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Thursday, September 04, 2014

Those oh-so-moral peace activists

An Israeli theatre company called Incubator Theatre was forced to cancel its performances of its hip-hop story The City at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in late July because of threats and protests.

I just saw some details of what happened at the protests:

On July 30 I watched as members of the public arrived to attend the performance of The City at the Underbelly Cow Barn and witnessed at first hand a level of menace, intimidation and coercion that I had previously thought impossible to witness on the streets of Edinburgh. A 14-year-old girl was yelled at so loudly and at such close quarters that the transfer of spittle from a protestor was evident. Nice.
Charlie Wood, director of the Underbelly, said..."The demonstrations pushed the meaning of 'peaceful', they were screaming at children walking past to see another show, saying 'you've got blood on your ticket.'

"We just couldn't make the show work in that venue and we tried very hard to find venues elsewhere but for several reasons it proved impossible.
In the end, the show was performed to sell-out crowds in Glasgow, London and Leeds, thanks to the efforts of the Zionist Federation. There were withering attacks on the protesters in the  media, who forced the first ever show cancellation at the festival due to protests.

The Incubator sent the ZF a thank-you letter: