Was Israel Ready for Beatlemania?

"Israel, After 43 Years, Is Ready for Beatlemania," (Jerusalem Journal) A10, 8/28/08
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/world/middleeast/28beatles.html
By Ethan Bronner

In 1965, was Israel ready for Beatlemania? This article's title implies it wasn't. The rest of the article can't make up its mind.

Ethan Bronner's acid trip down memory lane begins reasonably enough. As Paul McCartney is set to play Tel Aviv next month, Israelis have taken a look back 43 years, to what could have been. The Beatles were booked for a concert in Israel. The concert was cancelled supposedly when a ministerial committee deemed the band as having a corrupting influence on Israeli youth. As its report put it, "the Beatles have an insufficient artistic level and cannot add to the spiritual and cultural life of the youth in Israel."

Wait just a minute, or however long it takes the reader to arrive at the article's 9th paragraph. Bronner writes that Yossi Sarid, a former MK, "said the real cause of the cancellation was a rivalry between impresarios at the time." An angry promoter who wanted the government to stop the concert was reluctant to admit his grudge with a fellow promoter. So he appealed to the committee's moral sensibilities, saying the Beatles were a corrupting influence.

A promoter ego war, not a moralistic government decision, is what kept the Beatles from Israel. That's the real hook, and it's an interesting one. That Israeli society was more simple and agrarian, and less frenetic and plugged in to pop culture in the mid-sixties is a compelling and seldom-known point Bronner plays up in the article. It does not, however, explain why Israel wasn't "ready" in 1965 for Beatlemania. This point was forced by Bronner.

There's nothing so offensive about this article. It should cause little concern. In fact, it highlights some interesting aspects of Israeli life four decades ago (no tv, kibbutz songfests) and contrasts it with the fast pace, modern Israeli life today. The article does not deal with the conflict or anything truly controversial. It doesn't make Israel look bad. Nevertheless, when it comes to a topic related to Israel, the New York Times still manages to mangle cause and effect.