Should Pearl Jam Play in Israel?

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  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 22,129
    should pearl jam play in israel?

    i can not say this in a more emphatic way, but NO.

    that would be an endorsement of the israeli government's policies. i would hope that a band that has shown to have a social conscience would understand that.
    There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • the wolfthe wolf Posts: 7,027
    should pearl jam play in israel?

    i can not say this in a more emphatic way, but NO.

    that would be an endorsement of the israeli government's policies. i would hope that a band that has shown to have a social conscience would understand that.


    I'm torn on this really.

    I don't know if i agree with it being an endorsement of the Israeli govt's policies.

    They play here in the states and we KNOW for a fact the do not endorse all of our policies.
    What if they played in Iran? Would they be endorsing their policies?

    Maybe they just want to play for their fans and not the govt. of their fans?

    I don't know. Complicated indeed. :|
    Peace, Love.


    "To question your government is not unpatriotic --
    to not question your government is unpatriotic."
    -- Sen. Chuck Hagel
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    the wolf wrote:
    should pearl jam play in israel?

    i can not say this in a more emphatic way, but NO.

    that would be an endorsement of the israeli government's policies. i would hope that a band that has shown to have a social conscience would understand that.


    I'm torn on this really.

    I don't know if i agree with it being an endorsement of the Israeli govt's policies.

    They play here in the states and we KNOW for a fact the do not endorse all of our policies.
    What if they played in Iran? Would they be endorsing their policies?

    Maybe they just want to play for their fans and not the govt. of their fans?

    I don't know. Complicated indeed. :|

    do you think their Palestinians fans wold be allowed to attend a concert?
    hear my name
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  • BentleyspopBentleyspop Craft Beer Brewery, Colorado Posts: 10,524
  • BlockheadBlockhead Posts: 1,534
    Byrnzie wrote:
    Shakes head...
    You accusing me of lying or twisting facts from your side does not mean I am lying. You also should post my answers to those accusations...
    Its sad... We live in the information age. Why anyone interested in this case wouldn't take even 20 minutes to look up some stuff, especially when it's all there to see very easily, is incredible.
  • BinauralJamBinauralJam Posts: 14,158
    If you're Jewish, you're going to say Yes

    If not, you're going to say No

    Well none of the guys in the band are Jewish, so guess what?

    Not gona happen.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Blockhead wrote:
    Byrnzie wrote:
    Shakes head...
    You accusing me of lying or twisting facts from your side does not mean I am lying. You also should post my answers to those accusations...
    Its sad... We live in the information age. Why anyone interested in this case wouldn't take even 20 minutes to look up some stuff, especially when it's all there to see very easily, is incredible.

    Everyone's free to read that thread and make up their own mind. It's there for all to see.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    If you're Jewish, you're going to say Yes

    If not, you're going to say No

    Well none of the guys in the band are Jewish, so guess what?

    Not gona happen.

    Not all Jews support Israel. And many Jews across the World, and within Israel, are opposed to that governments policies. Many can see how destructive it's expansionist activity is, not just to the Palestinians, but to Israel too.
  • hedonisthedonist standing on the edge of forever Posts: 24,524
    Jeesh...I thought this would be an interesting thread, but like many others, it's turned into personal bickering bullshit.

    (to answer the initial question - assuming it was put out there in good faith - if I lived in Israel, I sure as shit would want them to come around and do their thing)

    **as to "should" - it's no one's decision but their own.
  • Jason PJason P Posts: 19,121
    Pearl Jam should only tour in North America. Every year.

    8-)
  • JC29856JC29856 Posts: 9,617
    Palestinians make great pets, they make great pets
  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 22,129
    JC29856 wrote:
    Palestinians make great pets, they make great pets
    :o
    There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 22,129
    what would the band gain by playing in israel?

    what is in it for them?

    if it were worth their while wouldn't they have already played there?
    There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • BinauralJamBinauralJam Posts: 14,158
    Jason P wrote:
    Pearl Jam should only tour in North America. Every year.

    8-)


    This Guy Gets It! ^^^ 8-)
  • hedonisthedonist standing on the edge of forever Posts: 24,524
    what would the band gain by playing in israel?

    what is in it for them?

    if it were worth their while wouldn't they have already played there?
    But...define "gain" and "worth their while".

    Are we talking financial? Moral? Political? Other?

    What are the so-called reasons for playing anywhere else?

    Personally, I don't know (and honestly, I don't need to know).
  • Bronx BombersBronx Bombers Posts: 2,208
    what would the band gain by playing in israel?

    what is in it for them?

    if it were worth their while wouldn't they have already played there?

    Well technically they did

    Neil Young and Pearl Jam visited Israel in 1995. They played twice - August 22, 1995 in Jerusalem and August 23, 1995 in Caesarea.
  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 22,129
    what would the band gain by playing in israel?

    what is in it for them?

    if it were worth their while wouldn't they have already played there?

    Well technically they did

    Neil Young and Pearl Jam visited Israel in 1995. They played twice - August 22, 1995 in Jerusalem and August 23, 1995 in Caesarea.
    i should have said "played there routinely".

    thanks for clarifying.
    There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 22,129
    hedonist wrote:
    what would the band gain by playing in israel?

    what is in it for them?

    if it were worth their while wouldn't they have already played there?
    But...define "gain" and "worth their while".

    Are we talking financial? Moral? Political? Other?

    What are the so-called reasons for playing anywhere else?

    Personally, I don't know (and honestly, I don't need to know).
    that is not for me to define.

    the only people who know if it would be worthwhile would be the six guys in the band. the only people that know their reasons for touring anywhere are the six guys in the band.

    the guys are well off financially, so i doubt that it can be measured in financial terms.

    would they want to be scrutinized by fans in the international community? is it worth it to them to alienate a large number of fans for the sake of playing in front of 100,000 israelis over the course of a few nights?
    There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    a free concert playing for peace seems like a good thing. all would be invited. flags & signs of religion left at the door. helping people heal is a good plan. ironing out countless years of fighting might be a plan all those assholes over there might try and grasp.

    what does the band gain? I read some message like this and other messages like it all comes down to money. gain & money. gain & money. you folks typing this shit up should feel ashamed of yourselves.

    edit...
    what pearl jam as a band and as human beings would aspire to gain is peace around the world by even slightly doing what they do. a lot of input is required by every single soul on earth to move us into peace & harmony. it all start within each one of us.
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • hedonisthedonist standing on the edge of forever Posts: 24,524
    hedonist wrote:
    But...define "gain" and "worth their while".

    Are we talking financial? Moral? Political? Other?

    What are the so-called reasons for playing anywhere else?

    Personally, I don't know (and honestly, I don't need to know).
    that is not for me to define.

    the only people who know if it would be worthwhile would be the six guys in the band. the only people that know their reasons for touring anywhere are the six guys in the band.

    the guys are well off financially, so i doubt that it can be measured in financial terms.

    would they want to be scrutinized by fans in the international community? is it worth it to them to alienate a large number of fans for the sake of playing in front of 100,000 israelis over the course of a few nights?
    Hey, you asked :)

    But then what, appeal to the majority? The minority isn't worth it?

    Like I said before, it's their own business. The word "should" is sort of irrelevant.
  • chadwick wrote:
    a free concert playing for peace seems like a good thing. all would be invited. flags & signs of religion left at the door. helping people heal is a good plan. ironing out countless years of fighting might be a plan all those assholes over there might try and grasp.

    what does the band gain? I read some message like this and other messages like it all comes down to money. gain & money. gain & money. you folks typing this shit up should feel ashamed of yourselves.

    edit...
    what pearl jam as a band and as human beings would aspire to gain is peace around the world by even slightly doing what they do. a lot of input is required by every single soul on earth to move us into peace & harmony. it all start within each one of us.

    I'm guessing only a band as self-important as U2 would attempt such a thing. Pearl Jam are more of a "change things locally" type of band, not a "save the world" type.
    Gimli 1993
    Fargo 2003
    Winnipeg 2005
    Winnipeg 2011
    St. Paul 2014
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    chadwick wrote:
    a free concert playing for peace seems like a good thing. all would be invited. flags & signs of religion left at the door. helping people heal is a good plan. ironing out countless years of fighting might be a plan all those assholes over there might try and grasp.

    what does the band gain? I read some message like this and other messages like it all comes down to money. gain & money. gain & money. you folks typing this shit up should feel ashamed of yourselves.

    edit...
    what pearl jam as a band and as human beings would aspire to gain is peace around the world by even slightly doing what they do. a lot of input is required by every single soul on earth to move us into peace & harmony. it all start within each one of us.

    I'm guessing only a band as self-important as U2 would attempt such a thing. Pearl Jam are more of a "change things locally" type of band, not a "save the world" type.
    change things is good when a hot spot needs some refreshing air for once. maybe you and your band should give it a go, yes/no?
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • chadwick wrote:
    change things is good when a hot spot needs some refreshing air for once. maybe you and your band should give it a go, yes/no?

    I dissolved the band before we even released our EP. Too much nonsense. So, no, we're not playing Israel. :lol:
    Gimli 1993
    Fargo 2003
    Winnipeg 2005
    Winnipeg 2011
    St. Paul 2014
  • yosiyosi NYC Posts: 2,588
    Byrnzie wrote:
    yosi wrote:
    This is what I love so much about your contributions. You just can't seem to ever be able to decide whether your objections are to the occupation, or just to Israel in general. And that is why I, for one, have trouble taking you at your word when you claim that your only objection is to the occupation alone.


    So if a Neo-Nazi band decided to play a concert within the geographic area of the Warsaw ghetto, you wouldn't object?
    I mean, you clearly think it perfectly appropriate for supporters of the IDF, and vocal supporters of the Gaza massacre of 2008-2009, to play a concert on an area that was ethnically cleansed of Palestinians in 1948.

    That comparison is so far off the wall...that's like saying that it's objectionable for the US army to parade in Manhattan because it was an area ethnically cleansed of native americans.
    you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane

  • yosiyosi NYC Posts: 2,588
    Byrnzie wrote:
    yosi wrote:
    What does that even mean, that there is "an apartheid wall"? There is a barrier, in some places a wall, in others a fence, that was erected as a security measure to prevent infiltration into Israel of suicide bombers and other terrorists.

    A wall deemed illegal by the International court of justice, and which has served to annex more Palestinian territory, in flagrant breach of international law.

    The ICJ decision is purely an advisory opinion, without binding legal effect. Moreover, I happen to have read the opinion, and as someone who actually studies law professionally I can tell you that it's shoddy.

    The applicable legal standard, widely accepted in international law and used both in Europe and in Israel, is proportionality. The ICJ opinion deviated from this standard, which would have required it to seriously consider the security reasons for the barrier motivating Israel's actions. Israel saw the appeal to the court as a blatantly political stunt and refused to cooperate with the proceedings. The result was that the court was almost entirely lacking any facts supporting Israel's actions. This was perhaps a mistake on Israel's part, but it remains the case, as pointed out forcefully by the dissenting ICJ judge, that the court simply didn't have the requisite facts to support the decision that it rendered.

    The Israeli Supreme Court, in hundreds of subsequent cases dealing with the barrier, where they had all the facts and rigorously applied the proportionality standard, gives one a far better, and far less politicized idea of the barrier's legality. Dealing with the barrier in specific places as it effects specific people rather than as an undifferentiated whole, as the ICJ did (and remember, courts are supposed to deal with specific harms to specific plaintiffs) the Israeli Supreme Court has found the barrier's route illegal in many instances, and required that it be rerouted, and in others has found that the barrier justifiably served security concerns and did not do disproportionate harm.
    you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane

  • yosiyosi NYC Posts: 2,588
    kenny olav wrote:
    To my knowledge, no member of Pearl Jam has ever spoken out about Israel, however we know that they (particularly Eddie) have befriended Howard Zinn, spoken well of Noam Chomsky, and supported Ralph Nader for President... and we know where they have all stood on Israel.

    I think there is little to no chance that they will ever play in Israel... the politics of it are too divisive... I think they are smart enough to stay clear of it all.


    The Campaign to Bring Pearl Jam to Israel
    Check out Israeli students covering “Alive”
    By Dana Kessler|May 17, 2013 1:27 PM


    There is a running joke in American pop culture about how difficult it is to get into a Pearl Jam concert. The Seattle-based 90s grunge rock band has maintained its popularity over the years and, married with their crusade against Ticketmaster [1], Pearl Jam remains a tough ticket to get. Nobody tell the Israelis that.

    A YouTube video of students from Olam Hamuzika music school in Maccabim-Reut is starting to go viral in Israel and is the latest push in the remarkable Bring Pearl Jam To Israel [2] campaign. In the video, a mixed group of teens is crammed into a small studio where they daringly perform the classic Pearl Jam song Alive on guitars and drums, spurred on by a long-haired conductor in Converse-sneakers.

    It’s not the first time young Israeli music students impress with their ability to rock. In fact, this video is inspired by a similar one. The Artik Music School Rock Orchestra from Yehud did a rock rendition [3] of Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble, which got close to 1.5 million hits on YouTube last year and prompted Swift to tweet about it and post it on her website. Since then, everyone knows that enthusiastic kids covering popular songs are the way to grab the public’s attention. And Israel’s 88FM Radio presenter Ben Red knows it too.

    Red initiated the Bring Pearl Jam to Israel campaign last January, and opened a Facebook group devoted to the cause, in hope of fulfilling his dream of seeing his favorite band perform in the Yarkon Park, which has hosted concerts by some of the biggest international stars, from Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney to Madonna and U2. In the first six days, Red’s page gathered 5000 Likes. Today it has more than 23,500 Likes – an extremely impressive number for Israel.

    The Bring Pearl Jam to Israel campaign is just one of many similar campaigns, each devoted to importing a different band like Led Zeppelin, Muse, and Foo Fighters. Thus far, no other campaign has been as successful as Pearl Jam’s and one of the reasons why is because of the unusual amount of activity on the group’s Facebook page. The devotees post photoshopped Pearl Jam images with Israeli symbols, sometimes incorporating images of Martin Luther King, Theodor Herzl, John Lennon and other famous dreamers, in order to make their Grunge dream come true. They’ve organized a Pearl Jam party, helping raise money for stickers and posters, and photographed a variety of local celebrities clutching posters demanding the band play in Israel. In perhaps their biggest coup, the group even got a picture with Mike McCready, Pearl Jam’s lead guitarist, holding the poster.

    “Our goal is to add as many supporters as possible to our page in order to prove to the decision makers that Israel has an enormous amount of fans, and to get the message through that music is a unifying force that bridges social and political differences,” the campaigners were quoted as saying in Israel’s Mako portal.

    Any Pearl Jam fan knows lead singer Eddie Vedder is friendly with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, so the statement about political division may have been addressing Waters’ recent headline-making boycott of Israel. Since Waters claimed last month that he’s willing to rethink his position, there’s room for optimism among Israeli Pearl Jam fans. And, as Ben Red said, if Vedder prefers an alternative location, like Waters, who relocated his Israeli concert in 2006 from the Yarkon Park to a Hummus field near Neve Shalom–a cooperative village founded by Jews and Arabs– then that’s fine too.

    In the meantime, the grunge carries on.
    you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane

  • yosiyosi NYC Posts: 2,588
    Godfather. wrote:
    maybe some of you forgot the reason they still do this.......MONEY !
    politics and rock n roll.... :nono: these guy's are in a band not the white house,not the pagen god's you've made them out to be, let them play for the fans where ever they are..isreal or America they have a great talent to share and I'm sure people in Israel would like to see a PJ show as much as the rest of us.

    "check your political opinion in at the door and enjoy the show"


    Godfather.

    then perhaps the people of Israel might choose to apply pressure to their oppressive govt so that everyone who lives within the so called borders of 'israel' can equally enjoy a concert by a western rock band. having said that pearl jam are their own people and they can choose to play wherever they choose to do so.. however that doesn't mean that i as a pearl jam fan have to support their decision.. sure play israel but don't expect me to be at you next australian concert... and THAT is my choice.

    See, you just betrayed how little you understand about this topic. I don't mean to sound condescending, I really don't, it's just that you've just said something that shows me that you have crucially misunderstood something about this issue. Everyone within Israel is free to travel around the country as they wish. The same is not (unfortunately) true of the West Bank, but the West Bank is not Israel.

    This objection that people keep making, that Palestinians in the West Bank wouldn't necessarily be able to go see PJ if they played in Israel is perhaps true, but is also kind of entirely beside the point. If the best case scenario were to come to pass tomorrow, and the occupation was ended and the West Bank were instantly transformed into a Palestinian state and Palestinians in the West Bank were free to travel as they wish, they still wouldn't necessarily be able to go see PJ in Israel BECAUSE IT'S ANOTHER COUNTRY THAT THEY AREN'T CITIZENS OF. It really sucks that Palestinians in the West Bank live under the occupation, but at the end of the day they aren't citizens of Israel, and they don't live in Israel so they aren't residents of Israel either, so they just don't have a god-given right to enter another country to see a rock concert.
    you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane

  • Jason PJason P Posts: 19,121
    yosi wrote:
    That comparison is so far off the wall...that's like saying that it's objectionable for the US army to parade in Manhattan because it was an area ethnically cleansed of native americans.
    The Dutch traded them beads and trinkets for it, fair and square. At some point England ethnically cleaned the Dutch.

    Then the colonists ethnically cleansed the British .... :think: .... B, is this why you hate America?
  • yosiyosi NYC Posts: 2,588
    should pearl jam play in israel?

    i can not say this in a more emphatic way, but NO.

    that would be an endorsement of the israeli government's policies. i would hope that a band that has shown to have a social conscience would understand that.

    That makes no sense. Is PJ endorsing the policies of the US government every time it plays in the States? Obviously not. Nor are they doing so w/r/t the policies of the governments in any of the other countries in which they play. So why would Israel be any different?
    you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane

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