I've had the pleasure of being involved with London's Almeida Theatre for some time now in connection with its "Reach" program for younger entrepreneurs and aspiring patrons of the arts.
At age 43, I'm always glad to be involved with anything that allows me to continue to classify myself as "younger." But even if it were not for this benefit I would still consider it a privilege to be involved with this wonderful theatre, which puts on such quality productions and is run by people who are dedicated, talented, gracious and warm.
The Almeida is one of London's great theatres -- and this is in a city where theatre still often can rise to the level of high art, more often probably than in any other place (and as a native New Yorker, I say this only grudgingly).
Yet in spite of this I'll be skipping the next Almeida Reach event, which features a performance of Caryl Churchill's "Cloud Nine." That's because Churchill, lauded as one of Britain's greatest female playwrights, is a patron and active supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its calls for a total academic and cultural boycott of Israel.
Heaven knows the Palestinians need good advocates, given that the organisations that purport to advocate for them today are hardly doing a creditable job. But Churchill and others who have joined her on the extreme left cannot be serious in believing that their methods will have any beneficial effect.
The way to bring the parties together in the Middle East is to encourage dialogue. In Israel, as anywhere else, there exists a cross-section of viewpoints and positions across the political spectrum. To take a blanket position of no dialogue stifles all voices -- even the moderate ones who might be in a position to help move toward a solution, if they could be heard. To attempt to delegitimize one side of the conflict only encourages the other side to harden its position, giving it false hope that intransigence will ultimately lead to victory.
Fortunately, for these reasons, more level-headed people have rejected this extreme position. "Boycott, not dialogue" is a discredited strategy and has failed to gain the traction its advocates had hoped. Where reasonable people have considered the issue, they've chosen dialogue over closed-mindedness. They understand that the advocates of boycott have chosen to cast themselves as partisan soldiers and have thus forfeited any claim to fairness or impartiality.
It's particularly ironic that a cultural figure like Caryl Churchill, who owes her livelihood and influence to the willingness of audiences to listen to her with an open mind, is not willing to extend the same courtesy to Israeli intellectual and cultural figures, regardless of their individual views. She is unwilling to distinguish on an individual level, because her goal is to demonize Israel full stop.
In the same way Churchill and her gang might argue that Israel takes indiscriminate, collective action against the Palestinian people, they employ the same tactics against Israeli artists and academics -- the ones most likely to be sympathetic with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. Churchill and her comrades are soldiers in a war, and their aim is victory; nuance and subtlety are weaknesses in wartime. And of course, she and her crowd can and do characterize their own belligerence as a necessary response to Israeli power. So by demonizing the Israelis, they claim credibility for their own unjustifiable behavior.
The Almeida should certainly produce Caryl Churchill's work -- it should be judged on its own merits as a work of art, rather than on the politics of its author. But it's too much for me to go and applaud it. And I'm too polite to boo and hiss in this special theatre run by brilliant people.
I hope to be back at the Almedia next time. But for now, Caryl Churchill -- I'm not joining your audience.
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