Israeli education minister Limor Livnat got a little carried away calling Daniel Barenboim an "anti-Semite." It's really much simpler than that.
The incident Thursday began when Arad tried to interview Barenboim during the book launch. Arad wore her military uniform as is the custom for Army Radio reporters still serving their mandatory military service.
"I wanted to interview Barenboim very much and to ask him about the concert he conducted in Ramallah last week, about his musical vision and more. But he wouldn't agree to talk to me, and started signing the book. I insisted. Then he said he refused to be interviewed by a soldier in a uniform and that he will agree to talk to me only if I come to him in civilian clothes," Arad said in a report on Army Radio.
When she protested that she had no choice but to wear the uniform, Barenboim pulled on her epaulets and yelled at her, she said.
Arad did not play tape of Barenboim's snub, but the conductor, in a telephone interview with Army Radio on Friday, did not deny the incident and defended his actions.
"Anti-Semitic? What is anti-Semitic about it? When I say that a uniform should be worn to the right places and not to the wrong ones, there is nothing anti-Semitic about it, there is no logic to this claim," Barenboim said. "I just thought that in this place [a hotel in Yemin Moshe], discussing a book written together with a Palestinian [Edward Said], it shows lack of sensitivity."
That's rich. Daniel Barenboim lecturing about "sensitivity."
Is this news? No, or at least it's last week's. But no one's been around over the weekend and I wanted to get it off my chest. There.
