Soccer Dad

All is forgiven?

YNET reports that a number of musical groups might soon be touring Israel:

Depeche Mode, Eminem, and maybe even British superband Pink Floyd headline an all-star lineup of bands headed for Israel in 2006-07, according to a report Sunday on Channel 2 television.

Pink Floyd?

On their album the Final Cut there was a song "The Fletcher Memorial Home," a place for tyrants to retire to:

Mr. Begin and friend, Mrs. Thatcher, and Paisly,
. . .
Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
They can polish their medals and sharpen their
Smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for awhile.
Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead.

Yes a lovely choice.

As far as I can tell, Pink Floyd isn't trying to amends. Some others who have worked against Israel are now asking us to forget their perfidies. Gerald Steinberg examines their cases in "On When To Forgive":

How should Israel and the Jewish community respond to former international officials who joined the political attacks against Israel and are now trying to rehabilitate themselves? Mary Robinson is a case in point, as are Chris Patten and Terje Roed Larsen. All three played key roles in the demonization campaign between 2000 and 2004, but after changing jobs they have sought to repair the damage with Jewish groups.

Each of these three august personalities helped support Palestinian propganda. Mary Robinson as UN Commissioner for human rights presided over the Durban conference that re-animated the canard that Zionism is racism. Christopher Patten looked the other way as EU funds went to the PA to fund terrorism and fatten the acounts of Arafat's cronies. Terje Roed-Larsen collaborated with Hezbollah to prevent Israel from taking any action to save its soldiers and was happy to cry "massacre" in Jenin.

All have retired from the public stage and now seek to make amends.

Steinberg concludes:

Larsen, like Robinson and Patten, also has been appearing before Jewish groups, which face the dilemma of whether to focus on the sins of the past or on the potential for cooperation in the future. Forgiveness requires unambiguous public admission of error, and these requirements are absent in all three cases. To deter similarly immoral behavior in the future, it is important to demand a full accounting for past behavior while moving cautiously ahead.

The deserve no sympathy or understanding.

Deja Vu (where I first saw this article) says forgive but don't ever forget.

UPDATE: Commenter, Elie's Expositions points out that I'm not be ing entirely fair with Pink Floyd. They didn't single out Menachem Begin on their album.

I also forgot to add a rememberance of Kaare Kristiansen. Unlike Robinson, Larsen and Patten he stood up when he saw Israel treated unfairly. He resigned his position on the Nobel Committee when it voted a peace prize to Yasser Arafat. In a place where the was no nobility he was noble.

Technorati Tags: Israel, European Union.

Crossposted on http://www.israpundit.com/archives/">Israpundit and Soccer Dad.