Nini. Wants to prove protests wrong
Photo: AP
Protester interrupts Israeli singer's concert in Spain
Anti-Israel activist bursts into stage during Achinoam Nini show waving Palestinian flag. Concert resumed after crowd beseeches singer to return. Nini: This made me proud to be an Israeli
A Spanish protester carrying a Palestinian flag interrupted a concert of Israeli singer Achinoam Nini in the city of Tolosa in Spain this weekend.
The man barged into the stage, calling out anti-Israeli slogans. He was immediately taken off by the security guards at the hall, and later arrested by the local police.
Nini herself was quite shaken by the incident, broke into tears and left the stage. She returned several minutes later, after the crowd applauded her and beseeched her to come back, repeatedly chanting Nini's stage name "Noa". Even after the concert was resumed, the distraught singer had to stop on several occasions in order to regroup.
"We have already encountered anti-Semitism in London, but this is the first time it's happening in Spain, and with such intensity," said Ofer Pesanzon, Nini's producer.
"There were close to 80 protestors outside who shouted slogans against us. They prepared pictures of Achinoam wearing a soldier's helmet and other posters with slogans against Israel," he described.
"They launched a war against Achinoam because she's not afraid to say what she thinks, and therefore she represents Israel in their eyes. I tried talking to them, but I could tell they had been brainwashed, it was impossible to communicate with them," Pesanzon added.
'Next show – a peace concert'
Nini, who is better known abroad by her stage name Noa, is currently on tour in Spain to promote her latest album. The album has won great success in the country and all of the seven shows scheduled in Spain have been sold off weeks in advance."It was a very moving and sad concert," Nini said. "It's a shame it had to happen, but it made proud to be an Israeli. I hope that my next show would be at a peace concert of Israelis and Palestinians. This will prove to these demonstrators how wrong they are," she stated.
In 2002, a Nini performance in London was broken off after protestors burst into the stage and hauled off the microphone from the singer's hands.
