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Society
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Scandal as rapper posts anti-Israel map

Published: 13 Jan 13 11:24 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20130113-47297.html

German rap star Bushido caused outrage over the weekend when he posted on his Twitter profile a map of the Middle East next to the words “Free Palestine,” on which Israel was nowhere to be seen.

Bushido was presumably making a political statement when he updated his Twitter profile picture on Friday to a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories as one country, filled in with the black, white, green and red colours of the Palestinian flag.

The rapper, who has 280,000 followers on Twitter, has not explained what he meant by posting the map, which is used as propaganda by Hamas and extremist Palestinian organisations who deny Israel's right to exist.

Commentators and politicians, however, have interpreted Bushido's message for him: the map says there's no room for a Jewish state in the Middle East, it must be destroyed to make way for a free Palestine.

German politicians were quick to condemn the German-Tunisian rapper, who has made efforts to distance himself from his former bad boy image in recent years.

“This map does not serve peace, it sows hatred,” German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told Bild am Sonntag on Sunday and demanded that Bushido remove the picture immediately from his Twitter profile.

The post came as a shock - and an embarrassment - to many who had forgiven the rap star's earlier violent, homophobic, misogynistic and thinly-veiled anti-Semitic song lyrics. Bushido's image makeover worked so well that in 2011 he was even given a “Bambi” award for successful integration, which may now be rescinded.

“Bushido must remove this picture immediately from his Twitter page, or he will no longer be able to serve as an example of successful integration,” warned Minister Friedrich, who once posed for a photo with the rapper.

“We're looking into the incident and will react accordingly,” Patricia Riekel, head of the Tribute to Bambi Institute responsible for giving out the awards, told the paper.

The Local/jlb

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

12:16 January 13, 2013 by nomadams
I have no idea who this rapper is but I don't think anyone should attempt to demand his silence simply because they disagree with his opinion.
14:05 January 13, 2013 by elitebavarian
'Freedom of Speech/Expression' , oh yessssssssss.
19:23 January 13, 2013 by septiSeverus
One mans opinion is another mans Crisis!

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression.
19:46 January 13, 2013 by raandy
Outrage? Its his opinion maybe not yours ,so if it does not agree with yours than it is outrage?

Or is being pro Palestine, the real problem??
20:19 January 13, 2013 by MaKo
Err, wait, since when is an expression of anti-semetic sentiment a sign of not being integrated???

So it would seem that Bushido has been spending too much time with one kind of Grass or another.
04:46 January 14, 2013 by trevzns
In a vision, Abraham Shimshillewitz, said to Moses Shimshillewitz.....someday they too, the people of west Asia will come to know, their lands and all therein is our historical lands.

Dead sea scrolls. 4:1
08:32 January 14, 2013 by Edin
He is a rapper, it is his job to be provocative. Where is his freedom of speech Herr Minister??? These hypocrites are not aware how well they are actually promoting the man. I for one, have not known him until know.

¦quot;Bushido must remove this picture immediately from his Twitter page, or he will no longer be able to serve as an example of successful integration,¦quot; warned Minister Friedrich,

Uahahahahaha
10:17 January 14, 2013 by mobaisch
"by posting the map, which is used as propaganda by Hamas and extremist Palestinian organisations who deny Israel's right to exist. "

Hahaha, got news for you germans: Palestinians will never forget. Every single Palestinian remembers this map and acknowledges it, we may compromise due to current real life facts and for peaceful world aim, but we know they took it by force and we know the pains and suffers of our (still living) grandparents and parents.

sincerely yours, A Palestinian who will not vanish from existence
10:20 January 14, 2013 by mitanni
@Edin I agree: Bushido tries to provoke, like so many German "artists." The press and the public are perfectly capable of responding and condemning people like him.

Friedrich, on the other hand, should just have kept his mouth shut. As a member of the German government, telling people that they must remove speech that he disagrees with is completely inappropriate. Friedrich's conduct scares me a lot more than stupid self-promotion by people like Bushido.
15:20 January 15, 2013 by Al uk
A Tunisian-German called Bushido, LMAO.
19:30 January 15, 2013 by guliver
Well he can sing what ever he wants and show maps as he wish.

Israel is there,we live in Israel and we certainly are going to disappear or to give up our land as Hamas wish.if they have not understood it after 64 years they will learn in in the future.

Some countries like Eygpt and Jordan have allready understood that with wars they will get nothing.
19:45 January 15, 2013 by elitebavarian
poor Germans ... they can't utter a single word against the human genocide by Israel in Palestine, because of their grandparents did something wrong with jews.

@guliver: "if they have not understood it after 64 years they will learn in in the future." so you are planning to kill/slaughter more Palestinians, seems like a nice plan. After all you are taking revenge of your grandparents to these innocent poor people.
20:25 January 15, 2013 by sonriete
Let us not forget that Naftali Bennett, who is leading the polls for the Israeli election to be held next week completely opposes any Palestinian state. Is that also racism?
20:39 January 15, 2013 by guliver
Elitebavarian

no we plane to defend our country from our enemies as we allways did,it is not certainly murdering the Palestinians as we have allready accepted the 2 states solution,

we do not take revenge from nobody the second world war was ended in 1945 ,and if we should have sentiments they could have been directed against those who killed our families,not against the Palestinian, a wrong presentation of the political situation,but you better listen to Ahmed El Najar who promised to wipe our state from the map
21:46 January 15, 2013 by mitanni
@guliver Israel has accepted a "two-state solution"? Israel isn't going to allow Palestinians in the foreseeable future to have their own military, to import weapons or rockets, or even have an industrial capacity to manufacture weapons. That means Israel is going to have to continue to occupy and oppress Palestinians. But the resulting resentment on the part of Palestinians means that they are never going to come around and make peace with Israel.

In addition, Israel's continued settlement activity shows that Israel isn't planning on a realistic "two state solution", since it keeps building in those areas that would be part of a Palestinian state. Many Israeli politicians claim that this is no obstacle to a two-solution, but that's ludicrous; the kind of "two state solution" that involves the presence of Israeli settlements surrounded by Palestinian lands would lead to terrorism and war anywhere in the world, let alone between two peoples who are so steeped in their ancient hatreds and myths as the Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel is talking about a two-state solution, but it sabotaging it, and the Palestinians want to wipe out the Israelis. Neither side is acting in good faith and both are playing the US and Europe for fools. Instead of playing along with this charade, the West should simply stop dealing with this issue entirely and stop sending money, weapons, or diplomats.
04:19 January 16, 2013 by willowsdad
I guess the people condemning this guy have never seen a Zionist map, which shows exactly the same area, but completely belonging to Israel. This is just the other side of the coin.
10:42 January 16, 2013 by trevzns
@guliver #14 we do not take revenge from nobody the second world war was ended in 1945 ,and if we should have sentiments they could have been directed against those who killed our families,not against the Palestinian, a wrong presentation of the political situation,but you better listen to Ahmed El Najar who promised to wipe our state from the map.

Its mostly RELIGIOUS and political.

Also, over 60 million people were killed in WWII. Other families grieved, lost possessions and moved on. Dead is dead, whats your point?
11:38 January 16, 2013 by septiSeverus
@guliver #14

Revenge is for the living. The majority of people living in Germany and Austria today, had noting to do with the tragedies of world war II. For Zionists and some Jews and Israelis, revenge is a gigantic black hole.
06:40 January 27, 2013 by steve mills
He sounds like typical Middle Eastern TRASH that is taking over Germany & the rest of Europe: HATE HOMOS...HATE ISRAEL...HATE THE USA...PRAISE ALLAH...BLA BLA BLA...I just listened to his music for the first time on line (No One has ever heard of him in the US or Canada) & he sounds as bad as David Hasselhoff back in the 90's, when Germany was laughed at by the world by it's perplexing love of his music & sold out huge concerts!

Don't support Bushido...His music TOTALLY SUCKS & so does his narrow minded idiotic political & social views!!!

He's just making big money off of you for his zero talent!
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