Paul McCartney Vows to Perform in Israel

    

MUSIC NEWS -  Legend Sir Paul McCartney says he’s going to perform on September 25 in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park regardless of the death threats against him. “I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come. I refused,” McCartney recently told Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Aharonoth. “I do what I think, and I have many friends who support Israel.”   Several U.K. papers have reported that McCartney's visit

may result in a terrorist attack.  The Daily Mail quoted a Muslim cleric warning the former Beatle that he’ll be killed by suicide bombers if he performs in Israel !  The Sunday Express, continued on the Yediot Aharonoth report and went a step further and named Muslim fundamentalist Omar Bakri Muhammad as the man behind the threats.  Supposedly speaking from his home in Lebanon, where he’s resided since being exiled from Britain right after the July 7, 2005, London bombings, Bakri said McCartney’s decision was making him “more enemies than friends.”   “If he values his life Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel. He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him,” Bakri added.  Musicians and academics regularly come under pressure to boycott Israel for its occupation of Palestinian territories and, in recent months, for economic blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza.  McCartney has said the 1965 cancellation of a Beatles performance in Tel Aviv,  because the Israeli government believed the band would corrupt Israeli teenagers, was “a bit insulting.”  “The Beatles had a pretty positive influence on the world and only regimes that wanted to control their peoples were afraid of us. We mostly laughed at the Israeli government decision,” Sir Paul explained.  Other acts, to have played Hayarkon Park, have included Madonna, Michael Jackson, Metallica, Elton John, U2, Guns N’ Roses, David Bowie, Dire Straits and Westlife.

UPDATE- 9/25/08 -  After a 43-year wait, Paul McCartney performed his first concert in Israel on Thursday, and kicked it off with the popular Beatles' song "Hello, Goodbye" to the excitement of approximately 40,000 adoring fans at Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park. McCartney billed the concert as "Friendship First," saying that he's on a mission of peace for Israel and the Palestinians.  Singing "Give Peace a Chance," he paused and let the crowd sing the chorus alone. "Here tonight you sang it, you want it," the 66-year-old rocker said.  He dedicated the song to his fellow Beatle, John Lennon, who was killed in New York in 1980.