Evening at the Symphony with Tchaikovsky, Bernstein and Genocide

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(San Francisco, March 23) If San Francisco's well dressed establishment patrons of "culture" thought hearing a concert by the Israeli government's Israel Philharmonic would help them forget the unpleasant business of Israel slaughtering and starving 60,000 Palestinian civilians (think of tens of thousand of broken and rotting corpses of men women and children) they were disappointed.

While the Israeli national anthem played inside, outside demonstrators were drumming and shouting “Free free Palestine” and “Down down with occupation.”

The “don’t harmonize with genocide” action at the Davies Symphony Hall last night resulted from the ongoing outrage over the slaughter. This concert they feel, is a egregious example of "artwashing" to make the State of Israel appear as a benevolent supporter of the arts as it commits a genocide.

Artists Against Apartheid had beautiful creative banners and movement routines. A violin dripping tears of blood was powerful..

Three people had tickets and continually disrupted the concert, one right in front of the stage with a Palestinian flag, but weren’t arrested. The audience walking through tended to be hostile and there was some shoving, and eventually one person wearing a keffiya completely covering their face got arrested but it wasn’t clear what they had done.

During the intermission, some audience members stood in front of the glass walls and gave us the finger and held up an Israeli flag. There were about dozen CodePINKs in the crowd, marching, and making a lot of noise and gratefully handing out flyers about the Israeli Philharmonic and the People’s Arms Embargo Travis actions coming up.

For everybody there, the protest dominated the evening . Activist are determined to continue their campaign till the genocide ends and Palestinians can live free.

The action was organized by CODEPINK collaboration with JVP, Artists Against Apartheid, Party for Socialism and Liberation, QUIT, and Oakland against genocide.

See all high resolution photos here .