Ha Ha, Charade You Are

Roger Waters is traveling to Israel to play a few shows and the Palestinians aren't happy:

Concert promoter Shuki Weiss said Waters was persuaded to come to Israel after it quit the Gaza Strip, territory on which Palestinians want to build a state, last year in a move billed as breaking a deadlock in peacemaking.

But a group of Palestinian artists said on Thursday they had written a letter to Waters this week warning the concert may undermine lobbying against the barrier, which has been globally condemned for effectively annexing swathes of West Bank land.

Israel calls the barrier a bulwark against suicide bombers spearheading a more than 5-year-old Palestinian revolt.

"How can someone who wants to look like a leftist in the world -- fighting against the Berlin Wall, for open borders, and for love between people -- come to Israel while they are still building their wall and hold a musical event?" Sliman Manour (sic) of the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art, told Reuters.

Let's parse the last sentence. The quote "wants to look like a leftist" is peculiar because leftists stand up against violence against civilians...well, at least they used to. Second, Mr. Mansour assumes that if you are "leftist" you support the Palestinian cause of suicide bombings and the like. That is a deep indictment of liberals, isn't it? Lastly, the comparison to the Berlin Wall is not even remotely apt; the Berlin Wall was built to keep people from fleeing oppression and going to the free west. The Israeli wall is to keep out terrorists who wish to destroy the freest nation in the entire region. Please don't embarrass yourself anymore with that analogy.

Perhaps Mr. Mansour has forgotten about the hundreds of civilians incinerated by men and women who strap explosives to themselves and find the most crowded bus or shopping area to inflict the most damage on the most innocents they can when they hit the detonator.