The Israel Ballet's Associate Director denies existence of Palestinians; Israeli government funding

For more on why people are protesting The Israel Ballet, and for details of the "mock program" action that we worked on to educate audiences during the Company's U.S. tour, see http://nigelparry.com/photos/israel-ballet-mock-programs.shtml


VIDEO DETAILS

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Outside The Israel Ballet's performance in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Ballet's Associate Director, Dan Rudolf, managed to both deny:

1. the existence of the Palestinian people before 1948 in what is now called "Israel".

2. the fact that The Israel Ballet receives money from the Israeli government—which can be confirmed on the Company's own website. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz puts the figure at $1 million annually.


For more information about the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, visit http://www.pacbi.org

Video by Boston and Worcester Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Activists / bdsbostonma@gmail.com

Edited by http://nigelparry.com


SOURCES

Annual funding of Israel Ballet by Israeli government is $1 million/NIS 3.9 million:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/815228.html

Page on Israel Ballet's website where it states that the Company is "supported by The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport":
http://www.iballet.co.il/support.asp?pageID=1462096689

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• israel ballet
• dan rudolf
• U.S. tour
• don qixote
• BDS
• boycott
• divestment
• sanctions
• activists
• protest
• culture boycott
• pacbi
• Worcester
• Massachusetts
• MA
• Israel delegitimizes itself

[brabon1]

what happened in 1948? a war happened

the arabs lost

the state of our educational system is woefully lacking

[nigelparry]

@brabon1 In 1948, 800,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland. There was no real "war" as you assert because the indigenous population didn't have anywhere near the military capabilities of the Zionist forces. That's why approaching one million people fled. For you to bemoan the state of anyone's education system as you rewrite history is ridiculous.

[msmcis]

@nigelparry Sikhs and Hindus were driven out of their homeland in order to make way for the Islamic State of Pakistan. Almost a million Jews were driven out of their homeland from Islamic countries. All this happened at just about the same time as the creation of Israel. Do you concern yourself with those refugees or only the refugees from Israel? Is their plight not the same as the Arab's in Israel? Do you care as much about the Sudanese massacre? Now who did you say was being ridiculous?

[nigelparry]

@msmcis History is full of examples of colonial dispossession. What's your point? My point was to challenge @brabon1's false historical assertion that 1948 was a "war". It clearly was not a war. Try and enter an argument by actually addressing the point being made. What you did was run in to hysterically shout: "Other bad things have happened". So what? How should that alter my reply? Add in Native Americans and the Holocaust if you want. It wouldn't change my reply to @brabon1's distortion.

[msmcis]

@nigelparry There was a war waged on Israel in 1948! Six Arab countries attacked immediately after the creation of Israel. Those six countries were Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Libya.

[brabon1]

@nigelparry close to one million jews were expelled from arab lands from 48-67

guess what...its called population exchange

nice of you to totally forget about arab leaders telling many of their people to leave...that they would crush the jew

they didnt...they lost....nuff said

[RedwoodHippie]

Thank you Nigel for bringing more awareness to the marketing reasons for this artistic endeavor. We all need to learn to live with respect for each other and this includes Israeli's stopping the horrendous apartheid against the Palestinians and the siege of Gaza.

[iLovePalestineDotCom]

Of course he is going to deny it, how else do you expect him and his ilk to sleep at night. I bet if you ask him about the Palestinians of today (not just those of 48) he will most likely deny their existence as well. But dare question the extent of the holocaust and he will fly off the handle because denying this event is forbidden yet denying a whole people's existence is of course OK for parasitic Zionism.