If you can’t stop Neil Young with petitions, try rockets instead

The BDS movement really pulled out all the stops to try to convince Neil Young to cancel his show in Israel this week. They failed (his spokesman confirmed that the concert was shut down by city authorities due to public safety reasons), but you wouldn’t know it from his Facebook page, which resembled downtown Berlin after Germany’s World Cup victory. The haters were out in force, puffing their chests out, gloating that they achieved their goal and that Neil wouldn’t be playing in “Israhell”. A small selection of their Twitter-ized victory speeches:

Of course, the decision to cancel had nothing to do with BDS and was made by Israeli officials, who deemed it unwise to gather tens of thousands of targets and line them up in one place for the murderous Hamas movement to aim for.

The BDS movement’s petition to try and bully Neil into cancellation sputtered, failing to achieve even their meager goal of 10,000 signatures, topping out at about 7,500. By contrast, the counter-movement, led by Facebook pages like the popular “I support Neil Young against the haters” page was closing in on 10,000 likes on what should have been the eve of the concert. Even perpetual antagonist, Roger Waters could not convince Neil to cancel, going so far as to guilt him by making public a personal letter that referenced an exchange of Christmas gifts between the two.

And yet, the haters are still gloating, still taking credit, still declaring victory. Regardless of the fact that their petition failed. Regardless of the fact that their “star” and hero failed. Regardless of the fact that they needed an assist from thugs trying to murder concert-goers in order to achieve their dream of silencing an artist.

Let’s stop and think about that for a minute. While many of us in the counter-movement knew all along that the fake calls for “non-violent resistance” were just marketing tactics…the haters themselves are now PUBLICLY embracing violence as a means to an end. Terrorism has always just been an extreme form of bullying, but in the past, the anti-Israel demagogues have at least PRETENDED to distance themselves from violence.

Now the naked truth has been exposed.

Is it any wonder then, that an “anti-Israel” (read: anti-Jewish) protest at a Parisian synagogue turned violent yesterday? Is it any surprise that in Germany, violent “protests” (read: riots) broke out all over the country and a mob of anti-Israel “protesters” (read: hooligans) commandeered a police car and used its megaphone to scream “Allah-u Akbar” in Frankfurt? Or that #HitlerWasRight was trending on Twitter over the weekend? And would you be shocked if these same people cheer the opportunity to silence Neil Young, literally by any means necessary?

“We’ll miss the opportunity to play for our fans and look forward to playing in Israel and Palestine.” –Spokesman for Neil Young.

When people declare that it is acceptable for civil discourse to be trampled upon and beaten down and that silencing their opponents is something to be celebrated, there is only one logical next step. When “peace activists” radicalize to the point that they are justifying the use of rocket attacks on civilian populations, it is only logical that they eventually embrace violence themselves.

When petitions, protests, op-eds and ludicrous “apartheid weeks” have failed in achieving your objectives, what is there left to do? And when the people you support are themselves cheering and embracing terror – even when THEY THEMSELVES ARE THE TARGET – it’s just one more step along the path.

That is what you are seeing now on Facebook, Twitter and on the streets of Paris and Frankfurt. It’s only the next logical step for a movement whose entire foundation is built upon a lie.

The minute you decide to use bullying tactics, you become a bully, no matter what you call yourself. The minute you decide to embrace terror tactics… Well, what does that make you?

Look around yourselves, you who are anti-Israel. You, who consider yourself “progressive” or “liberal” or “tolerant” but are cheering the cancelation of a concert due to terrorism. See what you have surrounded yourself with and what you have become as you gloat and goose-step your way through the hate and the chaos.

See yourself for who you are. And be ashamed.

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