Noa, the star's "wrong note"
Il Giornale, February 03, 2014
Achinoam Nini, known as Noa, is famous worldwide for her incredible vocal abilities, for the soundtrack of Benigni's film "Life is Beautiful" and also for having sung before the Pope, at the UN and in Assisi, all circumstances in which she could demonstrate her pacifism. So far, so good. What is striking is that from that peaceful heart there has arisen an authoritarian sword, so that if you don't think the same way I do, I despise you, I denounce you, I don't want anything to do with you. And so Noa has refused a prestigious singing award from the Israeli association ACUM, which protects the work of artists.
She refused it because ACUM, while it gave her a prize for the promotion of Israeli music, gave another less famous singer, Ariel Zilber, a lifetime achievement award. Zilber is close to seventy. He has a white beard and is a man of rock and faith, and, where Noa is concerned, his flaw is to be right-wing, unwilling to concede territories. So Noa has announced her refusal for "ideological reasons". So while reaffirming her militancy for human rights, she delegitimizes someone as an unworthy artist because they don't think the same way she does. But delegitimization is a racist gesture, and an Israeli woman should know that because her country suffers from it every day.
Noa, an international star, knows that her move helps those who think that in Israel, on one hand, there are some good people like Noa and on the other hand, many horrible villains who don't want peace. Ideological snobbery prevents her as an artist accepting those who could cast a shadow on her pacifist purity, and she doesn't hesitate to deligitimize them, and to judge them without appeal. Saturday, Kerry, speaking about the peace process, has threatened only Israel with economic ruin if it fails. He has delegitimized the wish for peace without recognizing that the Palestinians threaten every day to break it. Ok, it's a stupid policy. But delegitimization should at least ignore the pentagram.
This article originally appeared in slightly different form in Italian in Il Giornale; English copyright, The Gatestone Institute