Los Angeles Times Music Critic Hits the Wrong Note With Israel

Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed recently hailed the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, composed of young players from Israel and Arab countries, specifically because it is one of three youth “orchestras with a big mission.”

Indeed, that mission of universal humanity was tested like never before on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out the most devastating slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, with thousands of terrorists from the Gaza Strip rampaging in southern Israel, murdering, raping, kidnapping, maiming and looting, targeting men, women, children and the elderly.

“There is no justification for Hamas’ barbaric terrorist acts against civilians, including children and babies,” wrote Daniel Barenboim, co-founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, shortly after the Oct. 7 atrocities. “Our musicians of the West-Eastern Divan, our students in the Barenboim-Said Academy, they are almost all directly affected. Many of the musicians live in the region, and the others also have many ties to their homeland.”

Reeling from the Oct. 7 events, Barenboim reaffirmed that “any moral equation we might draw up, must have as its core this basic understanding: there are people on both sides. Humanity is universal and the recognition of this truth on both sides is the only way. The suffering of innocent people on either side is absolutely unbearable.” He continued, “The images of the devastating terrorist attacks by Hamas break our hearts.”

Swed, however, failed to grasp the orchestra’s big mission. While the orchestra mourned and memorialized the Oct. 7 victims, the admiring Los Angeles Times reviewer engaged in a type of Oct. 7 denial.

In his appreciative review of the Divan orchestra’s fall tour, Swed completely erased the suffering of innocent Israelis, including the victims of the Oct. 7 brutality, plus countless others killed, wounded or displaced by drone and rocket attacks in Israel emanating from Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and Iran over the last year.

Thus, Swed selectively reported, as if there is no war in Israel: “With the war in Gaza and Lebanon, this year proved the most difficult by far for the organization.”

The war in Gaza and Lebanon did not stop at Israel’s borders. To the contrary, there is war in Gaza because on Oct. 7, 2023 masses of Hamas terrorists and others crossed the Gaza border with Israel and slaughtered Israelis civilians in their homes and at a music festival. Likewise, war reached Lebanon because on Oct. 8, 2023, Hezbollah began firing rockets over its border with Israel, initiating a relentless assault on Israel’s northern communities, and later expanding its offensive to the center of the country.

Israelis have suffered more than 1800 fatalities, most of them civilians, in this war. Most were killed within Israeli borders, including in their homes and while at a dance party. Hundreds of youth enjoying music were slaughtered at the Nova music festival, a massacre that presumably warrants some kind of acknowledgement from a Los Angeles Times music critic directly addressing violence in the region within the context of music.

In this war that Israel did not start, more than 27,000 rockets and deadly drones have been fired at Israel—in the north, in the south, and in the center—from Lebanon, from Gaza, from Iraq, from Yemen and from Iran. In this war plaguing Israel’s home front, 143,00 citizens have been internally displaced, 250 people were kidnapped and 99 hostages remain in captivity, and 300,000 reservists were called up.

Though CAMERA reached out to the Los Angeles Times concerning the egregious omission of the devastating war in Israel, editors have yet to clarify that the war started in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and is still ongoing in Jewish state, with rockets and drones from Gaza and Yemen targeting Israel in recent days.

In covering up the war in Israel, Swed not only disdains the orchestra’s big mission to embrace “people on both sides.” He also tramples his own newspaper’s stated mission to “inform, engage and empower.”

Tamar Sternthal is the director of the Israel office of Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).