Flanders Festival Ghent says it made decision over lack of ‘clarity’ about incoming conductor Lahav Shani’s views.
While Shani had spoken in favour of “peace and reconciliation” in the past, his attitude towards the “genocidal regime in Tel Aviv” was unclear given his role as the chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the festival organisers said.
People think this is a personal attack. It’s not (unless this guy actively supports his government). It’s sad that people suffer because of their government actions? Yes. Is it necessary? As a symbolic act of protest against a regime you don’t support, also yes.
I personally don’t understand the logic of this symbolic act of protest, but I often don’t understand how protest is supposed to function. It did pull more attention towards gaza, and attention is everything.
Would a better protest be to keep the invite, but plaster the space with material about the genocide? Let the person quit if this offends them (which would probably be a more sympathetic headline and just as newsworthy) and make a story out of the performance if they don’t (which should be very photogenic).
The logic is telling Israel “your country is not welcome here, we don’t agree with you”, which is different from saying " your people are not welcome here", because only representative are affected