Israeli Show Banned AT Edinburgh Fringe — Page 2

NewYorkTheater - I assume that the basic issue here is your comprehension skills. You can't attack me for my views about the rights or wrongs of the dispute because I didn't give them. You have no idea where I stand on the matter. What I was trying to so, which is what you have singularly failed to grasp, is present the facts of the situation here and correct the misinformation in yours and other posts including the title of the initial post.
There is now a post with details of what the theatre company involved is saying (maybe you will believe them?) and a link to an accurately reported story. Perhaps, further repetition of the facts from other people, will help clarify the situation as it actually is rather than how you seem to be viewing things. It isn't my opinion about the funding - that is a fact as is the statement from the protestors who said that it isn't about being Israeli but about being state funded. That is not a viewpoint - it is, something you constantly seem to ignore, a fact. Now you can disagree with the reasoning (I may do so - you have chosen to make the wrong assumptions about my viewpoint).
Again, the subject of the post started the information (the show is not banned and the Edinburgh Fringe cannot ban a show anyway). You have compounded the errors and mistakes. I am not talking about beliefs or viewpoints, I am talking about the facts of the situation and if you choose to ignore the salient points, then your views become ridiculous and dangerous.

Apart from the pedantic cheap shot about the spelling of "theater"- (you may not have noticed that both keithp and I come from the UK, so habitually spell the word 'theatre', but your picking on this discrepancy seems symptomatic of your determination to ignore the central point)- you still resist the key central point: the Fringe is not an entity that can speak on behalf of its participants. It cannot. Constitutionally, it cannot.
You may as well as the clouds of Edinburgh what they think or the pavement: the Fringe has no CEO, artistic director or social/political voice!

Updated On: 8/2/14 at 05:49 AM

Devonian: I was unaware that the clouds and the pavement have a board of directors and a mission statement.

From the Edinburgh Fringe website:

"The Society is the organisation that underpins the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The founding principle at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - to be an open-access arts event that accommodates anyone with a story to tell and a venue willing to host them - still regulates the work of the Society today. It is our policy that no single individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform at the Fringe."

Later: "The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has a Board of Directors who oversee our core Fringe Society staff in their year-round work, and who make sure everything is in place to support those who produce and present the world’s biggest explosion of culture every August."

Key word - "support"

Keith: Thank you for finally expressing your views, most of which I agree with. I only find two points of disagreement: 1. that the Fringe shouldn't be embarrassed (I never said they should "apologize") and 2. that I'm an ignorant fabricator.
I don't see a distinction at all between the wording you used to phrase the demonstrators' justification for their disruption and my wording -- except that you don't view the demonstrators' comments with as much skepticism as I do. You say the protestors "pointed out" they are targeting the company because it receives funds from a government arts agency. I'm saying I don't buy that what they're claiming is true -- I don't believe that they wouldn't have targeted the theater company no matter what, simply because its members are Israeli.
But even if this were true - even if they truly are targeting the theater because of the funding not because of the members' nationality -- I find this objectionable, given everything we know about the nature of arts funding, and also what we know about the company itself.

It is the face of such obdurate fact-blindness that those who seek to find solutions through reason will always struggle.

You quote precisely the reason why the Fringe is limited in what it can do, and yet still seek to demand it ought to do more. The key word is "support"; not represent, mediate for, ban, or defend. It is within the constitution for the Fringe to help the participants, but not to make public statements on their behalf.

Having participated in the Edinburgh Fringe since 1989, I have actually been to the places you are imagining, spoken to the people who work where you are imagining, attended the Annual General Meetings of the society that you are imagining. This is why I know they never have, nor never should, make statements about the political positions of those who perform as part of the Fringe.

And Mr Roxy, in your hypothetical world, I imagine there would also be people who would protest outside a "Hamas- The Musical". Have you not noticed that there are two implacably opposite sides who seem equally able to blame each other for the dispute?

Perhaps you've been involved too heavily in the Fringe to see that the way it has been isn't the way it has to be.
I was not calling for the Fringe to "make statements about the political positions of those who perform." This is an issue of artistic freedom, and it seems totally in keeping with their mission statement to support publicly the right of the Incubator company to perform without disruption.
I respect your right to feel differently about this. I do wish that you could have expressed your point of view without implying there is no other reasonable opinion besides your own.

Considering Isreali bombs have murdered a thousand Palestinian civilians and blew up their only power plant.....they are just as horrible and just as responsible for this situation.

Keithp: You're ratcheting up the name-calling, but you've got it wrong. Here is a link to the article in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/aug/01/israeli-theatre-group-performances-cancelled-edinburgh-fringe-gaza
Here is an excerpt from that article:
[Incubator artistic director Arik Eshet] "said he sympathised with the Underbelly's decision to cancel, as the noise had affected other venues. But Eshet added: 'The Edinburgh Fringe is known for accepting everybody and as a place for free speech and free expression. I think the festival is losing ground to loud shouters.'"
He's being polite, but this doesn't read to me as an unequivocal endorsement of the Underbelly's actions. My interpretation is certainly legitimate, not a "distortion of real facts" and all those hysterical accusations you just made.
A question on the table is: Could the Underbelly (with support from the Fringe staff -- and the city of Edinburgh) have taken a different course of action? Should it have? That's a matter of opinion; I've expressed mine. I have nothing more to say about it.

Updated On: 9/4/14 at 11:15 PM

That movement strikes me as ignorant and uncomfortably close to fascist. But you probably take for granted your right to express support for it. The individual artists and academics whose voices it advocates silencing are entitled to the same civil liberties that you enjoy. Suppressing free speech and assembly does not improve the human rights situation in the Middle East; it empowers the extremists on both sides who have inflamed it.

There is no reason that the leadership of the Edinburgh festival and local authorities cannot support artists' civil liberties. If I belonged to an organization that "constitutionally" prohibited me from doing so, I would either change its constitution fast, or resign.

Updated On: 8/3/14 at 06:38 AM

I've changed the title. I didn't realize that the Fringe didn't have control over individual venues.

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Thank you for changing that. There is no way I'm going to get into Middle East politics on a Broadway board, but I could not agree with the inaccuracy of the original title. Sometimes little words make such a difference, eh?

I just saw this on fb:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts/news/appeal-to-ensure-middle-east-fringe-shows-go-ahead-1-3497506

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