This is a guest-post by Gavin Gross

I was at Elton John’s sold-out concert last night at Ramat Gan stadium, and thought this greeting he delivered was spot-on and deserves wide distribution.

Elton told the crowd that he was happy to be back in Israel (he played here in 1993), and in a reference to anti-Israel boycotters who called on him to cancel the show, proudly proclaimed “ain’t nobody gonna stop us from coming here.” He said that as a musician his job was to spread love and peace, and that “we don’t cherry-pick our conscience,” a line for which he received extended applause.

I took this to be a sharp dig at the hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness of figures in the West who focus their ire almost exclusively on Israel, and particularly at his fellow musicians who have recently cancelled their shows here, such as Elvis Costello, the Pixies, Gil Scott-Heron and others.

How many musicians have cancelled their concerts in America because of the thousands of civilians the U.S. military has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and in drone attacks in Pakistan?

An Israeli film has won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Lebanon was directed by Samuel Maoz, and is set during the 1982 Lebanon War. Almost all of the action takes place inside an Israeli tank.

Film Festivals have become a major target for boycotters. In recent months the Edinburgh, Melbourne and Toronto festivals have all been caught up in boycott attempts, led by celebrities like Ken Loach, Jane Fonda and Danny Glover. So it’s heartening to see an Israeli film get the recognition it deserves.

Speaking to the Observer today, Maoz noted:

“The point of a film like mine is to open a dialogue, to get people talking to each other about important issues. This is something you can’t do if films are boycotted. It makes no sense to boycott art. Maybe I wouldn’t have won if Jane Fonda was on the jury, but she wasn’t.”