!

[Ariram]

Barenboim should remember that Wagner was the first modern personality to propose genocide of the Jews. In his article he compared the Jews to parasites harming the German music and culture and the solution is extermination. As long as there are survivors of the Holocaust who object to playing his music in any official Israeli institution, one has to respect their feelings.
Barenboim does not tell us that the Palestinians not only objected to the partition. They started a war hoping to prevent by force the implementation of the UN plan. That war cost the lives of 6,400 Jews, a whole one percent of the total Jewish population in Palestine at that time.
Contrary to Birenboim's assertion, Israel would have come into being with and without the Holocaust.

[phillipwh]

Who can pretend to understand the Middle East?
Who is not shamed by the holocaust?
Many of us go silent although very concerned by Israel's current course.
We go silent because Jews have suffered too much. I always follow what Daniel does and say and hope that he has a following in Israel, because I have great difficulty believing in the course set by the current Prime Minister of Israel.

[altagir]

Mr Barenboim makes many good points. However one side of the Israel/Palestine story is generally forgotten. Muslims have a long and generally positive relation with the Jewish people.

The Prophet Mohammed PBUH was sitting with some of his companions when a funeral passed by. He stood out of respect. One of his companions asked why he had stood for the funeral of a Jew. He replied, 'Was he not a soul'.

The second Caliph, Omar ibn al Khattab was asked to personally accept the keys of Jerusalem when the Muslims captured it from the Byzantines. One of his first acts was to invite the Jews to return to Jerusalem.

When Salahudin Al Ayubi took back Jerusalem from the Crusaders he also invited the Jews to return.

I think it will be impossible for the Jewish people to forget the Holocaust. All I would ask them to remember is who invited them to share the Holy City of Jerusalem and share it accordingly.

[shragakelson]

Mr. Barenboim said he is going to use harsh words. I am going to use harsh words too.

Barenboim's answers are filled with self righteousness, half truths, lies and worst of all hypocrisy.

1. Barenboim: "It saddens me that official Israel so doggedly refuses to allow Wagner to be performed". Not True. The official Israel DOES allow, contrary to Barenboim's claim, Wagner's Music to be sold, consumed and played but NOT in public halls and public institutions, which are supported by the public, part of which are still the Holocaust Survivors which are getting less every.

2. Barenboim: "I have the greatest respect to the holocaust survivors". Is that so? Barenboim's last concert at the Hall of the Israeli philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv with the Berlin's Orchestra, in which he played Wagner at the encore, contrary to the specific agreement no to, was nothing less then a hypocritical Schweinerei. It is not enough to claim to "have the greatest respect to the holocaust survivors", but then to present them with the Fact "Listen to Wagner or the Door is Open". Is that "the greatest respect" he is talking about? I do regret for having missed this concert myself, because although I personally do listen to Wagner's music among others, but in this case I would have prevented this disgusting filthy trick played by him, telling those who cannot tolerate this music to get out.

3. Barenboim: "Wagner cannot be held responsible..." Barenboim's claim that Wagner had nothing to do with the Holocaust is similar to the claim that the Swastika is an ancient Hindu Symbol of Magic and it was even discovered in one of the ancient Jewish Synagogues in Ein Gedi next to the Dead Sea, Israel. It is not what it is, but what it represents as a symbol, and what emotions it raises in holocaust survivors who upon hearing this music re-live this terrible traumatic episode they went through, and this is what Barenboim and his alike hypocritically refuse to recognize.

4. Barenboim: "The Palestinians weren't primarily anti-Semitic. They just didn't accept their expulsion". Absolute nonsense. Mr. Barenboim like many other left oriented circles & "Peace Seekers" in Israel and outside are constantly covering the fact that Anti-Semitism and Nazism goes like a thread between the religious leaders of the Palestinians long before World War 2, the Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini who was actively involved in promoting the "Final Solution" and recruited Islamic S.S troops to join the effort which got him the recognition of The Führer making him an S.S General, all the way to the present leader of the Palestinian Authority Abu Maazen, who is the only one in the world carrying a Doctorate Degree in Holocaust denial from a Soviet University, and insisting that a Palestinian State must be "Judenrein".

5. Barenboim: "Israel's security rests on only one pillar: the Palestinians' acceptance of the country". Really?, Was there such an acceptance ever before, and is there an indication that upon withdrawal to the 67 borders there will be such acceptance. Have Mr. Barenboim heard about the Palestinian National Covenant and its content? The simple truth is: if the Arabs will lay their arms there will be peace, if Israel will lay its arms there will be no Israel.
6. Barenboim: "it's absurd to ban Wagner while buying German submarines at the same time". Another Barenboim's nonsense. The whole issue of reparations from Germany was very controversial in Israel. In Germany it is called Wiedergutmachung, but never so in Israel. For preventing another Holocaust we will be willing to buy from the Devil himself. Again Mr. Barenboim hypocritically ignores the real issue of Wagner's Music in Israel.

7. And lastly few words of optimism. Mr. Anwar Sadat in his memoirs wrote that only after having realized that there is no way to beat Israel in a war, he chose peace. He paid for it with his life. When I was a child peace with our neighbors seemed a remote dream. So far Israel has peace contracts with 2 Arab countries and unofficial relations with several others. The only way for peace is to develop the mutual economical interests and to make it clear to all sides that WAR ITSELF IS THE TRUE ENEMY. Artists have a tendency to seek short term gratification and have no patience for the long processes, they are also so hung up on their skill and fame that I find no imagination in them to think outside the box.

[sbanicki]

Per the article World War 1 Treaties And Repatriation, United State Holocaust Museum

"For the populations of the defeated powers -- Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria -- the respective peace treaties appeared an unfair punishment.... Revision of the Versailles Treaty represented one of the platforms that gave radical right wing parties in Germany, including Hitler's Nazi Party, such credibility to mainstream voters in the early 1920s and early 1930's."
More: http://bit.ly/FFgig2

[juentgen]

A man of truth and a sincere believe in pease and I can only hope,one day it will become fact.

Both nations are in need of it.
Thank you.