Madonna and The Police Announcement

Madonna put on a show here in Israel last night, accompanied by Rabbi Eitan Yardeni, her personal spiritual tutor.

Some 30,000 people showed up.  Several hundred who were provided free tickets didn't come *.

The police published instructions on parking, on routes of arrival, on closed streets, entrance rules, seating and a few other things.

Here is how it looked:

This is nice, though:

Madonna’s decision to play in Israel contrasts with other musicians over the past two years who canceled performances after protests by pro-Palestinian groups, including Elvis Costello, Santana, Gil Scott-Heron and Cassandra Wilson. That an Italian-American Catholic named for the mother of Jesus would end up among the Jewish state’s biggest supporters in the global pop elite is one of the stranger twists even in the extraordinary career of Madonna Louise Ciccone.

and this, too:

During that show, she wrapped herself in an Israeli flag and called Israel the "energy center of the world."

*

...she held a private meeting the day before with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, and provided them with 600 free tickets.   “Madonna said peace was the only solution and encouraged us to pursue it,” Ron Pundak, head of the Israeli chapter of the Peace NGO Forum, said in a telephone interview.

and

Madonna invited a variety of progressive and left-wing groups to come to her concert for free tonight, including residents of Neve Shalom (an Arab-Jewish cooperative village near Jerusalem), Combatants for Peace, Shatil and Peace Now (Hebrew). The invitation was made through the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO forum, a network of over 100 NGOs working towards peace in the region.  Anarchists Against the Wall was also invited but declined, citing that Palestinians under occupation do not have the most basic rights, let alone the ability to attend such a concert...The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement also declined the invitation, explaining that Madonna’s failure to ever condemn Israeli policies renders the word “peace” meaningless...Solidarity movement also refused (Hebrew):

I wonder, did she invite any Jewish residents living in locations included in the territory of the Jewish national home but not under Israel’s full sovereignty?

If not, how peaceful can that be?


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