Stolen Land Occupies Marrickville

More rubbish in the Sydney Morning Hasbara about "five Israeli musicians" who call themselves 'Orphaned Land', and are, as I write, over here girding their loins to occupy the stage at the Factory Theatre in - wait for it - Marrickville. (Rocking for peace: band that can't play their biggest markets, Bernard Zuel, 15/3/14)

Rocking for peace... and, if you believe the hype, winning hearts and minds too - in all the wrong places:

They have "large fan bases in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon."

How do we know?

Because the "devotion" of those fans "is expressed online and in social media, their listening done sometimes via copies of albums surreptitiously exchanged."

Surreptitiously! (Psst, Mohammed, wanna a hot OL CD? They piss all over Fairuz, and as we OL fans say, They make my desert bloom!)

OL vocalist Kobi Farhi explains:

"[I]t should not be such a surprise that Jews and Arabs, Palestinians and Persians find common cause in Orphaned Land... I never write songs about my ex-girlfriend; it's always about the macro situation of the Middle East... So people in Syria or Iran or Palestinians can identify themselves in the lyrics."

Palestinians... not Palestine...

Kobi laments:

"Ironically, I can go all the way to Australia, but I can't play around the corner in our neighbour countries... All the border countries of Israel, if it's Lebanon and Syria on the north or Jordan on the east or Egypt on the south, none of them will accept me and my passport..."

That sux! Still, if it's any consolation, Kobi, Palestinian refugees in those countries know exactly how you feel. After all, the bastards who stole their homeland back in 1948 won't accept either them or their title deeds.

Refugees? Palestinian refugees?

That's right, Kobi. You know all about them, don't you? Remember that interview you did with metalblast.net?

K: You know, in the 1948 war the Arab leaders told all the Arabs 'Run away from Israel, and when we win the war you will come back.' The thing is that they lost the war and then became refugees, so haven't come back ever since and still wait for those leaders to bring them back. I strongly believe that we should not count on leaders, messiahs or anyone.
MB: You mentioned the messages that the Arab leaders sent to the Palestinians in 48... well, that is propaganda. Those messages were simply never sent, it didn't happen.
K: So how did all the Arabs run away?
MB: They didn't; they were expelled.
K: I will give you an example. I was born in Jaffa; before the 1948 war it consisted of almost 80,000 Arabs. After the war there were 3,000 Arabs left in Jaffa. It's impossible for the 1948 Israeli army to expel 77,000 people out of Jaffa. Take my word for it... (The new folklore: An interview with Orphaned Land)