Let us not beat about the bush. Elton John played in South Africa’s Sun City despite the Boycott of Apartheid South Africa. Elton John has made it clear that he is equally determined to play in the Apartheid State of Israel. Why? Because all his ‘gay politics’ are self-centred.

His is a lifestyle form of politics. In effect he asserts the right to be equal oppressors with heterosexuals, just like the Blair Babes only objective was to have the equal right to be racists and oppressors.

With Gil Scott-Heron and now Elvis Costello showing the way, Elton John has obviously decided that his £¼ million flower addiction needs bolstering with the dirty money of racism.

Below is an excellent letter from BRICUP, British Universities for Palestine. Signed by four professors, all of them Jewish, it demonstrates a controlled anger at Elton John’s attempt to pretend that he is above such matters as whether or not a Palestinian child goes thirsty in the West Bank because the settlers have all the water and his parents cannot afford any.

Tony Greenstein

19 May, 2010

Open Letter to the Racist ‘Sir’ Elton

Dear Elton John:

It’s funny how people can be close friends, and yet react so differently to things. You’re apparently close friends with Elvis Costello – so close you hosted his wedding to Diana Krall at your ‘castle’ in Windsor. After just three weeks of people appealing to Elvis Costello not to perform in Israel, he’s decided not to go. (His thoughtful statement is here).

But months down the line from our first letter to you, with hundreds, if not thousands, of your fans appealing to you to cancel your gig in Tel Aviv (including Canadian film-maker John Greyson) you remain silent. Of course you have every right to do so. But we’re wondering what this silence means.

Does it mean you think the dirty business of Israeli colonialism and ethnic cleansing has nothing to do with you? That you can play for the officers and conscripts and secret service people who will make up much of your audience in Tel Aviv without giving them the stamp of your approval? You will offer them a few hours’ respite from administering beatings and torture and land-theft and house demolition and sieges and destroying wells and denying sick people access to hospital – and the simple fact of your presence will tell them that all this cruel business, which they conduct daily, is okay with you.

Or does your silence mean you think it’s more important to stand in solidarity with gays in Israel than with the Palestinians? But what about Palestinian gays? Israel has a record of sending those

who’ve sought refuge in Israel back to the Occupied Territories. So much for Israel being ‘gay-friendly’.

Palestinian gay rights activist Haneen Maikey (an Israeli citizen) says, ‘It’s really pathetic that the Israeli state has nothing besides gay rights to promote its liberal image. Ridiculous, and in a sense hilarious, because there are no gay rights in Israel’.

To the Israeli state she says, ‘Stop speaking in my name. If you want to do me a favour, stop bombing my friends, end your occupation, and leave me to rebuild my community’.

Sir Elton! – maybe you’ve decided, in your generous way, that you’ll donate the proceeds of your Tel Aviv concert to the Global Fund, or another AIDS charity (and of course good deeds cannot

be spoken about, so you don’t announce it). But our appeal to you isn’t about money. It’s about the meaning of actions. Elvis Costello understood exactly that ‘simply having your name added

to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act…and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent’.

To his great credit, he decided that ‘a silence in music is sometimes better than adding to the static’. We are asking to you to abandon the silence of your apparent indifference to our appeal, and that of thousands of your fans, and join Elvis Costello in his musical silence. Please don’t play in Israel.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Haim Bresheeth

Mike Cushman

Professor Steven Rose

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

see Electronic Intifada Elton John: Don’t stand on the wrong side of history again and

YNet Elton John’s Israel concert booked