Side by side placement of ukranian flag and palestinian flag

[TakeMe2Insanity]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/14/soho-theatre-bans-comedian-paul-currie-jewish-audience-members

Interesting situation: side by side placement of the flags.

It’s the bit, should a person on stage start arguing with the crowd? Should members of the audience object to flags on stage?

@DreamVortex Not at all. If he said something antisemitic then he deserves to be punished.

Being thrown out of a theatre is appalling. It’s not a microagression. It’s not someone accidentally slipping up. It’s direct persecution 💯💯💯💯
I agree , it’s unacceptable

This guy may well have looked or sounded Israeli
how do you look Israeli? He is a good looking guy ,
, looks like he could have been Lebanese or Greek , Persian ..etc

here are so many serious anti Semitic and Islamophobic cases out there , being thrown out of a theatre for not liking a flag is really not one of them,

I honestly can't believe what I'm reading. Yes, yes it is!

I haven’t seen a picture of him :) But I guess if someone looks and sounds a bit middle-eastern and objects to the Palestinian flag it’s a bit obtuse to not suspect they’re Israeli.

But I guess if someone looks and sounds a bit middle-eastern and objects to the Palestinian flag it’s a bit obtuse to not suspect they’re Israeli.
you haven’t been to the ME 🙈, that’s really not the sentiment , Arabs , including some Lebanese are anti Palestinians ,

its a complex region.

🙄🙄🙄🙄 oh what a small small world you must live in.

Indeed. Very complex. Some people think it's simple because they see it reduced to slogans. It isn't.

Yes unfortunately it’s not as simple as that seeing as, you know, the area has been run by terroists for so long… you know the actual people wanting to commmit actual genocide bit just throw around a term as propaganda

What happened to that audience member was disgusting. That really is the beginning, middle and end to that story.

That's easy to say when your bar for anti-Semitism is impossibly high.

I have. But not Lebanon. What’s their objection to Palestine?

The British flag unites us? It’s hilarious to me that you believe that and I’m not saying this to be mean. Peace, unity and patriotism depend on everyone being treated as though they are part of the whole, that doesn’t really happen. The lack is not just down to imported attitudes.

You cannot expect people to value Britain over and above their own heritages. It’s not wrong for people to protest the mass murder of civilians by displaying a flag.

That being said Paul Currie is out of order. If you’re doing a public show you cannot be throwing members out because they disagree. It doesn’t sound like the audience member did anything but not rise. He didn’t even object until asked. It’s an emotive topic, and so many people are suffering so the comedian raging inside I understand. However, it should have outwardly been an agree to disagree, let’s end the conversation situation.

I've been to the ME and studied there and within the context of the current and decades long conflict, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of people who would be anti the Palestinian flag. It's really not complex.

have. But not Lebanon. What’s their objection to Palestine?
it goes back to the early years of the Lebanese civil War, and many believe PLO had a direct hand in igniting the War .
the war had a geo/political and religious background , the PLO were Pro Lebanese National Movement party and That led to a presence of the PLO in southern Lebanon and subsequently an Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon.
also Lebanese believe the PLO attempted to assassinate Pierre Gemayle, an important political figure at that time , and had a hand in the assassination of his son Bachir Gemayel the elected president of Lebanon in 82.
That was one of the deadliest years of the civil war.

saying the war is complicated and complex is an understatement , but it really helps with understanding the Geopolitical scene of the whole region, it is a major turning point.

@MCOut I think being British should unite us, whatever our cultural background. We share this bit of land, we should try to live in peace. I don't think that's unrealistic, but I see most others do.

I agree with you. I think a society can only work if it is united on something and ‘Britishness’ is really the only thing we have.

Umm, yeah they do object loudly, and sometimes violently when the Union Jack is flown. Try flying it on the Falls Road or in certain parts of Glasgow to find out quite how loudly they object. Make sure your will is up to date first.

I fully support flying the flags of our allies (such as Ukraine) in a show of support for them in time of conflict - I see loads of Ukraine flags flying so clearly a lot of people are of the same mind. Our school, which has a lot of Ukrainian refugee children has flown it as gesture of support for those children and families. The only people who this would offend would be those who support our mutual enemy, Russia. It’s a good way of flushing out fifth columnists.

That lines up with some of the stuff I have seen on Twitter. There’s quite a recent Chortle report that says a similar thing. (I believe they were the first to break the story.)

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2024/02/13/54990/audience_members_back_paul_currie_in_antisemitism_storm

@Shelaugh Thank you. I feel understood by someone, which is always nice.

You see this is why a lot of Irish people (including Paul Currie by the sounds of things) are appalled by what is happening in Palestine. Does this mean when the IRA bombed Canary Wharf/ Manchester/ Brighton/ Lord Mountbatten/ Downing St etc etc, it would have been absolutely fine to carpet bomb Ballymun, The Falls Road or Galway city centre in response?! I was a kid during the Troubles; would it have been totally fine for the British army to kill me? There by the grace of god go I?

The Palestinians are not all terrorists and it is actually quite terrifying to see this constantly being used as an excuse for recent events.

If all he’d done was ‘speak out’ I’d agree he shouldn’t be banned. Throwing people out for being Israeli/Jewish/even just disagreeing is crossing the line.

Oh totally. That goes without saying. But the more info that comes out, the more it sounds like he was pissed off that this guy was annoyed by the Palestinian flag. It doesn’t sound like he dealt with it very well, but this is really escalating now.

I’ve seen quite a few Irish bands live recently and a lot of them have had Palestinian flags onstage; I can’t imagine their reactions being much politer if anyone had a go about it! I wonder if this has put them off…

@inkworks273

Oh I do hope this is not another deliberate misrepresentation.

According to the BBC the events were:

"A Jewish man who attended the show with his wife and friends told the BBC on Monday that the incident happened around five minutes from the end of Mr Currie's performance, after the comedian had unveiled both a Ukrainian and Palestinian flag.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed Mr Currie "encouraged a standing ovation" before questioning why one man had remained seated.
The audience member reportedly said he had enjoyed the show until the Palestinian flag had been displayed.
Mr Currie then "erupted" and told him to "get out", the man added.
The man and several other people left the show before it finished."

So you see the "comedian" engaged with the audience member first asking him why he hadn't joined in the standing ovation.

I find it always helps to stick to the facts.

The IRA were bad enough but I don’t think what Hamas did is comparable, particularly the taking of hostages. It’s also slightly different in that there is no sea border between Israel/Gaza.

It’s a bit more like if the IRA were going into the republic, raping, torturing, murdering children and then taking hostages back into NI, where they hid among the civilian population and built military infrastructure funded by the British, with plans to do it again. It would be very difficult for the ROI to justify not taking military action in those circumstances imo.

I mean at least change the terrorist group to UVF or something, so that your analogy makes sense… Jesus Christ.

And the IRA DID hide out in the civilian population in NI and border towns and did torture people. And did take hostages. Of course it’s not on the same scale of Oct 7th; that’s the 2nd worst terrorist atrocity of all time by victim count (1st being Sept 11th). (I would actually argue that Oct 7th is worse due to the torture and raping…)

So by your analogy it would have been fine to carpet bomb, let’s say Dundalk, in retaliation for what the IRA did.