Friday 9 August 2013

ERIC BURDON ISRAELI CONCERT: The controversy continues


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Eric Burdon dancing with a fan onstage at the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater in Israel, August 1, 2013.  (Photo: Times of Israel)
On August 7 Tom Friedman wrote:
Let’s start with a small item in Britain’s Independent newspaper on July 24, which began: “He once sang, ‘You Gotta Get Outta This Place,’ but now Eric Burdon is not even turning up at all having deciding to withdraw from a planned concert in Israel. ... The Animals frontman, whose hits include ‘House of the Rising Sun,’ and ‘San Franciscan Nights,’ had been due to perform alongside local Israeli bands in Binyamina. ... However, in a statement, Mr. Burdon’s management, said: ‘We’ve been receiving mounting pressure, including numerous threatening e-mails, daily. ...’” Burdon was just the latest of a rising number of artists and intellectuals who have started boycotting Israel over the occupation issue.
On August 1 Eric Burdon appeared at the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater as scheduled. Apparently, Friedman and The New York Times were not aware that the British rock legend had performed in Israel despite the statement of cancellation from his manager.  Neither Burdon nor his management team ever indicated that Burdon supported a boycott.  In addition the fact that any real threats were directed against Burdon is subject to question. 
The original version of the column mistakenly included the final line as part of the quote from The Independent.  In the afternoon, the NYTimes issued the following correction which was placed at the end of the article.
An earlier version of this column incorrectly attributed to the British newspaper The Independent a sentence about a singer, Eric Burdon. The sentence — “Burdon was just the latest of a rising number of artists and intellectuals who have started boycotting Israel over the occupation issue” — was by Mr. Friedman. (Mr. Burdon ultimately decided to perform, despite pressure not to.)
Shouldn’t the Times have directly stated that in addition to the misplaced quotation marks, Friedman erred in writing that Burdon supported the boycott instead of only placing the fact of the rocker’s appearance in Israel in parentheses?
The corrected paragraph was part of a column in which Friedman naively...
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