Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Wolfgang Mozart, an Austrian composer of chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, has never performed in Israel, and appears unlikely ever to do so. While no official statement from Mozart addresses the issue specifically, BDS activists assert that their campaign served as the decisive factor.
"The facts are simple: we have been campaigning among artists for quite some time, and since we began more than a decade ago, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has not once announced plans to travel to Israel," said prominent BDS activist Mustafa Barghouti. "Clearly, this kind of pressure works, and we intend to maintain our course of action until all artists finally come around."
Other figures in the music world who are active in BDS circles applauded the news. "This is a growing movement whose success is magnified through momentum, so we celebrate this coup," said former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, a high-profile proponent of the cultural isolation of Israel. "At the same time, we must keep up the pressure for genuine success to happen. Real political change - the elimination of the only Jewish state in he world - is not something that will occur all by itself."
Waters added that all indications seem to point to other musical giants joining the boycott: of Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, the entire Bach family, Josef Haydn, Claude Debussy, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Frederic Handel, and many other influential composers, not a single one has announced a planned trip to Israel since the current round of BDS activity began to gain momentum in 2002.
Cultural institutions in Israel have yet to respond formally to the BDS announcement, but experts say they are unlikely to dignify it. "Reacting publicly to this would be playing into the hands of the BDS people, whose main weapon is publicity," explained Mozart biographer Maynard Solomon. "I personally find this all an unconvincing publicity stunt, since what they're really after would be an actual statement by, say, Ludwig Beethoven that he refuses to play in Israel because of the way they treat the Palestinians. And they're never going to get that, not from everything we know about Mozart."
Solomon explained that it would be completely unlike Mozart to involve himself in anything political, considering the composer's experience of dependence on political figures. "Alienating an entire society, especially one disproportionately appreciative of and involved in classical music, is not something I can see Mozart ever doing, and that's only one myriad other good reasons not to believe the BDS crowing," he added.
Activists intend to continue focusing on major figures in classical music. "Our next best bet is probably a major composer already predisposed to our point of view," said Barghouti. "Richard Wagner comes to mind."
