His Tel Aviv performance will be held as scheduled. He was planning to give a performance in Ramallah the following day but the pouting Palestinians cancelled the performance because Leonard Cohen will perform in Israel. More and more these failed boycott efforts provide free advertising for Israel.

Cohen is doing his best to limit the damage caused to his reputation from agreeing to perform in Ramat Gan by channeling the takings to peace charities via Amnesty. So at least some good will come out of the concert even if it does give dumb Israelis the idea that it is back to business as usual after the IDF's war crimes in Gaza.

i beg to disagree with your post. i am an english resident of london, not a jew and i work on this show going to israel. mr. cohen will not be taking any monetary profit from his performance at all. you are correct. however, the money or profit won't go through amnesty international, but to various little charities, you may not have even heard of, that operate in the west bank and israel proper with involvement from both palestinians and israelis residents. amnesty's hand will never be in this business and these charities have nothing to do with amnesty international. these charities will be funneled the profits directly and not through any other organization such as amnesty. mr. cohen has already had many phone call appointments with each one of these and has never talked to amnesty personally. amnesty is not even involved. please check your information and facts before you describe a situation that is just not reliable or even true. best of luck to you. arnold bester, jr. london uk fareed atoush kalkilya palestine

and rather contradicts what yo say: ... Attempting to maneuver through the barbed wire of both Israeli and US tax laws to enable the organizations to benefit from the concert, Kory realized that an intermediary neutral vehicle would be required to facilitate the financial funneling. He approached Amnesty International for advice, and the concept of a special fund was raised. "We didn't want it to be identified as a Palestinian or Israeli charity. Some people take the position that Amnesty International is not a neutral organization, but it's a respected international charity, with vast experience and great lawyers. So we reached out to them for legal support, and from those conversations, the idea arose of launching a fund, sponsored by Amnesty, that would be a proper, neutral legal vehicle," said Kory. ...

They don't need a bitter, nasty troll at the concert. Leonard Cohen is obviously quite fond of Israel. It was great to see the photos of him entertaining the IDF troops during the war. LIfe seems to be business as usual in Israel now that the kassams stopped. Too bad the Palestinians needed a war to stop them.

Let's be honest. The vast majority of people who tend to blame Israel for the problems in the middle east (from my experience) seem to be motivated by a tribal hatred of Jews and the Jewish state (in the case of those living outside the middle east) or political opportunism (playing off Arab nationalist sentiment within the middle east. and those with a bigoted mentality with regard to Jews overall. ie. plain old fashioned anti semitism.) I suspect with a name like Cohen; these protesters have name recognition; an undeniably Jewish last name with which they can remind those who already have a bent against Israel of the pure pleasure they can derive in bashing all that which is the (other); namely the Jews and the Jewish state of Israel. If most of the people who hate Israel really wanted a solution; they could have found a practical political solution and peace with Israel a long time ago.

Jewish and Israeli artists should refuse to visit countries that are so obviously anti-semitic and stupid- stupid enough to bow to pressure from Palestinian and other anti-israeli groups. The organisers will eventually figure out who pays the bills and keeps their business going- and it ain't the Palestinian bleeding heart groups- they are stupid, uneducated-.